Seydnas L .

Noceja
11- STEM

The Black Cat

by Edgar Allan Poe
( Published 1845 )

Characters:
 The narrator. This character is an abusive bully and a murderer. He made home
a living hell for his wife, pets, and himself.
 The narrators wife. she is kind, giving, loyal, and even heroic at the end. She is
a highly sympathetic character, in her own right.
 First black cat. A cat named pluto that loves the narrator but irritates him when it
follows him everywhere
 The second black cat. looks almost exactly like Pluto. He's big, black, and
missing an eye. The only difference is the white spot.
 Policemen. officers who investigate the happenings at the home of the narrator.

Settings:
The story is about the bad things that can happen at home. The story opens in the cell of the
prisoner the day before he is to be executed by hanging. After introducing himself to the
readers as a man who underwent a horrifying experience, the prisoner writes down the
details of his experience, which led to his imprisonment and scheduled execution. The
event in this 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.
Plot:
The Black Cat” delivers all of the spooky elements that make a terrifying and haunting tale.
However, it also explores the themes including battling with alcoholism, the dangers of
domestic violence, and the ultimate judgment that follows sins.The story’s narrator is an
animal lover who, as he descends into alcoholism violence, begins mistreating his wife
and his black cat Pluto. When Pluto attacks him in self-defense one night, he seizes the
cat in a fury, cuts out one of its eyes, and hangs it. That night a fire destroys his house,
leaving him in dire poverty. He later adopts a one-eyed black cat that he finds at a low-
life tavern, but after he nearly trips on the cat, he attempts to kill it too. When his wife
intervenes, he kills her instead and calmly conceals her in a wall. In the end the black
cat reveals the narrator’s crime to the police.

Conflict:
Exposition
Old man is introduced as an alcoholic, who married young and his household has
many pets, but his favorite is his black cat Pluto.
Rising action
Hangs cat and house catches on fire. His crazy actions rage on with his
intemperance.
Climax
Narrator murders his wife after she stops his attempt to rid of the cat.
Falling action
The narrator hides the body of his wife in the wall
Resolution
Police discover the deads wife’s corpse is hidden within the wall along with the black
cat with white fur.

Point Of View:
The point of view of this story is first-person. The first person is a narrator that is a
participant in the events and one of the character in the story, he can tell the ability of
telling thoughts of all characters of the story. The narrator is also a first person because
he's talking about things that he did or things that happened to him, rather than things
he watched, or heard about. And You know the narrator is a person because he or she
uses pronouns like "I," and "me.