Summary
Summary
Poe grew up with a love for animals. He used to caress them and treated the animals as family. He married his wife who also loved animals and they raised many pets including goldfish, a rabbit, birds, a monkey, and a cat. The cat’s name was Pluto and Pluto and Poe became friends, then Poe changes. H goes through mood swings induced by drinking and curses his wife. One night, he comes home after drinking and thinks his cat is ignoring him. SO what does he do? He grabs his cat, who bites his hand and cuts out the cat’s eye. The cat recovers and Poe wakes up the next morning, fine. Then next day the cat makes the mistake of ignoring Poe again. So in the cool of morning, Poe slips a noose around the cat’s neck and hangs him in the garden. The next night after the killing, Poe wakes up to find the house on fire. He goes outside to find that one wall was still standing and on it hung dead cat. For the next few nights, Poe is haunted by the cat’s ghost. Then one night, the narrator is out drunk and he sees a new cat that looks like Pluto but has more white on its fur. The cat become part of the household and is loved by his wife. Soon, the narrator cannot stand the cat anymore. The hatred only grows when he finds that the spots on the new cat resemble the look of the rope Pluto was hanging on. Still he continues to keep the cat who cannot get away from the narrator. Then, one day Poe and his wife go down to the cellar and the cat trips Poe. Poe gets angry and throws the ax at the cat. Only, to have the ax stopped by his wife. Angry, Poe drives the ax into his wife’s head. Scared and hurt, Poe buries his wife in the cellar wall.
Important quotes
- “One night, much intoxicated, I fancied the cat avoided my presence. I seized him in the fury of a demon possessed me. I took out the pocket knife and deliberately cut his eyes out of the socket.”
This quote if important for many reasons. For one, it shows why he cut the cat’s eye out. Alcohol is called a spirit for a reason. Sometimes, people who drink alcohol get addicted and the alcohol makes you do weird things. In this case, Poe made the mistake of killing one of his best friends. In life, being intoxicated may not cause you to kill anyone but it can make you do stupid things like dancing on tables or doing something you regret. It is also important because it shows why Poe was so angry. He did not lash out on the cat for no reason. He was angry. People do not lash out for no reason and it makes you feel kind of sorry for Poe because he fell into the trap of drinking.
2. “One day she accompanied me into the cellar. The cat followed me down the stairs and nearly threw me headlong.. Uplifting an ax and I aimed the blow at the animal.. But my wife stopped me so I drove an ax right into her brain. This is an important quote because it foreshadowed, had description and gave you why he murdered his wife. He already hated the cat, so when the cat caused him to kill his wife he hated it even more. The foreshadowing comes in when he talks about how his wife came to the cellar. Good things never happen in the cellar. Also, I found it interesting that they did not describe what kind of cellar. They said they went down to see something in the cellar because they were broke, but did not say what kind. For all we know it could have been a wine cellar or grape cellar. In fact, this kind of added to the mysteriousness of this piece. The mysteriousness adds to the sense of suspense and the details draw the reader in to what he is talking about.
3.I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. (this quote is important because it shows that he found a wife who loved animals as much as he did. However, he did not sound certain that he was in love. He did not mention how he fell in love with his wife. If you love someone you talk about them a lot. He did not even describe his wife or why he loved her. Instead he said that she was not a bad wife. I found this interesting because he talked more about the cat. That may explain how he did his wife wrong so easily without much remorse. I also found it interesting how he explained the night of the crime. He used descriptive details like “cry of fire, looking at the ruins, the remains, and the smell of ammonia” to make you feel like you stood at the scene watching the people talking. It was also a little creepy because it was so well written. Poe was either a genius, completely crazy, or completely amazing. I go for all 3.
Imagery
In paragraph 2 when they said “For in my infancy I was noted for the docility of my and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart.” Struck me because it was talking about how he grew up. Your childhood is when you define who you are and Poe was a really good kid. It was interesting to see how he used to be sweet as infant and he changed. In fact he said “My tenderness of heart was even so conspicous to make me a good jest of companions.” He goes on to explain that he was a good guy. In a way, this is ethos because he is saying how he was a good guy and that he did not really kill his wife because he wanted do. So he continued and became “moody and irritable and cursing his wife.” Then he changed.
Poetic devices
- “By a cry muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child then quickly swelling into one loud continuous scream.” This literary device is an example of imagery and simile. The simile compares the cry of the cat (who was in the wall with the dead body) to the sobbing of a child. If you think of a baby crying or sobbing it is usually a soft whine or cry and shows that the baby (in this case it is a cat) is upset or sad. Which is ironic considering that the cat is truly upset to be stuck in a wall. Then the sentence transforms from a soft cry to a loud continuous scream. Screams are ugly and when you think of screams you think of pain. In fact, when I thought of screams I immediately thought of hell and fire. By this point, I think the poor cat is trying to get the attention of the police so he is screaming to get their attention. I don’t think the cat was really screaming like a human, but was howling just as loud as one.
- “I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire”. This is an example of personification. Personification is when you give an in-amimate object (like fire) human qualities. Fire does not really make a sound. At least, I don’t think it does but it might. But to compare fire’s (sizzling?) to crying is interesting. I was thinking maybe it connected to babies. When babies cry the parents try to fix the problem immediately. SO maybe by saying the fire was crying Poe was saying that the fire needed immediate attention.
- “The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my substance of the two freshly spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames,and the ammonia of the carcass had accomplished the portraiture as I saw it. This sentence uses the literary device called amplification. Amplification is when you add embellishments to a sentence to give the reader more understanding. Without this sentence, we would not know that there was only 1 wall that still stood. Nor would we know that the cat smelled like ammonia (a bleach like substance) so it really places us into the scene. Poe could have wrote the cat hung there, but he did not because it would take away from the personality of this piece.
The author’s purpose
The author’s purpose is to inform and to entertain. Poe speaks in the view of the narrator and in a way is discussing the mind of someone who is slightly bi-polar. You can tell that the person in the story had not only a drinking problem but either he or Poe was slightly bipolar. Nobody changes moods that quickly. He changed moods in what seemed like no time. He also talked about abuse and how alcoholism can drive it. He does this by saying “I married young and was happy to find a wife who’s disposition was not uncongenial to mine. But my disease grew upon me and what disease is alcohol?” Alcohol was what caused Poe to change. In fact, he kind of abused alcohol and used it in the way not meant for it to be drunk in. As a result, he experienced a radical altercation for the worse. He began to abuse his wife, use curse words, and hate his cat. In a way he is warning people to not use alcohol. The abuse message is even more in view when Poe and his wife go down to the cellar and you know what happens next.
In a way this piece is also to entertain. Poe has a way with words so he made sure he didn’t cross the boundary line between creepy and downright awful. He made things flow beautifully and did not make a big deal of the sounds the people made when they died. I also loved the irony in this story. The black cat is supposed to be a symbol of bad luck etc and after the cat came in, things began to happen. It was almost like the cat caused things to happen. Also, I see a little bit of all of us in the character. We make mistakes and get moody. We may not kill anyone, but we get moody too and if we are not careful we can get into a lot of trouble.
Personal Response
This story made laugh and want to break down all at the same time. When I first read this story and got to the part where he killed his cat (hey did you notice curiosity killed the cat? The cat wasn’t interested in Poe so Poe killed him.” I was like what is wrong with this guy? It was kind of gory but not really. I also loved how they began the story just like any other story. Poe began as a “docile and kindhearted person then changed,”As he described it, he used to love animals and had birds,goldfish, a dog, and a cat. Then he morphed into this angry grumpy moody monster. This story is different from other horror stories because of how Poe described things. He had a way of describing how the character slowly went crazy. He didn’t just explain why he hated cats he explained how he came to how he got that way, Making it feel more special. I also loved how he incorporated EPL into it. When Poe said at the beginning how he was a good man before it was like Ethos. Ethical. Everything else in the story was more Pathos.
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