A Psychological Tale

A detailed Summary of A Psychological Tale

In Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Black Cat" the narrator experiences a mental and moral breakdown. This breakdown and its consequences are revealed through the story's two parallel structures. The first structure, divided into three sections, reflects the narrator's mental and moral collapse. Likewise, the second structure, also divided into three sections, reflects the consequences of that collapse. Each structure relates the three common elements to both his breakdown and to the consequences of his mental and moral collapse. The three common elements related to each structure are: a cat, an atrocity, and an expose.

The first structure reflects the narrator's mental and moral collapse and one of the three common elements, a cat, help relate to the narrator's breakdown. The cat, named Pluto, was "a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree." The cat's name, Pluto, links the cat to the Roman god of the underworld, something not earthly. The color of the cat along with its "sagacious" nature associates the cat with a superstition. The narrator's wife refers to the superstition that "all black cats as witches in disguise." The color of the cat associates Pluto wi

Following the cat to the narrator's breakdown is the atrocity. One factor involved in the narrator's mental and moral decline is his sensitive nature, which caused his classmates to ridicule him. "My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions." In other words, his classmates laughed, made fun of, and even ridiculed him. This has caused the narrator to decline both mentally and morally. Another factor is the narrator begins to prefer animals as friends then to people as friends. During his younger years, the narrator was "indulged" with a great variety of pets. With these he spent most of his time and was never so happy. The result of the narrator being actually loved by a pet caused him to turn towards its friendship rather than a human being. Turning to the pets leads the narrator to the next factor, and absence of human relationships in his life. The narrator was constantly being made fun of as a child, and because of this, he has no human relationship in his life. Consequently, since the narrator was not being involved, it caused a mental and moral decrease. Finally, the fourth and final factor, alcoholism, causes the narrator to do things to his best friend. Because of his drinking problem, the narrator grew "more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others." He mutalizes the cat by cutting out the cat's eyes and feels "half of horror" and "half of remorse". The narrator goes on the say his "soul remained untouched", but he is not sorry enough to change his ways to stop drinking. The guilt actually produces the opposite effect-he drinks more. Furthermore, the narrator goes on to hang the cat, and blames the "spirit of Perverseness", a spirit stimulated by his drinking, and the drinking (alcoholism) reflects back to one of t

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Approximate Word count = 1225
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English