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Allusions In The Black Cat

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Homicidal narrators. Reincarnated cats. Edgar Allan Poe’s stories are set apart from others because of his unique style of engaging the reader in more mystery, gothic horror, and morbid literary genres, such as Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat”. This is about a narrator who is driven to maltreat his pets because of his intoxication. After murdering his cat Pluto, he then finds a stray who looks identical to Pluto, except it has a mark on its chest, resembling the outline of a gallow. This strange phenomenon makes the narrator summon hatred for this stray, and now seeking revenge, leads the story to a series of murderous events. Poe's other short story,” Tell Tale Heart”, is about a narrator who suffers from a disease (schizophrenia) that causes …show more content…

In “The Black Cat”, the narrator refers back to how his wife alludes to their black cat, Pluto. Poe wrote, "In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusions to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise.”() This allusion “all black cats are witches in disguise” foreshadows that the cat could be a witch. The name Pluto, (Pluto being another name for the Greek God Hades, the god of the underworld) could mean the wife's “ancient popular notation” could have been correct. The allusion to Pluto's superstition stays with the reader throughout the story, which creates a suspenseful and fear-driven atmosphere when reading the …show more content…

In Poe's short story,” Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe uses specific detail to help the reader uncover something that the narrator cannot see.“True! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in heaven and the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken!”() Poes word choice is very important to the story. The narrator says his “disease” has made him able to have heard things from “heaven and hell and in the earth”. This disease is schizophrenia because Poe writes the narrator characterizes himself as not insane, but uses the phrase “nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous”, implying at his unstable mental state due to his schizophrenia. The diction Poe uses for the narrator makes him unreliable and unpredictable, therefore creating a sensation of fear in his story. The narrator is insane and defiant, and the way he speaks hints he is mentally

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