The Black Cat

The Black Cat Edgar Allan Poe

''The Black Cat,which first appeared in the United States Saturday Post (The Saturday Evening Post) on August 19, 1843, serves as a reminder for all of us. The capacity for violence and horror lies within each of us, no matter how docile and humane our dispositions might appear.'' - By Martha Womack An unforgivable act of cruelty touches off a chilling series of events in Edgar Allen Poe’s 1843 story The Black Cat. The narrator of Poe’s tale owns many pets with his wife and thinks of himself as an animal lover. His alcoholism, however, brings out a violent streak in him. After an initial drunken episode in which he tortures one of his pets, a black cat, the narrator comes home drunk again and terrorizes the same helpless creature, killing it in a gruesome and shocking manner. Not long after this heinous crime, the narrator and his wife begin noticing strange and terrifying phenomena around them. Their house catches on fire suddenly and, amid the smoking ruins, one wall remains standing. The narrator and his wife are shocked to find that there, on the wall, is the image of the murdered cat. Can the cat be haunting them? Is it seeking revenge for its tragic death? As they soon find, this will not be the end of the animal’s supernatural quest for retribution. Although he may seek to put his horrible act behind him, the narrator learns that the black cat will never let him forget. source : http://www.poedecoder.com/essays/blackcat/An http://www.dailylit.com/books/black-cat

''Happiness is not in science but in the acquisition of science.'' [Edgar Allan Poe]