What Is The Main Idea Of The Story The Black Cat?

by | Last updated on January 24, 2024

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Love and hate

are two key themes in the story. The narrator at first loves his pets and his wife, but as madness takes hold of him, he comes to loathe or dismiss everything that should be of the utmost importance to him.

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What is the story The Black Cat about?

‘The Black Cat’ is the story of

an alcoholic who is driven insane by his addiction

. He tortures and kills his cat, Pluto. Then, a stray cat that looks almost exactly like the cat he murdered except for a gallows mark on its chest follows him home and drives him even more insane.

What is the moral lesson of The Black Cat?

“The Black Cat” is in many ways a moral tale that deals with

the tension between love and hate and that warns of the dangers of alcohol

, a substance to which Poe himself was addicted for much of his life.

What are some themes for The Black Cat?

  • The Home.
  • Violence.
  • Drugs and Alcohol.
  • Freedom and Confinement.
  • Justice and Judgment.
  • Transformation.

What do we learn about the narrator from this introduction?

What do we learn about the narrator from this introduction?

He is calm and logical. He is troubled by something. He is often at his home.

At what point in the story does the falling action of The Black Cat?

THE FALLING ACTON IN A SROY ARE THE EVENTS AFTER THE CLIMAX THAT LEAD TO THE RESOLUTION. The falling actions for this story would be that

after the protagonist kills his wife and buries her in the wall he does not see tat cat for some time

, and he feels very at peace with himself.

What theme is illustrated in the passage from The Black Cat?

What theme is illustrated in the passage from “The Black Cat”?

Moral responsibility

.

What does Poe do to reveal character in the story?

Poe reveals the main character—the unnamed first-person narrator—

through the narrator’s inner thoughts and external speech

.

What is the irony in The Black Cat?

Poe uses irony to

indicate the cat’s newfound insight and detachment from the narrator after seeing his true nature

. It is ironic that when the cat had the use of both eyes, it didn’t see the narrator’s true persona; however, once the cat loses an eye, for the first time it sees its owner for who he really is.

Is The Black Cat a true story?

The Black Cat is

short piece of fiction

in which the narrator lays out the events that lead to the death of his (SPOILER ALERT) wife. His confession appears to be an attempt to convince the reader that a series of black cats acted upon him in a supernatural manner, possessing him to act violent.

How would you describe the narrator of the story The Black Cat?

In “The Black Cat,” Poe created a

narrator who lacks remorse, empathy, and a conscience

, a character who deceives and manipulates those around him because of an impulsive, egocentric personality known as psychopathy.

How does the narrator describe himself in black cat?

A man who describes himself as

a docile youth with a love of animals

, yet it is clear from the beginning of the story that the narrator is telling his story from prison.

What is the setting of the story The Black Cat?

Setting The story opens in the cell of a prisoner the day before he is to be executed by hanging. … The events in his tale are set

at his home and in a tavern

. Although these events take place over several years, the recounting of these events in writing takes place on a single day in the narrator’s prison cell.

Was the narrator in the Black Cat insane?

At the beginning of the story,

the narrator

seemed sane. He said that he loved animals, and that he and his wife had many. Through the story though, it is evident to the reader that the narrator is much less sane than what they first thought. He comes home drunk and crazy and harms those around while sparing the cat.

What does the narrator do to the first black cat?

What does the narrator first do to the black cat after he comes home drunk one night?

He cuts the cat’s eye out after the cat bites him.

Why did the narrator cut out Pluto’s eye?

The narrator cut out the cat’s eye

because he was intoxicated

. … The narrator hanged the cat because he was crazy and he said he did it because the loved the cat and because the cat never did anything to him. What happened the night he hanged Pluto?

How does the climax of the story The Black Cat reflect the narrator’s psyche discuss?

In the story’s rising action, the narrator becomes increasingly unstable and mistreats his wife and their many pets. He cites alcoholism as the reason for his cruel and bizarre behavior. …

This final moment of doom, where his guilt is fully exposed and he swoons in terror and admission

, is the true climax of the story.

What crime did the narrator commit in the Tell Tale Heart?

Throughout Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the reader is left to wonder whether or not the narrator is sane when he commits

the murder of the old man

.

What does the narrator most stress in The Black Cat?

In the first few paragraphs, the narrator gives us some background information about himself. What does he most stress?

He stress that he might get executed.

What happens at the end of The Black Cat?

The story ends

when the police find the dead body of the man’s wife, with the cat on her head

. On the one hand it’s outrageous, and even funny. … For example, we know the narrator is writing his confession the day before he’s scheduled to be executed for the murder of his wife.

What is the theme of the story The Tell Tale Heart?

The main themes in “The Tell-Tale Heart” are

the madness and sanity, the pressure of guilt, and the passage of time

. Madness and sanity: the narrator’s attempt to prove his sanity as he explains his meticulous plans for killing the old man only prove his madness.

What is the main conflict of the Tell Tale Heart?

The major conflict in the story is that

the narrator kills the old man simply because he dislikes the look of his eye

. This conflict is a person vs. self conflict because the antagonist (the old man) hasn’t done anything on purpose to upset the narrator. The conflict is all in the narrator’s head.

What is the climax of the story The Black Cat?

Climax. The cat follows the narrator home. …

One day, on the way to the cellar, the cat trips the narrator on the stairs and he raises an axe to kill him; he is stopped by his wife, and in a rage, he kills her with the axe instead.

Why is the black cat named Pluto?

The eponymous cat is named

Pluto after the Roman god of the Underworld

. Although Pluto is a neutral character at the beginning of the story, he becomes antagonistic in the narrator’s eyes once the narrator becomes an alcoholic.

What does the eye symbolize in the Black Cat?

The eyes can symbolize

judgment, persecution, and the action of being observed

. Eyes are often described as the window to the soul, and in this story,…

How did the police find his wife body the black cat?

He put her body in a wall of the cellar and built a new plaster wall in front of the body. How did the police discover the body? The second black cat had also been trapped inside the plaster wall with the body. When the narrator rapped on the new wall, the cat let out a howl, giving away the location of the body.

Who is the protagonist in the story The Black Cat?

Protagonist. the protagonist in the story is

the narrator

. He changes through out the story becuase at the beginning he is nice to everyone, but as the story progresses, he gets mad and anger takes over him.

What superstitious belief does the narrator’s wife hold about cats?

What events from “The Black Cat” seem to prove the wife’s superstition about cats to be correct? She likes them but is superstitious that

they are witches in disguise

.

What happened when the narrator tapped on the brick?

What happened when the narrator tapped on the brick?

The bricks fell down and revealed the corpse and he had seen the black cat sitting on the corpses head

.

What happened to the narrator the night he killed the cat?

The police are on it. They take down the wall only to find the dead body, with the cat on top of its head. And that’s why the narrator is in jail, sentenced to death by hanging.

The narrator had accidentally shut the cat up in the wall with the body

.

How much did Poe earn for the Raven?

A lot of fans know Edgar Allan Poe earned just

$9

for “The Raven,” now one of the most popular poems of all time, read out loud by schoolteachers the world over.

What does the speaker say about madness in the black cat?

Within “The Black Cat,” for instance, Poe plays on the fear of madness, or a discernible lack of reason. … this resulting from madness, saying

“Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not—and very surely I do not dream”

(Poe 718).

What crimes did the narrator commit in the black cat?

The narrator’s crimes include the following:

He abuses and cuts out the eye of his cat; he hangs the cat to death

(note that no laws at the time would have outlawed animal cruelty); he murders his wife; he abuses his wife and animals (again, now laws would have outlawed the abuse); he attempts to mislead and obstruct …

Diane Mitchell
Author
Diane Mitchell
Diane Mitchell is an animal lover and trainer with over 15 years of experience working with a variety of animals, including dogs, cats, birds, and horses. She has worked with leading animal welfare organizations. Diane is passionate about promoting responsible pet ownership and educating pet owners on the best practices for training and caring for their furry friends.