Response on Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Story The Black Cat

This short story is a typical Poe short story and I like is very much although it is violent: It is a story about a man who is haunted by a mental disease which lets him maltreat his animals and even his wife. When his disease becomes worse he even hangs his favourite black cat named Pluto and kills his wife with an axe.

The first paragraph is very interesting since the teller knows that he is going to die soon and furthermore emphasizes that he is not insane. But reading further one can see his insanity. Only an insane person could behave like this. I mean who could mistreat animals? Or kill his wife?

I like the mysterious elements in the story, for instance, when the teller discovers “the figure of a gigantic cat” on the wall they day after he had killed his black cat and his house had burnt down. Or under which circumstances the police finds out about the murder of his wife.

All in all, this story strongly reminds me on two Steven King novels, namely The Shining in which an alcohol addicted writer moves with his family into a hotel in order to be a house keeper. But he becomes haunted by ghosts who let him try to kill his family with an axe. The other novel this short story reminds me of is Pet Semetary. When the second black cat appears after the teller had hung Pluto I thought is was the revived version of Pluto. So it would be interesting to find out if Steven King’s novels are based on this short story.