"The Black Cat" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe where a man recounts in the first person, a series of events that landed him in a jail cell. The story follows the narrator as he becomes increasingly violent at the expense of his many pets, especially his favorite cat Pluto, and his wife. Throughout the story, the narrator is keenly aware that his actions are crimes and immoral, yet he continuously describes the circumstances that he insists justify his actions. With this short story, Poe uses the narrator's violent actions to reveal how abuse, especially justification of said abuse, is inseparable from human nature.
Poe uses the narrator's contradictions to show his deep hypocrisy. The narrator seems aware he has lost his sense of rationality, proclaiming to the reader, "my very sense reject their own evidence," yet immediately follows with, "mad am I not" (Poe 3). As he begins, he introduces his life with his love of pets, giving special attention to a black cat named Pluto, stating, "I alone fed him, and he attended me where I went about the house," clearly showing a deep affection for the cat (Poe 4). Yet, as he delves into alcoholism his behavior grows more violent, even maiming Pluto by, "grasp[ing] the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately [cutting] one of its eyes from the socket" (Poe 5). Even then, he continues to insist he loves Pluto, feeling, "a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse" (Poe 5). If he truly felt remorseful towards his abusive treatment of Pluto, he would do his best to reconcile and allow Pluto to heal. But he doesn't, instead continuing to mistreat Pluto and hangs him from a tree, all the while crying and having, "the bitterest remorse at my heart" (Poe 6). The narrator's actions contrasted by his feelings reveal the highest form of hypocrisy; abusing those he claims to love while exclaiming his guilt in the act.
Poe uses the narrator's deflection of responsibility to show his true desires. He blames alcohol for his violent behavior, but if alcohol is what caused his violent behavior, it would be his responsibility to remain sober. However, the narrator does the exact opposite. After violently cutting Pluto's eye out, he immediately returns to drinking to "drown in wine all memory of the deed" (Poe 5). Alcohol may fuel his violent tendencies, but he chooses to drink in excess, thereby choosing to continue his violent actions. He feels no sympathy to those he harmed, only feeling remorse when he feels the consequences of his crimes himself, describing, "these events have terrified—have tortured—have destroyed me" (Poe 3). All violence is by the narrator's own hand, yet he wants himself to be the victim. As Hester and Segir put it, "after inflicting such harm, the narrator shows concern with guilt or innocence only, rather than the consequences of pain and death that he caused his victims" (185). At no point does he admit his crimes are his own, instead blaming his alcoholism. Were he to take accountability, he would stop his violent acts and recognize the harm he caused his pets and wife. Instead, he only feels remorse for himself and puts no effort into any modicum of improvement, wanting himself to be the sole victim of his own actions.
Poe uses the narrator's obsessive attention to detail to reveal his human desire for control. After murdering his wife in a fit of rage, he sets to concealing her body in a scarily calculated manner. He considers different methods of concealment, including dismemberment combined with fire, burying the corpse in the floor, and packaging it in a box as merchandise, but opts to wall it up in the cellar. As he walls up the corpse, he insists his technique is immaculate, even professing, "the rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care" (Poe 12). Extremely proud of his work, when he is investigated by the police he even brags, showing off the wall where he hid the body and taunting, "these walls are solidly put together" (Poe 14). Even though, "his only concern is with getting caught," he is overridden by his arrogance from his meticulousness (Hester and Segir 9). His perceived control of the situation overrides his desire for avoiding consequences, fueling his hubris, and ultimately leading to his downfall.
In conclusion, Poe, through hypocrisy, deflection of responsibility, and desire for control, uses the narrator's violent actions to reveal how abuse is inseparable from human nature. Many view such abhorrent acts as inhuman, but Poe describes his criminal with strikingly human qualities. The horror of "The Black Cat" is not in the gore of the narrator's crimes, but in the narrator's insistence that anyone would do the same in his situation. Poe exposes the fragility of morality, and its separation from humanity, by showing how such crimes can be reasonable and rational. The reader's terror lies in realizing that the narrator's humanity is just like theirs; that the capacity for violence lies not in madness but in humanity itself.
Works Cited
Hester, Vicki, and Emily Segir. "Edgar Allan Poe: 'The Black Cat,' and Current Forensic Psychology." The Edgar Allan Poe Review, vol. 15, no. 2, 2014, pp. 175–93. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5325/edgallpoerev.15.2.0175. Accessed 2 June 2025.
Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Black Cat." Ibiblio, https://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Poe/index.html. Accessed 15 May 2025.