The Black Cat
...f rage. As much as the narrator’s personality did transform, he still gained the basic intellect to know the difference between right, and wrong. Poe depicts the narrator’s personality as one that has undergone a traumatic transformation, though one must remember that the narrator attributes the causes and effects in the story due to his abuse of alcohol “But my disease grew upon me-for what disease is like alcohol”, the narrator blames his horrific acts on the abuse of alcohol. The narrator drastically describes his own state of mind, which in his own perception took a turn for the worst “ through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance – had (I blush to confess) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others.” His drastic change in personality affected the view of his wife whom he later coincidentally murdered, “At length, I even offered her personal violence”. The depiction of the black cat “Pluto” is described as being a close companion of the narrator “I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house”, the narrator depicts the cat as being a friend during the early stages of the story, though his attitude towards the cat drastically changes. The narrator’s personality becomes one of rage and violence, his temperament level increased during the course of the story, and one of this first victims of his rage was Pluto. The narrator describes in graphic detail his attack on the cat, his realization of what he done to the cat had only alerted his mind the morning after “ when I had slept off the fumes of the nights debauch – I experienced a sentiment of half of horror and half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty”. The way in which the narrator captures the reader when describing his brutal attack on the cat is truly captivating, he uses a technique of depicting himself as a demon “The fury of a demon instantly possessed me”. Pluto, whom he describes as being a close companion later became one the greater irritations in his life, “ I took from my waistcoat – pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut out on of its eyes from the socket! I blush I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity”. Poe clearly captures the reader in the mind of the narrator, a mind that is described to be burning of rage and begging for pity. Poe leaves the reader questioning whether the attack on Pluto that night was a self-motivated attack or was it attack based on his personal anger with the added effect of the abuse of alcohol “One night, retur...