The Black Cat, written by Edgar Allen Poe, demonstrates the very acute mental disturbance of a man, who, having a soft corner for animals, and thus having possessed many animals as pets, turns out to be the psycho killer in the end. The writer describes the events of the story with keen insight. He manages to throw light upon the man’s own confessions of his deeds. The story is defined under the category of Mental Mayhem. The plot shows the man’s unbalanced nature and how he kills his favorite pet and his own wife. It was not that he disliked them. He perhaps suffered from some mental disease, which led him into committing the crime. The writer vividly describes what the man felt when he committed such heinous acts. “I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets.” These very lines show that the author was not so violent with pets from the beginning. It was just in a matter of time that he developed these feelings. “We had birds, goldfish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.” The author and his wife had many animals and they looked after them well. But, gradually, the author’s feelings for his pets changed dramatically.
“My general temperament and character experienced a radical alteration for the worse”….
“ I grew, day by day, moodier, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others.” And it was then when the author started his criminal moves in the house. Despite knowing what he was up to, he still committed the crimes.
“.. Because I knew that in so doing I was sinning.” This shows clearly that the author was suffering from some kind of mental problem. It was his mental disturbance that compelled him to do what he did. After having lost his cat when a fire broke in his house, he felt a great need for another pet, same as that of Pluto, his pet cat. “This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search.” His wish was answered when he saw a cat strikingly similar to Pluto. He was very happy initially after having found a new pet. But, gradually, his feelings changed towards it too. “For my part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me.” The cat also had only one eyeball, just like Pluto. This reminded him of his former pet and so; this must have been the reason why he started disliking this cat too.
He was about to kill this cat too when his wife came in between, and in a fit of extreme anger, he killed his wife. “Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demonical, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the ax in her brain.” He walled up her corpse behind the wall of the cellar. Several police inspections took place and found nothing when one day the author himself dug his grave by hitting the weak plaster with his cane and thus, revealing the dead body lined up behind the wall. He was horrified to see his cat also walled up there. It was the cat itself that let out a cry and attracted the attention of the policemen. At the end of the story, he tells us that it was he who has walled up the cat. “I had walled the monster up within the tomb!” All these shreds of evidence show us that the author must have been suffering from acute mental disability, which made him do such disgraceful deeds.
His huge mood swings were inexplicable. It was unpredictable what he would do the next minute.
These acts led the author to the hangman.