Blog Entry 13:Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism

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 component; Id, Ego, and Superego. Id is the primary component of the personally that is present from birth such as impulse. 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 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 was also happy with his marriage life and loved his wife and his pets, especially a large black cat named Pluto. Up until here, we can see that 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 begins to suffer from violent mood heavily influenced by alcohol. He starts mistreating his wife and his cat and later he gouges out the cat’s eye. 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. As time passed, he finds another cat which looked very similar to his old cat, 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 and tries to avoid it to prevent himself from physically abusing it. 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.

One day when 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 kills his wife instead with the axe, blowing it down on her head. To hide his crime, he puts the body under the wall. When he turns to the cat, it is missing 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 normal human would feel free after killing one’s own family.

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 overall story is a pretty realistic except for the 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 still alive in such extreme environment.

The major symbols in this narrative are the Cat named Pluto, black, eyes, wall, alcohol. These symbols are closely linked to the conscious and unconscious minds of the narrative.

Cats are one of the main 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). In the story, the narrative actually blamed his cat for encouraging him to commit such a crime and destroyed his life.

Eyes are often used as a symbol of intelligence and spirit. Depends on its number, eye(s) could be interpreted differently. The possession of two eyes conveys physical normality and its spiritual equivalent. On the other hand, the single eye signifies ambivalence (Cirlot, 100). By definition, ambivalence is a state of contradicting feelings or attitudes toward an object (Merriam Webster). It is interesting that the narrative chose to cut only one eye of the cat and later found a different cat that was missing an eye.

A wall also 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. The narrative used the wall to hide the dead body of his wife and to conceal his crime. Psychoanalysts frequently classify it as a mother-symbol. It represents the feminine element of mankind (Cirlot, 362).

Alcohol is another important symbol in the story. In general, it has consistent effect in human body when it is consumed; it inhibits the correct perception (Dictionary of Symbolism). In The Black Cat, alcohol symbolizes destruction or failure caused the misleading of unconscious minds. There were transition in the narrative’s personality and alcohol mainly evoked his violent nature.


Works Cited

Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism. Wikipediea. Web. May 2010.

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.


Poe, Edgar. The Black Cat. Jalic Inc, 2004. The Literarture Network. Web. May 2010.