english
...al is so appealing to Poe is that it embodies the idea of an awareness or a perception of one's lack of control. Such an awareness engenders fear On the surface, the motive appears to be his common household black cat, his hatred for this animal drove to madness and the final ironic conclusion, but the black cat posses much more meaning then that. The Black Cat(1843) carries the same themes further and details more clearly the irrational desire, almost ultimate irony, to act against oneself, with an ambiguous conclusion suggesting the agency of malevolent fortune at the same time that it suggests subconscious self-punishment(Thompson 172). We as readers can also see, his obsessive tendencies in the story, for example he abuses and kills his first cat, and yet he gets another one just like it, even with only one eye. The cause of the Shrout 6 image of the cat is the obsessive nature of the narrator that has been translated into the obsessive unity of the story - a unity that demands the plaster image of the cat, just has it demands the reappearance of another cat that reflects the first - a cat that, like the original one, has lost one eye and has the image of the gallows around its neck(May 75). The narrator has no sense of guilt for his actions, yet he is happy, filled with glee, that his wife's body rots behind the wall that he built (May 75). His guiltlessness and obsessive nature towards the cat is seen in full effect at the climatic end of the story. It did not make its appearance during the night; and thus for one night at least since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept - ay, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul(Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination 346)! To embody both agony and exultation at once is the essence of the paradox that makes up his obsession - his...