Conductor

The Black Cat – Summary
The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe is the account of a murder by a man who will be hung the following morning for his crime.


The narrator of the story sets out to write an account of household events, events that led him to murder his wife and resulted in his conviction and imminent death by hanging. The narrator states that he is not mad and he is sure that laterpeople will view the story as a succession of ordinary cause and effect events, yet the narrator implies that there is a hint of the super-natural in the story he is about to share.

The narrator begins by giving an account of his childhood in order to convey to the listener that he had, at one time, been tenderhearted and loving. He mentions his fondness of animals and how he was so tender towardshis animals that his friends made fun of him.

He married, while young, a woman whose disposition was compatible with his. She recognized his fondness for animals and brought many pets into their home. One pet in particular stood out, it was a large black cat. The cat was remarkable not only for his size but also for its apparent intelligence which led the narrator’s wife to reflect on a popularidea that people considered black cats to be witches in disguise. After the narrator reveals this interest in the cat’s ‘nature’ he quickly covers his tracks by saying that he shares the conversations simply because it occurred to him not because he placed in weight on it. They named the cat Pluto. Pluto became very attached to the narrator and followed him everywhere.

However, the narratorbecame an alcoholic and the result was that he became moody and violent. First, he abused the lesser pets such as the rabbits and the monkey. He admits that soon he was even violent towards his wife. For a while, however, Pluto was immune to the disintegration of the narrator’s personality. Soon, however, Pluto was no longer protected by his favored status. In a fit of anger, the narrator cut thecat’s eye out of its head. At first, the narrator felt remorse; he was soon able to drown the memory in alcohol.

The cat recovered but was wary of the narrator. The cat’s wariness irritated the narrator who out of a spirit of Perverseness hung the cat. The narrator claims that Perverseness is a part of all humans and that it is “one of the primitive impulses of the human heart...who has not, ahundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not?”

On that same night, the narrator’s house and all his possessions were consumed by fire. The next day, on a piece of wall that remained standing (a piece of wall that stood at the head of the narrator’s bed), on-lookers found a gigantic cat as if graven in ‘bas relief’ upon thewhite surface of the plaster. The image had a rope around its neck.

The narrator was shaken by the vision but quickly puts together a ‘logical’ explanation for the image that was on the wall. Despite his reasoning, the narrator was haunted by the image of that cat and soon felt a need to acquire a similar cat to replace the old one. One night, while drunk, he found a suitable cat at a ‘den ofmore than infamy.’ He inquired after its owner as he intended it to purchase it. However, it belonged to no one. The cat followed him home.

The cat, like his predecessor, was missing an eye. Unlike his predecessor, the cat had a white marking on his chest that resembled the gallows. The cat became a favorite of the narrator’s wife but almost immediately, the narrator took an intense dislike tothe animal. However, the more he detested the cat, the more closely the cat attached itself to him, and, in turn, the more he detested it. The narrator confessed that he got to the point that he wanted to kill the cat but the remembrance of Pluto and his crime staid his hand, as he feared the creature.

The narrator’s account breaks into superstitious ramblings and fear. He claims that it...