The narrator understands how appalling his tendencies are, yet he does nothing to stop, showing the dangerous cycles of alcoholism and abuse. He feels he cannot do anything to stop himself and blames his actions on an outside source. He is ashamed and regretful, yet states that he is powerless to himself. This passage gives insight to the readers on how the narrator feels about himself and his actions. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind while, from the sudden frequent, and ungovernable outburst of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates – the darkest and most evil of thoughts. Despite the deterioration of the narrator’s stability and humanness, he has a moment of clarity and self-awareness:īeneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. From loving animals to abusing all but one, to killing that animal, to finally murdering his wife, he is losing all sanity and decency. The narrator shifts from a loving human to an abusive monster. The cycle of abuse is the narrator’s fault, however, his justifications and blame placing allow him to keep going, yet in the end, he is unable to escape his own guilt. Throughout the story, the narrator is aware of his horrific actions, but he continues to commit the atrocities. To his surprise, the cat was also buried with her. While his wife is defending the cat, he murders her and buries her in a wall. He finds another cat who he treats well until Pluto starts haunting him through this cat. That night, his house burns down and Pluto’s image haunts him. Horrified with his action, he hangs Pluto to prove that he is really a terrible person. One night in a fit of rage, he gauges out Pluto’s eyeball. The narrator starts off loving animals and his wife, but unfortunately turns to alcohol and starts abusing his wife and animals, sparing only a black cat: Pluto. Edgar Allan Poe’s story, “The Black Cat,” is a tale of violence and an internal battle with alcoholism.

The black cat poe