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Renz Adame

Prof. Alan West

ENG1120 U

January 25th, 2017

From Benevolent to Malevolent: How a Man Came to His Unfortunate Demise Caused

by Alcoholic Perversity

Edgar Allan Poes The Black Cat (1843) tells of a man recounting the details of

a series of unfortunate household events just before his execution. He tells of how he

was slowly driven mad caused by the disease of alcohol. While under the influence of

this disease, he committed a number of horrid actions to which ended up leading to the

narrators inevitable downfall and to him eventually being hung in the gallows to his

timely death. From a man who was raised in a caring, stable home; a child who was

docile and caring. He later married a beautiful woman and parented a few animals and

was a loving husband and father to the animals. He then starts to change due to his

alcoholic habits turned addiction and start to become violent not only to his wife but as

well as his animals. From a man who was the perfect image of a gentle loving husband

to a maniac driven mad caused by alcoholic perversity. Poe speaks of a man possessed

by the spirit of perversity as a disease brought on by alcoholism and how it changed

him into a man full of anger and how it leads to his final downfall.
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The Narrator recalls on the day of his execution, how alcohol became the

catalyst to his disease to which lead to him being possessed by the spirit of

perverseness.(19) It began several years after he married that he began to change

through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance that his disposition started to

change and to become that of a darker person. As the days go by, he became more

moody, more irritable (18) despite how it affected the feelings of others.(18) He

started to become more and more violent not only towards his animals but also to his

wife up until one dreary night when he came home much intoxicated,(19) when he

realized that his cat Pluto had been avoiding him more and more due to the changes

in his behaviour. He searched after his cat and grabbed him, but the cat, in freight at

the narrators violence had bit him. The narrator was angered and felt as if the fury of a

demon instantly possessed (19) him and he grabbed his pen-knife and cut the cats

eye out. The cat that had been his favourite pet and playmate (18) that he just inflicted

such an incredible amount of pain and violence. This was the start of how he, whom

was introduced to us as one noted for the docility and humanity in his being, had

started to become a more violent and malevolent person.

The narrator had changed, due to the alcoholic perversity that had started to set

in. From a loving man to an evil man and how it lead to his timely demise. It had start to

become evident that the alcoholism and perverseness had started to set in when,

after he defiled his beloved cat Pluto, he then proceeded to drown all of his guilt and

sorrows with wine. One morning, he was finally unable to deal with the dread and

bitterest remorse at his heart, (20) he decided to hang the cat from a tree because as

he says, I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of
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offence. (20) This starts to show that the perverseness had started to set in. As the

story continues, he later acquires another cat that looked like Pluto and closely

resembling him in every aspect but one, (21) to which was a large white spot covering

the cat. We see later on that the spot on the cat had changed into that of a gallows

which had started the narrators hate for the creature.

Finally, as him and his wife were doing errands, he descended down the steep

stairs and as he was walking, the cat had followed him as he says, nearly throwing me

headlong. This then sparked his immense anger and takes his axe and swings at the

cat. But as his wife grabs the axe and stops him from killing the cat, he instead swings

his knife directly into his wifes head. Even though all of these series of horrid events

just took place, the narrator as he says, felt satisfied that all was right and this shows

that the spirit of perverseness had fully taken over that he is even unable to feel

remorse at the fact that he just murdered his spouse in cold blood. And as the days go

by, he still feels no remorse for his actions until one day, as the police arrived at his

house, they had started to inquire and search about his home. As he showed them the

basement, almost ready to leave, he tapped on the wall and from it came a cry, at first

muffled and broken and then quickly swelling into one long continuous scream.

The police searched and eventually found the body in the wall with the cat sat atop his

wifes corpse in which, as follows, he has been consigned to the hangman (25) to

which had become his demise.

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Works Cited:
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Black Cat. The Broadview Introduction to Literature: Short

Fiction. Ed. Lisa Chalykoff, Neta Gordon, Paul Lumsden. Buffalo, 2015. 17-23.