I chose to write my blog post on the Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe. I mostly concentrated on the speaker's love for animals and then the overall treatment of his animals and how it changed as the story went on.
Like most of his other pieces of works (poems, short stories, etc) it starts out with a sorrowful tone. The speaker says he will be talking about some horrible events that occurred in this story. They open with the line: "most wild yet homely narrative" (203). The speaker also talks about how the speaker is especially fond of animals at a young age. He grew up loving house pets and his parents bought him lots of pets. His love for pets continued into his young adulthood and when he got married they bought their own pets. The one pet that he seems to have adored the most is a black cat. "Remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree" (203). He named the cat Pluto and he did everything for the cat. The cat even followed him everywhere, except when he left the house, which he felt was difficult to prevent himself from allowing the cat to follow him.
The sorrowful tone continues with "But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburned my soul" (203) What is the speaker unburdening his soul from? As I read the story, I learn he wants to unburden his soul from the events that "have terrified--have tortured - have destroyed me" (203). The first horrible event that occurred was when he cut out the eyeball of his beloved cat, Pluto, out of its socket. The man did this when he came home drunk one night and grabbed the cat viciously and the cat defending himself by biting his owner's hand.
I found it interesting that a man who loved his pets so much would do this; especially to the cat whom he loved so much. That is what makes this piece of work so interesting by itself. I think it mostly explores the mind; how our minds can be easily persuaded; especially when a drug such as alcohol is involved.
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