The Black Cat

How It All Goes Down
From his prison cell, the unnamed narrator is writing the story of how everything in his life fell apart. Since he will die the next day, he wants to set the record straight,and tells us the story of his life…

From the day he is born, he is mild and kind. He loves animals and has lots of them. As he gets older up these qualities grow stronger. Taking care of his pets andhanging out with them is his favorite thing to do. His favorite animal companion is his dog.

Before long, he gets married. His wife loves animals too, and fills the house with a variety of them.One of these is a humongous, all black, super-smart cat named Pluto. When the man starts drinking, his personality takes a turn for the worse. He starts physically and verbally abusing his wife andpets. One night, the narrator comes home from partying completely drunk. Thinking Pluto didn't want to hang out with him, he grabs the cat and cuts his eye out with a pen-knife.

One morning, not longafter the eye-gouging, the narrator is overcome with a perverse impulse. He hangs Pluto from a tree in his garden, murdering him. Writing from his jail cell, the narrator claims he did it preciselybecause he knew it was wrong. That night, the night of the murder, the man's house catches fire and burns down. Only the man, his wife, and one servant are left alive. But, they lose all their money inthe flames, along with the house. When the narrator returns the next day, there is a crowd in his bedroom, looking at his bedroom wall. On the wall is the slightly raised image of a "gigantic cat"with a rope around its neck (11).

Since he left the cat hanging all day and all night, he figures one of the neighbors cut it down and then threw it through his window to wake him up. Somehow it stuckin the plaster of the wall. This bothers the man for a long time.

One night when he's out drinking, another black cat appears on the scene. This cat looks just like Pluto, except for the little...