The two themes that eventually coincide, madness and death, promote Edgar Allan Poe’s classic Gothic structure.Īnother Gothic element usually presented in gothic texts, has to do with the supernatural, which Poe almost always manages to present in his stories. “I grew day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings for others.” He claims another being possessed him to kill his cat, that it was not truly him who killed Pluto, but can the cruel murder be attributed to his alcohol and in personal opinion, his mental state which is beginning to deteriorate at this point in in the story. In the following scenes the narrator, still not evidently mentally ill, begins to illustrate his problem with alcohol, ultimately creating the dissolution of the first black cat. Poe choose to keep the theme death hidden to add suspense and a more iconic ending although usually presented early on. If the cat Pluto is being represented as a god, then it can be assumed he can reincarnate himself to terrorize the narrator who killed him. When the narrator finally kills Pluto, the connection between his name and his fate is presented, when he “reappears” as an apparition in the fire. Death is a theme made apparent later in the text, but is often presented throughout gothic texts. This theme is not outwardly stated, but had to be interpreted when being presented to this character so early on. Looking at Pluto analytically, Pluto is the Roman God of the underworld, which makes sense because this creates that theme always present in gothic texts, but not yet alluded to in The Black Cat death. It is made quite apparent in the beginning, after stating that recent household events presented the narrator with horror, that this is a gothic text, but with some missing tell-tale elements such as a castle.Ĭontinuing into the story, Poe’s black cat character named Pluto, is introduced and creates a basis of preceding events.
He says he married young and her “disposition not uncongenial with my own”, ironic how happy his wife made him, but would later be literally be the hand of her unhappy fate. The opening also tells readers that the narrator is telling this story the day before his execution, allowing readers the try and create a story before the narrator elaborates his confession. In the opening of The Black Cat the narrator says “Yet, mad am I not” proclaiming his mental state early, allowing the reader to look deeper into his character, but forgetting the scene setting given n the same same page. While reading from the narrator’s perspective, the readers are concerned about the mental state of their story teller, but sometimes forget the context of the story being told. In response, most of his characters have some sort of mental illness, or eventually go mad. As a writer, Edgar Allen Poe has to create characters with depth, that add to the suspense of the story.
In The Black Cat it is made apparent, that death is a common subject, but the beginning is primarily an internal struggle within the narrator. Most of Poe’s works are easily identified as gothic due to the theme of death and decay, although that is not always the theme being portrayed by the story until later in the work. Edgar Allen Poe is widely known for making some of the greatest Gothic texts, but also has very distinct characteristics throughout his, modeling after Walpole, but also creating a standard for future texts. The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe uses an abundance of adjectives to set a gloomy scene, but also uses the narrator’s emotional distress and supernatural curiosity to structure the gothic tale. Novels and stories frequently revisit the same elements when creating a gothic tale, but can also use other characteristics to create the same essence of Castle of Otranto. This text was the first novel of its kind to introduce, a suspenseful atmosphere, ancient prophecies, and metonymy of horror.
Traditional Gothic characteristics were originally exemplified by Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto.
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