2.1 The Black Cat - Edgar Allan Poe
or A Case for Moderation
Welcome back
Howdy, on this week’s story analysis we’re going to be looking at The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe. My longer analysis is here. The analysis is an ordering of paragraphs, some highlights of lines I like, and quick commentary on Poe’s techniques and story elements.
Also I apologize for being two posts behind, so I’ll try to publish another story analysis and two rhetoric round ups this week to catch up. I was busy moving to a new city and then took a micro-road trip with a couple buddies to pick up a sail boat.
I’ve got two reasons for looking at writers like Hawthorne and Poe: 1. they paid the bills with these stories and were damn good at writing them, and 2. their work is in the public domain, and I’d like for my pants to only ever be sewed onto me and not sued off of me.
Any who, I’d never actually read Poe before this except for the The Tell-Tale Heart in high school which I don’t fully remember. I picked The Black Cat off a friend’s recommendation, the eponymous John from the 1.0 rhetorical series exercises. And I quite enjoyed it, my jaw opened in paragraph 7 and didn’t close again until I’d finished.
I’m not a big fan of scary stories, but after reading Poe, I’m starting to understand it. If you don’t like or understand something sometimes it helps to seek out the masters of that thing and patiently observe them, usually it’ll click. Also remember you can still understand things and dislike them which is how I feel about too much icing on cake and death.
From the menu of Poe's Tavern in Savannah, GA :) I had a cute walk down River Street and found this right after having read The Black Cat. Great burgers and nice beer selection.
The Nuts and Bolts
The Black Cat is about a man’s descent into madness through alcohol. It’s a good exploration of depravity and perversity. I had so many misconceptions about Poe before reading this mostly through popular culture, but the story isn’t really about darkness or edginess. It’s a cautionary tale about alcohol abuse and quite sobering in its methods and effects. Poe isn’t being graphic or scary for those ends alone, he’s writing from a very real place which is THE commonality of all great stories. The events may not have happened, but the thoughts did and their weight still lies upon the soul.
Here are some “truths” about the story:
It’s narrated from the 1st person POV (this allows us to really get inside the narrators head and feel his own horror, rage, remorse, and distance ourselves from objectivity which can be dangerous for story)
There are thirty paragraph
The narrator writes it as he sits in a jail cell waiting to be hanged
There are three deaths in the story, two successful murders, and one as a consequence for failing the third attempted murder
The narrator is an unsympathetic character attempting to gain sympathy
The story is a tragedy (Starts happy and good and ends at the end of a rope)
The actual actions are short and kept to a line or two. Taking out the eye and the wife’s death are both a single line each. (Less is more)
The Black Cat does an incredible job of keeping you turning the page and on the edge of your seat. It makes you ask how can it get worse, why can’t he stop, how does this end? This is effective story craft. A singular focus so lasered in that it’s impossible to imagine anything added or removed. Even the relationship with the wife, the narrator’s job, and more obvious things like friends or family are undeveloped because they have zero relation to what’s occurring.
Effective Lines
Here is one good line from each paragraph. They are either the line that best sums up a passage, a really good description/image, a favorite of mine, or just an effective sentence.
Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul.
There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
Pluto—this was the cat’s name—was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house.
Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character—through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance—had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse.
I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.
I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.
Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?
One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree;—hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart;—hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence;—hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin—a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it—if such a thing wore possible—even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.
The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas, was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.
Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.
When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed.
It did not make its appearance during the night; and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul!
I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to and fro.
“I may say an excellently well-constructed house. These walls—are you going, gentlemen?—these walls are solidly put together;” and here, through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.
Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!
There is so much power in the simple sentence in this story. Brick by brick Poe builds a monster.
Lessons from Poe
The main takeaway for me in this short story is keeping the focus as narrow as possible. The Black Cat is about a man’s alcohol abuse, obsession, and downfall. We don’t need incredible descriptions of the house, the police, the town, what he drinks, how he mistreats his wife and other pets. It’s a confessional tale and sticks to it.
Framing: We’re in a first person POV witnessing the reasonings of a man become monster. Poe keeps us right in his head along for the ride. The story takes place as a meditation/reflection/confession of a man condemned. This narrows down Poe’s choices and makes the writing “easier”. There’s an interesting freedom in limiting oneself to a genre, specific image, or confine. It’s easier to write about a single event/action/person/place/thing than it is to write about two of them and so on. Keeping things small leads to further and deeper exploration. Poe would have lost a lot of emotional punch if the narrator killed forty cats. There’s a balance between necessary and gratuitous violence.
Logic: The story is told chronologically and becomes increasingly more violent and horrific. We have a very simple set up, and the simplicity in the story gives it an earnest, genuine feeling. This is also why the narrator’s actions are so shocking because the story reads so vividly, clearly, and soberly. It progresses from event to event with the grandest of events being the least “felt” in terms of the narrator’s guilt. When he has fully crossed the threshold into madness or sin or evil he does not turn back. He is cocky and self-assured, smugly thinking the police will not discover his ugly deeds and wretched soul. Thankfully retribution occurs, and the reader gets the resolution that the narrator will pay for his crimes.
Sentence level/rhetoric: Poe utilizes a lot of passivity and distance to keep the focus on the thoughts of the man. The short descriptions of violence and evil are doubly effective in their simple brutality and also a way of understanding the narrator is horrified by what he’s done. Poe doesn’t go on and on about the murder or the plucking of the eye to create an indulgent and excessive image. Every sentence level choice lends to the narrator’s humanity and desire for sympathy from the reader though he is unforgiveable.
The Sign Off
This is a great story, and I hope you enjoyed the analysis. Try to write some simple focused things of your own and see how much easier juggling one thing is than two. John Gardner writes in The Art of Fiction, “Invariably when the beginning writer hands in a short story to his writing teacher, the story has many things about it that mark it as amateur. But almost as invariably, when the beginning writer deals with some particular, small problem, such as description of a setting, description of a character, or brief dialogue that has some definite purpose, the quality of the work approaches the professional.”
Have a nice week, and look out this week for a couple new posts of original fiction.