Generally, I review books and have not reviewed short stories. But since I started my Honors English 9 class, I’ve been really invested in them. One of my favorite short story authors is Edgar Allan Poe. I had read a couple of his stories last year and had enjoyed them. The best part about his short stories is that they lead you asking yourself a lot of questions, and several opinions. A few weeks ago, I read The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe and enjoyed it a lot.
The story starts off with the narrator who is an animal-loving, yet abusive man. He has a severe alcohol addiction and often mistreats his wife when he is under the influence of alcohol. However, his pets remain unaffected. One day when he comes home drunk, he thinks that his cat was ignoring him so without thinking, he cut out the cat’s eye. And with a spirit of perverseness, he hangs the cat to death. Sometime later, karma came back to him and his house burnt down forcing him to move into an old cellar . Later he meets a cat with one eye that reminds him of his old black cat, and his adoration for pets comes back. He brings this cat home.One day, when he trips on the cat, he decides to kill the cat out of anger. But as he lowered his ax onto the cat, his wife stopped him. This interference made him more furious and he killed his wife instead. Following this incident he cemented his wife and new cat into the wall. What drove him into insanity? In the first few pages of the story, we see the narrator being a pet-loving man, but towards the end of the story, we see him transform into more of a violent and aggressive person with lack of judgment. What will happen next? Will he get punished for his inhumane actions? Please read this story to find out.