“The Black Cat”

By Edgar Allan Poe

Name: _______________________________________

1. What is the name of the black cat?

2. Describe the man’s personality at the beginning of the story and compare/contrast it
with the man’s personality at the end of the story. What do you think is the cause of this
change?

3. How does the narrator feel about animals? Infer why he feels this way.

4. Name the 6 kinds of animals the couple owns.

1) 2)

3) 4)

5) 6)

5. What “ancient popular notion” did the wife believe, as far as the cat is concerned?

6. What caused the narrator to gouge out the cat’s eye?

7. How did the narrator feel about carving out the cat’s eye? What did the narrator do to
combat this feeling?

8. How did the narrator kill Pluto? What was his reasoning for this action?

9. What was the only thing left standing after the fire?

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 “The Black Cat”
By Edgar Allan Poe

10. How did the narrator explain finding the cat’s figure in the ruins?

11. What was different about the appearance of the new cat?

12. What made the man so angry that he raised an axe to the new cat?

13. Who ended up murdered by the axe?

14. What did he decide to do with the body?

15. Was the narrator more concerned with the murder or the cat? What can we infer about
the narrator’s sanity because of this? Explain your reasoning.

16. What happened when the narrator tapped on the brick?

17. What was the “beast” the narrator spoke of, that was on top of the corpse?

18. Describe the irony in the narrator’s tapping on the bricks while the police were in the
cellar.

19. What type of character (round or flat) would you say the narrator is? Explain your
reasoning.

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 “The Black Cat”
By Edgar Allan Poe

20. What type of conflict(s) occurred in this story? Explain your reasoning for each
answer.

21. List the elements that make this story part of the “horror” genre.

22. Write an essay that compares/contrasts the events/characters in this story to those in
Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart or another horror story you have read.

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