The Black Cat

By: Didimus Estanto T.

The Black Cat

The story by Edgar Allan Poe

·       Summary

The story begins with the confess of the unnamed narrator in his hand writing from the jail. He tried to tell about his life, something horrible that he had done. He made a confess because of his death tomorrow.

            He loves animals and has lots of them. He is a good and kind man. As he gets older up these habit grow stronger. Taking care of his pets and hanging out with them is his favorite thing to do. His favorite animal companion is his dog.

           In the time, he gets married. His wife loves animals too, and fills the house with a variety of them. One of these special pets is 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 and pets. 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 day morning, the narrator is overcome with a perverse impulse. He hangs Pluto from a tree in his garden, murdering him. The confess from his jail cell, the narrator claims he did it unconsciously because he knew it was wrong. When 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 in the 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. In somehow that thing stuck in the man’s mind.

        One night when he is out drinking, another black cat appears on the scene. This cat looks just like Pluto, except for the little white spot on his chest. The man takes the cat home, and his wife is quite pleased. When it is discovered that this cat is also missing an eye, the man begins to despise it, while the woman loves it all the more. After some time passes, the woman shows the man that the white spot on the cat's fur has grown. Strangely, the white spot now forms an image of the gallows.

        The man is too afraid of the cat to abuse it. The cat never leaves him alone for a moment, and even sits on his chest and breathes in his face when he is in bed. So, the man doesn't get any sleep. As his loathing of the cat increases, so does his physical and verbal abuse of his wife. One day he and his wife go down to the cellar their old house. The cat follows them. In somehow, the man tries to kill the cat with an axe. The woman stops him, and the man put  the axe in her brain and  killing her .

        The narrator wonders how best to conceal the body. After all, the man decides to hide the body in a space behind the cellar wall. That night, the man sleeps peacefully for the first time in ages. The cat is nowhere to be seen. The cops come around, but the man has hide them. That doesn’t matter. On the fourth day, the police return and search the house again, especially the cellar. Right when they are about to leave, abandoning their search of the cellar, the narrator decides to start telling the truth about everything that he has already done. He shows the cellar walls which he hidden the cat and his wife’s body.They take down the wall only to find the dead body, with the cat on top of its head. And that's why the narrator is in jail, punished to death by hanging. The narrator had accidentally shut the cat up in the wall with the body.

·         Characters

The Narrator

The narrator has major issues. This unnamed character is an abusive bully and a murderer. He made home a living hell for his wife, pets, and himself. He's writing to us from his prison cell, on the...

The Narrator's Wife

The brief outline the narrator provides us of his wife suggests that she is kind, loving pets, good wife, giving, loyal, and even heroic at the end.

Pluto

Pluto is fine specimen of a cat. All black, large, fuzzy, wise, intelligent, and perceptive.

The Second Cat

The second black cat looks almost exactly like Pluto. He's big, black, and missing an eye. The only difference is the white spot.

The Policemen

Like the policeman in the end of story  these policeman are generic characters, without defining characteristics, other than the fact that they are policeman. They are doing their job as usual that is solve the case.

·         Settings

Setting of time  in this story:  tomorrow (the day of his death), time of marriage (when he and his wife life happily and loving pets),the night (the time when he drunk and cut one of Pluto’s eye),  the flame night (when the man hang Pluto and his house get flamed),  the fourth day of assassination (the day that the police found the death body of the man’s wife and the second cat).

Setting of place in this story: jail (the place that the narrator write the story about him), house (the place that he usually play with his pets), garden (the place that the man hang Pluto),bedroom (the crowd of gigantic cat drawn), the cellars of their old house (the place that the man kill his wife and the second cat).