The Black Cat http:// poestories.com/read/blackcat - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

The Black Cat

http://poestories.com/read/blackcat - full text and definitionshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKN_I6ouswg – short movie 17 minutesAs Christianity became more entrenched, 15th century witch hunts centered around older women who were more likely to live alone and keep cats for companionship. The women became a prime target for blame if some kind of a disaster struck a village, especially if they had a cat that was black, the colour of magic and mystery. Stories abound of late night shapeshifting in which felines were injured while doing battle with superstitious humans. In daylight women who had been associated with the cats were found with like injuries.The image of a witch being burned at the stake with her feline companion is etched into history, even into 17th century America. Slide2

Overarching question -

what is evil and where does it comes from?Two distinct approaches:Slide3

O

ne Focuses on the idea of evil as a huge, supernatural, overwhelming force that controls all the badness from some seat of power. This version of evil is never all that scary because it's almost always part of the same kind of narrative. A small and wildly overmatched hero takes on the seemingly undefeatable monster and despite all odds triumphs.

Two

Poe is interested in is a more modern version—local,

small in scale, even

ordinary.

Archetypes

 for this idea of evil come from real life more than from fiction—mass murderers, serial killers, the totalitarian bureaucracy of Orwell's 

1984

, the Nazis. This kind of evil is

scarier,

specifically because it's not supernatural or otherworldly, but is instead so ordinary that it is actually 

banal

, which makes it all the more likely that all humans have a shred of this kind of evil inside them

.

Poe’s narrator is just a regular

man

who commits acts of savagery and violence for really no reason at all. Maybe it's the alcohol, but plenty of people drink without murdering those around them in gruesome ways.

More likely is that the narrator is just acting on an impulse that we have all had and been able to suppress.

But, the story asks, will we always be so lucky?Slide4

Genre

Horror or Gothic Fiction, Southern Gothic, Psychological Thriller and Suspense.Horror or Gothic fiction can also be "sensation" fiction, a popular genre in Poe's day. Sensation stories were designed to work on the readers' senses. The characters experience scandalous feelings and desires, commit dire acts, and find themselves in extreme situations. Violence, imprisonment, death, and live burial are meant to shock readers.In "The Black Cat," most of the drama occurs in the home, and revolves around the narrator's relationship with his wife and pets. Like so many narratives of terror and depravity, this one combines the family drama with the horror or Gothic. This taps into some of our deepest fears – fears of what can go wrong at home. Home is where we are 

supposed

 to be most comfortable and safe, and is also where we are most vulnerable.

T

his

a psychological thriller. It tries to get into 

readers’

 heads, but also plunges us inside the twisted mind of an abusive killer detailing the stages of his breakdown. We keep reading because we want to see what happens next, and because we want to find out 

why

 or 

how

he became

so twisted. The suspense of "The Black Cat" extends beyond the end of the story, since the ending doesn't give

many

answers. The possibility that supernatural forces are at work adds another layer of suspense, and, perhaps, another layer of terror.

The Southern Gothic is a sub genre of the Gothic. It usually features a southern setting, and deals with issues of slavery, or the American South after slavery. Poe was writing before the Civil War. The institution of slavery was still legal in the US, and was a part of southern life. Slide5

Title

The title prepares to the reader to be on the lookout for the black cat – it suggests that the cat is important to the story. The first would focus would be on the nameless narrator's nameless wife, the second on the idea of "home," and the third on the issue of the narrator's drinking. All these are important aspects of the story (though by no means the only aspects), and all are connected to the cat (or cats). But, whatever the title of this short story happened to be, the black cat(s) would still take centre stage of this tale.The title only references one black cat. Does this mean there is only one cat in the story? Is the second cat

Pluto

the undead

? Or, is it possible that Pluto didn't really die?

In that last scenario Pluto somehow survives the hanging and escapes the plaster cast/wall art (in which we last saw him). Then, either on purpose or by coincidence, the cat meets the man at the place where he's

drinking

Conversely, readers can accept the

two-cat theory. Just remove the possibility of the supernatural, and assume that Pluto and the second cat are both real, flesh and blood creatures, horribly abused. This reading might even be scarier than a supernatural one.Slide6

Summary

It was first printed on August 19, 1843, in the Philadelphia edition of a newspaper called the United States Saturday Post. This lurid tale reads like something right out of the headlines – bizarre headlines to be sure. Gruesome news items were just as popular in Poe's time as they are in ours.Stripped to bare bones, it's a story about domestic violence and brutal murder. It's the death-row confession of nameless man who destroys himself, his wife, and his pets. As is often the case with real life murderers, we can't pinpoint exactly why he went out of control. This mystery is part of what has kept "The Black Cat" in circulation for over a 160 years.Because Edgar Allan Poe is such a fascinating person, and has a popular reputation as

being creepy,

some readers are tempted to imagine that Poe and his narrators are one in the same. As far as we know,

Poe was no murderer. He seemed to have loving relationship with his wife, and is reported to have been a cat

lover.

So, if

Poe wasn't a creep,

how

did he get that reputation? Well, he was involved professionally with a man named 

Rufus Wilmot Griswold

.

The

two men had a complicated and not

altogether

friendly relationship. When Poe died at age 40 in 1849, Griswold became Poe's self-declared biographer. This is where the trouble began.

Griswold distorted and sensationalized Poe's life and had a large part in creating a fictionalized Poe.Slide7

Writing Style

There are lots of elements of style. Punctuation, sentence structure, word choice, length (of sentences, paragraphs, the story itself) are just a few. As Humbert Humbert, the narrator of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita famously says, "You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style“ Nabokov was extremely influenced by Poe, and shared Poe's love of linguistic games and experimentation, and of the unreliable narrator. Humbert's description of his writing style could apply to our narrator's. Although Poe is the author he narrator of "The Black Cat" is writing the story.The narrator is candid enough about some hideous crimes, but

there is still

the feeling he's being 

cryptic

 (talking in code), hiding things

as

he manipulates

readers

with his

elaborate words

and sentence structure.

Thus, the

story has layers of possible hidden meanings.

Although

I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy

. (13)

He's referring to the figure of a giant cat, which has somehow appeared on his bedroom wall after the house burned down (11, 12). But what does he mean? Slide8

Writing Style continued

"Readily accounted to my reason" is an extravagant way of saying that he believes he came up with a reasonable explanation for the cat image, (though it might not sound reasonable to many readers). His theory that the neighbours threw the cat through the window sounds preposterous, and we might wonder about his chemical theory as well.While the narrator feels good about his reasoning, his "conscience" is bothering him, and his "fancy" (used her as something similar to "imagination") is stimulated by the bizarre image of the cat. In other words, not without good reason, the narrator is a little bit worried about his awful deed, and his imagination won't let him rest.Now all of that is important, but this decorative talk might also be a bit of a red herring, meant to distract readers. If we worry too much about how the cat image was formed, or whether or not the narrator saw what he claims to have seen, we might miss a more important point – that the narrator hanged the cat in the tree in the morning, left the body there all day, and even left it there when he went to bed. If this were your neighbour

, what would you think? Does the narrator being wealthy have any thing to do with it?Slide9

Tone

Is it pleading? hopeful? cynical? playful, urgent, ashamed, anguished, dramatic, mocking…"Tone" is the way the story sounds, in your mind when you read silently, to your ear when you read aloud. We think that most of the sentences in "The Black Cat" have multiple tones, often seemingly in conflict with each other. We'll take a look at one short passage that we think has all six of the tones we've listed, but you can find these tones (and more) throughout the story.The urgency is established in paragraph 1, when the narrator explains that he's writing this the day before he's going to die. Of course, that's not enough. He has to make readers

feel

 the urgency. This is where the other adjectives come in. Let's look at an example where some key verbs come in:

I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity

. (7)

This sentence comes right after the narrator's description of the cutting out of Pluto's eye. The fast, urgent rhythm is created by the repletion of the word "I" and the three short clauses (units of meaning in a sentence, usually separated by punctuation marks) followed by the final long clause.

The words "blush" and "burn," describe physical signs and sensations associated with shame – hence our adjective 

ashamed

 to describe the tone. "Shudder" suggests that he feels a certain amount of anguish over what he's done. He has reason to be dramatic. All these words are also 

flamboyant

 words – they aren't subtle. You can't easily ignore them. They draw our attention.Slide10

Tone continued

The final clause is where it all comes together, and why we think the tone is mocking. An "atrocity" is a shockingly cruel act. Add "damnable" to it, and we have not only a shockingly cruel act, but also one the narrator should be punished for in some extreme, or ultimate way. The word "pen" is what makes this tricky, and mocking.To "pen" something is to "write" something. The narrator isn't exactly saying that what he did to Pluto is a "damnable atrocity." From a grammatical point of view, he's saying that his writing, and the story itself is an "atrocity," not necessarily what he did to Pluto. If we step outside the world of the story and think of Poe writing the story, the line can be said to express a certain anxiety about his work as writer, and the writing process.

There might be a bit of self-mockery on the part of Poe, but in terms of the narrator of "The Black Cat" the line seems to mock the reader. Think back to what the narrator uses to cut Pluto's eye out. A "pen-knife," a knife used to sharpen a quill pens

Now, the line we quoted becomes a complex and mocking pun. When we see how the narrator has linked violence and writing together we realize he seems more about showing readers how clever he is and trying to trick is than he is about actually expressing shame over what he did to Pluto, and his other crimes. He's seems to be mocking us by pretending to be ashamed and anguished. On the other hand should be careful of assuming that all of his shame and anguish are mocking or false. Part of the story's power lies in the possibility of some glimmer of sincerity from this disturbed man.Slide11

Quotes

I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others.

These are the beginning stages of the man's hideous

psychological transformation

. He connects it to alcohol (though perhaps there is more going on). When alcohol and/or drugs play a central role in a story, transformation is probably featured as well. The nature of the transformation depends on the story. Here the transformation is altogether negative.

I knew myself no longer

.

Most people experience this feeling at some point or another, especially when in the midst of changing. Here the narrator is stressing the degree of

transformation

,

I took from my waistcoat pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! 

This is a transformative moment for both Pluto and the narrator. The narrator crosses a previously uncrossed line of violence. His act is irrevocable. Pluto's physical transformation will be a constant reminder of crossing the line.

The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair. 

While the man focuses on the transformation of his material circumstances, readers might focus on the transformation of the pets that were left to burn up in the fire. The transformation from alive to dead is often a prominent fixture of horror stories.Slide12

Quotes continued…

The reader will remember that this mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow degrees -- degrees nearly imperceptible[…] it had, at length, resumed a rigorous distinctness of outline.

The mark, as you know, is an image of the gallows, both recalling the murder of Pluto, and foreshadowing the man's death sentence. It's interesting because it suggests a gradual transformation, and introduces the possibility of the supernatural.

Connected to the

eye situation,

Poe wants

the reader to believe he was convinced that the cat has supernatural qualities. What do you think?Slide13

Plot Analysis

Fundamental list of ingredients in good stories: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes alter the recipe and add their own some spice.Initial Situation - Death RowThe first thing we learn is that the nameless narrator is going to die the next day, and that he wants to write his story, which will be ugly. This story, the narrator says, is going to be about some things that happened to him at home. The "consequences" of what happened "have terrified – have tortured – have destroyed" him (1). We don't yet know why he's going to die the following day, or where exactly he is.Conflict - A Drinking ProblemThe narrator tells us that as a child the he was a kind, sensitive animal lover. We also learn that he and his wife had had "birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and 

a cat

" (3). The cat, of course, is Pluto. The conflict begins to unfold when the man describes the way his personality changed for the worse when he started drinking heavily, several years after Pluto became his pet. The conflict is within the narrator's home, between himself and his wife and pets, who he begins to abuse, physically and verbally, except for Pluto.

Complication -

Pluto

is Murdered

When the narrator turns on Pluto, he

becomes inhumane.

First he cuts the cat's eye out, and then he hangs him from the tree in his garden – leaving the body there when he goes to sleep.

A horror story begins to unfold.

Climax -

Fire

Somehow, when the narrator goes to sleep that night (after murdering Pluto in the morning) his house catches on fire. Someone (it's never revealed who) wakes him from his sleep with a warning, just in time. The narrator, his wife, and "a servant" escape the flames. All the family's financial security goes up in smoke. Presumably, the birds, gold-fish, […] fine dog, rabbits, [and] small monkey perish in the flames, though the narrator never mentions them again (3). The climax propels this desperate family into poverty and into changing residences.Slide14

Plot Analysis continued

Suspense - The Cat Comes Back or a New CatThe second cat is either a modified version of Pluto, or a completely different cat. In any case, the arrival of the second cat marks the halfway point in this story. It is suspenseful precisely because we aren't sure what the second cat is. If the narrator can be believed, the cat is not only missing an eye, like Pluto, but also grows an image of a gallows on his chest The cat also seriously gets on the narrator's nerves. We might see the cat as affectionate, and desperate for affection, but the narrator sees him as executing some awful plot against him. In the stage we see the narrator getting worse and worse. And we learn that the narrator is writing from a "felon's cell" (20). Waiting to see what lands him in jail adds another layer of suspense to the story.Denouement - The Perfect CrimeDuring that fateful trip to the cellar of the family's new residence (an "old building") the narrator tries to kill the cat with his axe. When his wife intervenes, the axe is turned on her. The narrator thinks he's successfully hidden the body and bluffed the cops. He isn't upset about killing his wife, and is happy he has managed to make the cat run away

.

Conclusion -

The

Cat Come Back, Part 2

In the conclusion, the cat reappears, and the murder is discovered. The man seems convinced that the cat exposed him on purpose. The description of the cat's "voice" coming from inside the wall suggests that if the cat did intentionally allow himself to be walled up, in order to expose the man, he paid an awful price for it. Slide15

Narrator

In many Poe stories, we aren't completely sure whether the narrator is asleep, awake, or somewhere in between. "The Black Cat" continues this method of a somewhat unreliable narrator caught in a realm of the surreal. The narrator admits to nodding off frequently, and to sleep deprivation. His dream life and his waking life combine to form an almost seamless nightmare-scape.As with all his other problems, the narrator blames this situation on the cat. In his previous cat-lover days, he might have considered the cat's snuggling a sign of affection, but the cat has become an easy victim for his rage. He sees it as a sign of menace, and of his guilt. It is only once the cat (and the wife) are out of the way, the man sleeps easily.Slide16

Setting

There are several different settings, but none of them are given much physical description. The narrator is writing his last words. Thus, he vagueness of the homes in the story allows them to be any homes, anywhere.

The story is written from the narrator's jail cell,

highlighting the theme of "Freedom and Confinement." The narrator writes from a space of confinement, and detailing the events that led him to prison is one of the few freedoms he has left. This tension between freedom and confinement is repeated throughout the story, and is particularly intense when we look at some other aspects of the setting.

After the narrator's house burns down, we learn that he and his wife were wealthy people, before they lost everything in the fire. In the 1840s, when this story was written, people didn't rely on banks as much as they do now, and insurance was far less common. It's believable that the man had most of his wealth stored in the house. Of course, we don't know the source of the wealth, or what, if anything, the man does for a living. We do know he must have had enough to set the family up in a

new place of residence, though the narrator's brief description lets readers know that the new house is "old" and not what he and his wife are used to.

Both houses seem like prison cells for everyone involved, especially the man's wife and pets. He seems free to come and go as he pleases, and do to them what he pleases.

In both houses, the most amount of description is given to 

the walls

.

In the first house the bedroom wall becomes important when the man sees that it's the only wall that wasn't burned up. More importantly, it holds a raised image of a "gigantic cat" on it (11). This moment foreshadows the second cat's live-burial in the second house, and also introduces the motif of walls into the story.

The repetition of building and destroying of literal walls helps us see the mental or psychological walls the narrator is building and destroying. He builds literal and psychological walls between himself and his wife and pets. By his crimes he destroys the walls that allow him to be a free citizen.

The walls of homes give people privacy from the outside world. If we are arrested and placed in jail, the walls of privacy, and the freedoms of home, come tumbling down.Slide17

Setting

The cellar is another important aspect of setting. Notice how the setting in "The Black Cat" moves from less confining spaces to more confining spaces, reflecting the increased 

psychological

 confinement the narrator describes, and taping into our deepest fears concerning home and home life.

For example, we know that the first house the family lives in is the house of a wealthy family. It is spacious with servants, life seems to be more free and comfortable than in the cramped, decrepit quarters of the second house. Of course, because of the way the man treats his wife and pets, they are trapped, and cannot even enjoy their plush surroundings. For Pluto, the fresh garden in which he is meant to frolic is turned into a death chamber. Likewise, "for [the] birds, gold-fish, [..] fine dog, rabbits, [and] small monkey" the house becomes a death trap when it goes up in flames.

If those horrendous events occur in the first house, then when they move into a the second, smaller home the horror can only gain momentum.

Things become increasingly confining for all involved and it culminates in the cellar. The cellar is

under

 the rest of the house. If the setting reflects the consciousness of the man (and other characters) the cellar echoes his 

sub

conscious. (

Sub

 means 

under

.) The unconscious is supposed to be that seething pool of desires and fears that lurk beneath the surface of our conscious thoughts. While in the cellar, all the man's deepest fears and desire culminate in the murder of his wife.

Also note that the homemade tomb 

inside

 the cellar is (arguably) the 

most

 confining space in the story. It's also confining for the narrator because he now has murder on his soul. Interestingly, the opening up of that confined space leads to the narrator's

confinement in the prison cell. Slide18

Characters -

word documentSlide19

Ending

The story ends when the police find the dead body of the man's wife, with the cat on her

head. It's

outrageous, and even

funny, but there could be an element of truth. There

is always some bizarre tragedy in the news. In Poe's day, too, sensational stories were all the rage. Such stories, like this one, can cause a broad range of emotions.

Like the news items we hear and read, "The Black Cat" doesn't end neatly, with all the questions answered. For example, we know the narrator is writing his confession the day before he's scheduled to be executed for the murder of his wife. But, we don't know if the sentence is carried out, or if the confession the man writes in his "felon's cell" does "

unburthen

[his] soul" (20).

In the final lines of the story, the narrator describes the cat as "the hideous beast whose craft seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice has consigned me to the hangman" (32).

The man confesses to some awful things, and even thinks some of them are wrong and bad, but ultimately, he blames the cat for everything.

We might expect a man confessing to express remorse and ask for forgiveness from a higher power. In this case the man is simply telling his story as he sees it. He does express remorse for his treatment of his wife and the cat, but here at the end, as we said, he blames the cat. He is "

unbearthening

" his soul by 

admitting

 that he blames the cat. He feels "almost ashamed" to admit his beliefs about the cat, and just how afraid he was of the animal (20). (It's important to note that he never feels completely ashamed of anything

.)

The narrator seems to see the cat as having some master plan, which involves tricking him into murdering his wife, and then allowing himself to be walled up, so that he could blow the whistle on the narrator. This scenario does have a couple of potential flaws though. First of all, why would the cat want the man to kill his wife? Second, if the cat allowed himself to be walled up with the corpse, 

on purpose

, why didn't he meow (or let his presence somehow be known) before the man banged on the wall?Slide20

Ending continued

Here's

one possible answer to the first question: if the cat wanted the narrator to pay for murdering him, he would have to get the man to kill a person. Only if the narrator was caught murdering a person would the law intervene. Still, there isn't much in the narrator's account of the cellar scene to suggest that the cat intended for the man to kill his wife.

In answer to the second question, the cat probably passed out from lack of air and didn't even realize the chance had come until the man's knock brought him back to consciousness.

You might also be wondering how the cat, if he isn't a supernatural creature, survived for four days in the wall. Well, assuming he was somehow getting air, the last paragraph suggests that the cat was probably eating the dead body to

survive.

The

narrator tells us that when discovered, the woman's body was "clotted with gore" and describes the cat as having a "red extended mouth" (32). We were told that the narrator "buried the axe in her brain." As such, her brains and blood probably got on her body, and "clotted" or dried there. But, this is one of Poe's gorier stories, so we have to take things to their goriest conclusions. The clue is the cat's "red extended mouth." The cat's mouth isn't described as red anywhere else in the story. Here it is quite probably meant to remind us of blood.

Another issue to consider is what happens to the cat after the man is arrested. The memory of the cat certainly haunts the narrator. Otherwise, he wouldn't be writing about his experience with the creature. But, there is no mention of the cat's future after the story. Either the narrator doesn't have access to this information, or doesn't think it's important to the story.

Some readers think the ending shows justice at work, because the man is stopped from doing more damage, and is held accountable for his crimes. Others don't see any justice in the ending, because the man doesn't learn to value the lives of others, and continues to "blame the victim" for his crimes. What do you think?Slide21

Themes -

Marriage

–

I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own

. 

I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence.

Violence –

I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others.

My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them.

One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree

Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp, and buried the axe in her brain. 

Home

–

My

immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events

.

The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. 

One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit.

Alcohol[…] through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance [I] had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. 

One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence.My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame.Slide22

Themes continued-

Freedom and Confinement –

It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration

. 

Justice and Judgement –

When reason returned with the morning – when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch – I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been

guilty

.

It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself – to offer violence to its own nature – to do wrong for the wrong's sake

only.

[…] it was now, I say, the image of a hideous -- of a ghastly thing -- of the GALLOWS! -- oh, mournful and terrible engine of horror and of crime -- of agony and death

!

But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife. 

Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. 

Transformation –

I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. 

I knew myself no longer

.

I took from my waistcoat pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! 

The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair

.

The reader will remember that this mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow degrees -- degrees nearly imperceptible[…] it had, at length, resumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. 

Slide23

Symbol, Imagery & Allegory

The Black Cat is a brutal story, where the home becomes a site of torture, terror, and murder. The man admits to abusing his wife and animals, but only goes into detail a few times. The first time involves a pen-knife.A pen-knife is supposed to be used for sharpening the narrator's quill pen. Still, it is a knife and always has the potential to be used as a weapon. When the narrator uses the knife to "deliberately cut one of [Pluto's] eyes from the socket" the knife's potential is fulfilled.When we understand the knife is meant to sharpen pens, the imagery becomes confused. The mind wants to see a pen where it sees an eye. Symbolically, the man is sharpening the cat's eye with his knife. Pluto learns to see that his beloved master is cruel and violent to the extreme. He also will experience a literal change of vision – from this moment on, he'll see the world through only one eye. Not coincidentally, the reader's eyes are sharpened at this moment as well. Crimes of violence we have hopefully never heard of before are revealed.

D

amage

to a character's eye signals us to a changing 

vision

 in the story.

By shaking us up with violence, damaged-eye symbolism might also put us in a space to experience changed vision ourselves. Most notably it might make issues of animal cruelty and spousal abuse more 

visible

 to us.

But it gets even deeper. As the narrator reminds us in the line following the one quoted above, he is penning or writing his confession. By making the man the writer of his 

own

 story, Poe creates a twisted double of himself, the real writer of the story. Working with the pen-knife, the story becomes an allegory about writing.Slide24

Symbol, Imagery & Allegory cont.

The man's choice of weapons in the murder of Pluto is very strange. The image of a cat hanging from a tree in the garden all day, and even at night when the man goes to sleep is profoundly disturbing. When the narrator notices that the second cat has an image "of THE GALLOWS!" on it's fur, we may feel bewildered. A gallows is a structure used to hang people.The second cat wears a symbol of Pluto's murder on its body. It becomes a symbol of the man's guilt and depravity, a visual reminder of his crime, and of his changing personality. It also foreshadows the man's own death by hanging. (Though as readers we are not sure if this sentence was carried out.)Now, Poe is often considered a southern writer. He spent much of his life in the South. In his day, before abolition of US slavery, it wasn't necessarily uncommon to see a black person hanging from a tree. It seems doubtful that Poe didn't

 have this in mind when he wrote the story. Slide25

The axe and the cellar offer some vivid imagery.

We might even experience a slight clouding of vision as the narrator, his wife, and the cat descend into the darkest depths of the "old" building (23). The imagery is vague and murky, until the axe appears.Like the knife, the axe has the potential to be used for violence. Here the axe is a symbol of the man's breakdown, and of the violent breakdown of his family. When he says he "buried the axe in [his wife's] brain" his insanity is complete. IN correlation he becomes surprising blunt.

Yet

, this is one of the story's strongest images and we can understand it instantly.

Since the narrator

keeps readers

in the cellar for the most of the rest of the

narrative,

we get walled up, or trapped, in the story. This speaks to our theme of "Freedom and Confinement." It also speaks to the narrator's trapped state of mind. Although he is free for a time to hurt others, the story shows him increasingly imprisoned. Everything comes together in the cellar – which is just one step away from the jail cell.

Symbol, Imagery & Allegory cont.