1. 4/26/2017
The Black Cat
-----Edgar Allan Poe

2. My Reading Experiences
Edgar Allan Poe
The Black Cat
Discussion

3. “” Literary style and themes: Gothic Questions of death
4/26/2017
Literary style and themes: Gothic
Questions of death
physical signs;
the effects of decomposition;
concerns of premature burial;
the reanimation of the dead;
mourning “”
Poe suffered from the deleterious effects of alcohol consumption throughout his life.

4. The Black Cat "The Black Cat" is first printed on August 19, 1843,
The story is presented as a first-person narrative using an unreliable narrator
 it's a story about domestic violence and brutal murder
 It's the death-row confession of nameless man who destroys himself, his wife, and his pets.
The Black Cat

5. Summary

6. #1
Mellow & Kind
Cut out one of the cat’s eye

7. #2 House burns down Looks just like Pluto
4/26/2017
House burns down
Looks just like Pluto
Hangs Pluto from a tree, killing him
France Telecom Group confidential

8. #3
When the cat follows the man and his wife down to the cellar of the old house they have to live in, he tries to kill it with an axe. “”
His wife stops him and he kills her instead
walling up her body in the cellar  

9. “” #4 He hits the wall behind which the dead body is hidden.
The voice of the cat responds, and the police tear down the wall and find the body, with the black cat sitting on its head.

10. Genre / tone / writing / style
Symbolism /
Imagery /
Allegory /
Narrator point of view
Genre / tone / writing / style
Characters
Scene
Setting

11. Murdered Slave in America
France Telecom Group confidential

12. Why The Man Went Out of Control ?

13. 4/26/2017
“The fantastic explores the indefinite boundary between the real and the supernatural. The fantastic is a literary category that contains elements of both the rational and the irrational .”

14. Why The Man Went Out of Control ?
The Spirit of Perverseness

15. The spirit of PERVERSENESS”
what makes people do things
they know will be bad for
themselves and others

16. 4/26/2017
Who has not , a hundred times， found himself committing a vile or a silly action， for no other reason than because he knows he should not？ Have we not a perpetual inclination， in the teeth of our best judgment， to violate that which is Law ， merely because we understand it to be such？ This spirit of perverseness， I say， came to my final overthrow.
The Black Cat

17. 4/26/2017 “”
Why Do We Do Things
We Know Will Be Bad for Us ?

18. 4/26/2017
Insane
Taking normal human behavior to extremes

19. 4/26/2017
What evil is ?
Where does it come from ?

20. Evil Local, small-time, even ordinary.
4/26/2017
Evil
Local, small-time, even ordinary.
Mass murderers, serial killers, the totalitarian bureaucracy of Orwell's 1984, the Nazis
All humans have a shred of this kind of evil inside them.

21. 4/26/2017 “”
Will We Always Be So Lucky ?