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The Black Cat Analysis

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Like any other short story by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Black Cat" leaves the reader disturbed and confused at the end. In this paper, I will explain the narrator 's character development and the reasons behind the behavioral change using the psychoanalytical approach based on Sigmund Freud 's division of human personality 's id, ego, and superego. Although the narrator of the story is a ruthless murderer with a complex mind, he wasn 't always that way or that evil. For example, the narrator states, "I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition." This means that people noticed that he was remarkably kind when he was younger and tells us that he was capable of showing this side of himself to people to notice. Not only that, he also …show more content…

According to the narrator, his parents surrounded him with a variety of pets when he was a kid. However, as he was growing up, the special fondness for animals slowly diminished. This could be blamed on the impact of his surroundings and the people he grew up with. Because of the influence of everything around him and from various sources, his attitude changed including his desires. At this point, the id of the narrator started to become quite apparent. As known, the id is where desires and needs come from and the wanting to satisfy the desires is one part of one 's personality. However, if the desires weren 't satisfied the person will become tense and sometimes will resort to unnatural behaviors. For example, as Pluto, the playmate of the narrator, grew older started somehow to show a kind of irritable disposition and started to avoid the narrator and that is clear when one night the narrator came home drunk and Pluto avoided him although, in the beginning, we knew that he preferred Pluto best and Pluto loves him. That impassive reaction from Pluto combine with the narrator 's drunk state made him unreasonable and he became furious and seized Pluto; "I seized him; [...] The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from …show more content…

As defined, the ego is the part of the personality that deals with reality. The ego ensures that the desires of the id are satisfied in a matter of how it will be received by the society. The mental capacity (or incapacity) of the narrator changed his ego. Therefore, his impermanent rational mind didn 't make him actually suffer from the evil that he did to Pluto. Yet, in the case of the second cat the narrator 's ego maintained him from hurting it as he says." At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime." From that, it could be said that the way the narrator dealt with the fact of him killing Pluto was by listening to his

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