The Black Cat is a short story by Edgar Allen Poe, and was first published in the August 19, 1843. The narrator tells the story of himself who was originally friendly and an animal-lover, but turned into an alcoholic, and eventually a murderer. In order to interpret this story, I will use psychoanalytic criticism employed by Sigmund Freud. This approach helps explore the psyche of the author and the characters. Also there are symbols that convey the psychological concepts indirectly in the story.
According to the Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, the personality has three components; Id, Ego, and Superego. Id is the primary component of the personally that is present from birth such as impulses. Ego is another component of personality which deals with reality. It ensures that the impulses of Id can be expressed in an acceptable manner in the society. Finally Superego is what makes the balance between Id and Ego, resulting in perfect behaviors. These components are shown in narrator’s personality throughout the story and they help to uncover the conscious and unconscious mind of the narrator.
The narrator begins his story by admitting his guilty and his feeling of horror and madness. He says he is going to die (meaning he is going to be executed) tomorrow and he would unburden his soul by telling the events which made him terrified and destroyed his life before he dies. However, he says that his nature was originally noted as “docility,” and “humanity” from his infancy. He says he used to be happy with his life and loved his wife and his pets, especially a large black cat named Pluto. Up until here, his superego was responsible suppressing his unacceptable urges of his Id and helped to develop his Ego.
After several years of his happy time, however, the balance of the narrator’s personality starts breaking down. He suffers from violent mood heavily influenced by alcohol. He starts mistreating his wife and his cat, and later he gouges out the cat’s eye when the cat bites him. This behavior could be interpreted that the narrator tried to destroy what he disliked. The narrator regrets what he had done to his cat, but later he would be irritated by the cat again and finally hangs it on the tree to death. As time passed, he finds another cat which looks very similar to Pluto that even the missing an eye was the same. He takes it home and takes care of it with love, but soon he begins to hate it again. He tries to avoid it to prevent himself from physically abusing it. His ego is working here to suppress his Id of hatred and violent impluse. He even fears of the cat because it remined him of the past crime. The narrator confesses that his disease of alcoholism made him difficult to grasp on reality and caused mood swing. He often struggles suppressing his negative urges of violence and hostility. The issue of alcoholism is significant because the author, Edgar Allan Poe also suffered from it throughout his lifetime. This tells us that a particular character within a literary work projects the author’s psyche according to the psychoanalytic literary criticism.
In general, Alcohol has consistent effect in human body when it is consumed; it inhibits the correct perception (Dictionary of Symbolism). In The Black Cat, alcohol, just like the cat, symbolizes destruction or failure which mislead unconscious minds. There was transition in the narrative’s personality, and alcohol mainly evoked his violent nature. In fact, Poe’s biographers asserted that he suffered from the harmful effects of alcohol consumption in his life. From this point, Poe’s psychological characteristics were appeared in his writing and his imaginary character resembled himself.
As the story progresses, the narrator commits the second crime. When the narrator and his wife are visiting the cellar in their new house, the cat follows them and gets under his feet, which makes him almost fall down the stairs. The man gets horrified and grabs an axe to kill it, but stopped by his wife. In anger by the interference, he blows it down on her head and kills her. To hide his crime, he puts the body behind the wall. When he turns to the cat, he realized that it is gone and he felt satisfied that everything was finished and he no longer had to feel burden by his crime. Up until now, he does not feel guilty and does not realize his anger controlled over his conscious mind. We can come to the conclusion that it is not just his alcohol issue, but he is actually suffering from mental illness because no human would feel free after killing one’s own family.
Meanwhile, a wall has various symbolic meanings. The wall enclosing a space has a notion of the impossibility of reaching the outside. It expresses the ideas of incapacity, delay, resistance, or a limiting situation. The wall seen from within as an enclosure has a secondary implication of protection (Cirlot 362). The narrative used the wall to hide the dead body of his wife and to conceal his crime. He believed that keeping the corpse behind the wall will make him feel free from the crime he committed and feeling of guilty.
Four days after the assassination, a group of the police comes to his house to investigate, they cannot find the dead body and the narrator feels relief. On the last day of investigation, the police officers hear the sound of cry from the wall where the narrator buried the corpse of his wife. They break the wall; find the body and the black cat sitting on top of its head. The story ends by the narrator shouting, "I had walled the monster up within the tomb!" The ending of the story reveals his crime and he also realizes that the cat is still alive. The author finishes the story in this way, somewhat ambiguous that it makes us to go back to the first part of the story to bring the pieces of events together.
The overall story is a pretty realistic except for the mysterious, black cat which seems to have supernatural power. After the narrator killed his wife and buried her under the wall, it was four days after the policemen found the body and the cat. It is hard to believe that the cat was able to survive in such extreme environment for a long time. From this perspective, Cat is one of the important characters in this story. Especially, from its color, the black cat is associated with darkness and death (Cirlot, 39). Interestingly, the narrative’s two cats are black and are missing an eye. This repetition of symbolic figures emphasizes the dark side of the author’s mind. Moreover, the image of the black cat evokes various superstitions, including the idea of the narrator's wife who said “they are all witches in disguise.” In the middle age, the cat was blamed for a multitude of sin and encouraging human to do bad things (essortment). The name of the cat, Pluto is actually a name of the Roman god of the dead and the underworld. It is unclear in the story if there are actually two different cats or if Pluto just survived and returned for retribution. Regardless, the narrative blamed his cat for encouraging him to commit such a crime and destroyed his life.
Having read the story through psychoanalytic approach, The Black Cat tells us about evil nature of human, sensation of fear, horror, and guilt. It portrays domestic violence, alcohol, and murder that destroy one’s life. These are what people actually experience in reality. Edgar Allen Poe tried to say how a kind, gentle person can turn into an evil or a criminal. Moreover, external factors such as alcohol could trigger human's bad behaviors. This negative side of human mind ultimately leads him/her to struggle with feelings of fear and guilty.
Works Cited
Cherry, Kendra. The Id, Ego, and Superego; The structural Model of Personality. About.com 2010. Web. 17 May 2010.
Cirlot, J.E. Jack Sage. Trans. A Dictionary of Symbols. 2nd Ed. New York; Philosophical Library, 1971. Print.
Dictionary of Symbolism. University of Michigan Fantasy and Science Fiction Web. 2001. Web. May, 2010.
Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism. Wikipediea. Web. May 2010.
Poe, Edgar. The Black Cat. Jalic Inc, 2004. The Literarture Network. Web. May 2010.
