When assessing a work of literature, interpretations differ. In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat", Poe uses vivid imagery, dark tones, vindictive symbolism, elaborate word choice, and heavy foreshadowing to create a short story shrouded in mystery and malice. These literary elements give us a narrator who appears to be utterly mad, driving him to do unspeakable acts of evil. The grave plot does not, however, serve simply as a horror story. It also serves as a warning about our relationship with the evil deeds we have committed and will in the future. Poe, through the malevolently insane narrator, creates a dark story with an overarching theme that truth will prevail no matter how grim the situation.

In "The Black Cat", Poe's narrator uses vivid imagery to elaborate on the horrible atrocities he commits to his poor cat and innocuous wife. The narrator recounts the murder of his doomed cat Pluto by stating that he "slipped a noose about its [the cat] neck and hung it to the limb of a tree" (Poe 2). Further along, the narrator describes how he "buried the axe in her [his wife] brain" and how she, likewise, "fell dead upon the spot, without a groan" (Poe 3). This vivid, gruesome, and matter-of-fact imagery of atrocities creates a dark and sadistic theme. The malevolent theme produces incredible tension and anticipation and foreshadows the grim situations the come to light in the story. 

The narrator also makes use of elaborate word choice and dark tones to underscore his madness. He uses large, complex wording and phrasing in a failed attempt to sound worldly and educated. Of the cat, he writes, it "followed [his] footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend" (Poe 3). Moreover, as the police search his home for his dead wife, the narrator claims that his "heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence" (Poe 3). One might ask: Who in his right mind could remain so calm after ruthlessly killing his spouse? The narrator's composed and eloquent word and sentence choices make him seem rather Hannibal Lecter-esque. Hannibal, a fictional serial killer and cannibal, also speaks calmly and measures his words carefully to cloak his evil nature. I see an eerie parallel between Lecter's speech patterns and our narrator's. Both are understated in their madness. The narrator's writing produces a devilish quality. His are clearly the utterings of a real madman. 

In addition to madness, vividly gruesome imagery, and eerily eloquent wording, the narrator uses dark symbolism paired with foreshadowing to paint a chilling scene. First, the narrator describes a "figure of a gigantic cat" with a "rope about [its] neck," which is burnt into the one standing wall of his charred house (Poe 2). Next, he describes the depiction of the gallows in his new cat's fur, going momentarily insane, exclaiming, "oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and Crime -- of Agony and of Death!"(Poe 3). The symbolism behind these two events clearly foreshadows the narrator's own demise. These symbols of death and demise painted a very dark picture in my mind. When visualizing the story, I see it entirely in monochromatic grey tones, similar to an old black-and-white movie. When the narrator describes his charred, ruined house, he claims to see on the white wall a "figure of a gigantic cat" (Poe 2). When imagining this scene in my head, I the wall as a clean white with a demonic looking, black charcoal impression burned into it. The gray scale shading I envision makes the story even more intriguing. This foreshadowing further supports the argument that everyone, in the end, will pay for the evil things they have done.

Once the story reaches its conclusion, the narrator is clearly in prison for the murder of his poor wife and writing a memoir of sorts. In the first lines of the story he tells us "to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul" (Poe 1). Once he was taken into custody after his wife's body was found behind the sealed wall, the narrator was most likely found guilty and sentenced to death. The foreshadowing came true. The truth, as always, prevailed.

          In "The Black Cat", Edgar Allen Poe, through his narrator, creates a scene of utter madness and chaos. For much of the story, no meaning can be found. The narrator, eerily calm and sadistic, recounts how he tortured and killed a cat and murdered his innocent wife. As the story concludes, however, the meaning becomes quite clear: No matter how grave or chaotic the world may seem, the truth--whether we like it or not--will prevail. Our narrator believes his evil deeds will be without consequence. But, unfortunately for him, he was caught. As we can see, the narrator is locked in a jail cell, awaiting his own execution in the morning. No one, the story tells us, gets away with evil deeds. There is always a day of reckoning. 

