Into the Cellar: Descent into Madness in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” Anonymous College

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” written in 1843 is a short story about the psychology of a murderer and his descent into madness. The story is about an unnamed man who proclaims a love for animals from a young age and he marries a woman who shares his fondness for keeping pets. He continues this hobby and accumulates many pet animals, all in the joyful space of their shared home. The setting of the story is predominantly in the home and the narrators struggle with alcoholism and his inner demons turns a safe, domestic space into one of terror and maliciousness. The home that used to be a protected and loving space, for both its human and animal inhabitants, turns to a wicked place as the narrator allows his violent nature to take over. The home is a physical representation of the narrator’s transformation into a murderer and his mental decrepitude parallels the state of the homes he lives in throughout the story.

The unnamed narrator always had affection for animals: “I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets” (Poe 24). His explicitly stating this fact offers readers a glimpse into his happy childhood, even though it is made aware in the first paragraph that this is a tale...