2. Abstract
In this paper the author to analyze “The Black Cat” by Richard WrigEdgar
Allan Poe . The purpose is to analyze and explain the reason behind the
behavioral change of The Black Cat’s Narator by his psychology .The
narator who was once an animal lover gradually changed into an animal
abuse and abuser. Theories that used are textual, cotextual, and
hypertextual by close reading method.
Keywords: TheBlack Cat , EdgarAllan Poe , psychology
3. 1. Introduction
"The Black Cat" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe.
It was first published in the August 19, 1843, edition
of The Saturday Evening Post. It is a study of the
psychology of guilt, often paired in analysis with
Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart". The story is presented as
a first person narative using an unreliable narrator.
He is a condemned man at the outset of the story.
The narrator tells us that from an early age he has
loved animals and suddenly the narrator behavior
change into an animal abuse and abuser .
4. 2. Theory & Method
Intrinsic Theory
Characters and Characterizations
ü “ Character can be defined as any person, animal,
or figure represented in a literary work. Every
story must have main characters. These are the
characters that will have the greatest effect on the
plot or are the most affected by what happens in
the story. A protagonist is a main character who
generates the action of a story and engages the
reader's interest and empathy. An antagonist is a
character who opposes the protagonist.”
ü “Characterization is a literary device that is used
step by step in literature to highlight and explain
the details about a character in a story.”
5. Extrinsic Theory
• Psychology
According to Dictionary of Psychology, Reber (1995) wrote:
“Psychology simply cannot be defined; indeed, it cannot even
be easily characterized . Psy-nchology is what scientists and
philosophers of various persuasions have created to understand
the minds and behaviors of various organisms from the most
primitive to the most complex . It is an attempt to understand
what has so far pretty much escaped understanding, and any
effort to circumscribe it or box it in is to imply that something
is known about the edges of our knowledge, and that must be
wrong. (p. 617)” .
6. Method
Textual Method
Close Reading
“Close Reading of text involves an investigation of a short
piece of text, with multiple readings done over multiple
instructional lessons.”
Contextual Method
Psychoanalysis
• Psychoanalysis is a method of therapy. It includes
discussion and investigation of hidden fears and conflicts.
Sigmund Freud used free association. He would try to
get his patients to free their minds and say whatever they
were thinking. He also had them talk about their dreams
to try to explore their unconscious fears and desires.
7. Freud described personality by dividing it into three main subjects;
personality structure, personality dynamics and personality
development. This work uses the defense mechanisms which
occurs within the personality dynamics to analyze the The Black
Cat characters in the short story.
• Irrational : The term irrational is often used in psychotherapy and
the concept of irrationality is especially known in rational emotive
behavior therapy originated and developed by American
psychologist Albert Ellis. In this approach, the term irrational is
used in a slightly different way than in general. Here irrationality is
defined as the tendency and leaning that humans have to act,
emote and think in ways that are inflexible, unrealistic, absolutist
and most importantly self-defeating and socially defeating and
destructive.
• 2. Perversion : a type of human behavior that deviates from that
which is understood to be orthodox or normal. Perversion differs
from deviant behavior, in that the latter covers areas of behavior
(such as petty crime) for which perversion would be too strong a
term.
8. • 3. Guilt : a cognitive or an emotional experience
that occurs when a person believes or realizes—
accurately or not—that he or she has
compromised his or her own standards of
conduct or has violated a moral standard and
bears significant responsibility for that violation.
It is closely related to the concept of remorse.
9. 3. Research Object
The objects of research are sorted into a material and formal
object. Material object in this study is The Black Cat by Edgar
Allan Poe . Formal object of this research is a Psychology
analysis character .
10. 4. Biography and The Story
Biography
• Edgar Allan Poe was born January 19, 1809,
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. American short-
story writer, poet, critic, and editor Edgar Allan
Poe's tales of mystery and horror initiated the
modern detective story, and the atmosphere in
his tales of horror is unrivaled in American
fiction. His The Raven (1845) numbers among
the best-known poems in national literature.
11. Summary of The Black Cat
• In Edgar Allen Poe's The Black Cat, the main character is a man leading a
happy life with his wife and many household pets. His favorite pets is a
black cat, Pluto. The main character, however, becomes overwhelmed with
alcohol and in turn, becomes more irritable. He also feels suspicious that
the cat is avoiding him for some reason. The main character begins to hate
his former friend. One night, after coming home intoxicated with alcohol,
Plutos cratches the man’s hand and in turn has his right eye cut out. The cat
fears the man now, hiding from him at every turn. The man gets enraged,
and out of anger and sorrow at his lost friend, hangs the cat by the neck
from a tree branch. Almost as suddenly, a new cat appears a
black one with only a splash of white on his chest can tell him apart from
Pluto. Eventually the man grows to loathe this cat as well and attempts to
murder him with an axe. His wife stops him and is rewarded with an axe in
her head. Attempting to hide the corpse, the main character buries his dead
wife in the cellar wall. He raps on the wall in front of some policemen
cockily showing he has nothing to hide but then the cat is heard screeching
from inside. He had accidentally walled the cat up in the tomb. The police
reveal what the man has done and his punishment is to be hung.
12. 5. Discussion
5.1 Textual Discussion
5.1.1 Characters & Characterization
• The Narrator: The narrator has some major issues. This
unnamed character is an abusive bully and a murderer. He
made home a living hell for his wife, pets, and himself. In
addition to the details of his heinous crimes, he reveals his
psychological transformation from “nice guy” to villain.
• The Narrator’s Wife: The brief outline the narrator suggests to
us of his wife states that she is kind, giving, loyal, and even
heroic at the end. She is a highly sympathetic character , in her
own right .
• Pluto: Pluto is fine specimen of a cat. All black, large, fuzzy, and
sagacious to an astonishing degree. Over the years Pluto moves
from a pampered pet to an abused beast. He is blinded and
ultimately murdered by his owner. The narrator makes us
believe that he is actually a witch in disguise, transforming from
which to Pluto, to the second black cat.
• Second Black Cat, a cat that resembles the first black cat and
may be a reincarnation of the latter–or so the narrator may
think.
13. 5.2 Contextual Analysis
• 5.2.1 Psychoanalysis
• Short story, “The Black Cat” portrays three main
psychological aspects of the human mind that include
irrationality, perversity, and guilt. From the beginning of the
story, it is clearly understood that the main character is
superstitious. He recalls his wife’s words as “mywife,…,
made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which
regarded all black cats as witches in disguise”. The narator
calls his wife superstitious, but as the story proceeds,it can
be seen that he is far more superstitious himself. Moreover,
the narator begins to believe in the reincarnation of the black
cat. Upon seeing the second cat, he quickly brings into mind
the appearance of Pluto and how both catsresemble.
“It was a black cat a very large one- fully as large as Pluto,
and closelyresembling him in every respect but one”.
14. His mind is full of these irrational beliefs that scare
him and lead him to the hatred of the second cat and
the murder of his beloved wife.
“…, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I
was yet withheld from doing so, partlyit at by a
memory of my former crime, but chiefly-- let me
confess it at once-- by absolute dread of the beast”
Therefore, the superstition in the mind of the main
character is his primaryreason for killing the second
cat.
In addition to this, the author in “The Black Cat”
expresses “the spirit of perverseness” through his main
character. Perverseness can be characterized as a
conscious persistency in doing wrong,even to the
loved ones. This condition is always followed by guilt,
which is another psychological aspect of the story.
15. If the story is not read analytically, the reader can say
that his aggressiveness is due to his consumption of
alcohol,consequently,making him a violent murderer.
Furthermore, if it is readwith deeper exploration, the
cause of his violence comes out to be his perverseness.
“this spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final
overthrow…to offer violence to its own nature to do
wrong for the wrong’s sake only that urged me to
continue and finally toconsummate the injury I had
inflicted upon the unoffending brute.”
Psychologists describe impulses as a radical imbalance
of behavior and an original sinof the theologians, but the
author puts a much vivid light on it. He explains that
once an idea or impulsehits the mind of a person, he
cannot resist from acting upon it.
16. 6. Conclusion
The analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The
Black Cat” as perceived through the lens of
psychoanalytic discourse has shown that fictional
reality in this story, as perceived by the narrator, is
greatly unreliable on the account of the fact that the
psychoanalytic inquiry of his actions has shown
considerable discrepancies in his perception of reality
which is tinctured by the inclusion of supernatural
elements within the narration. The analysis has also
concluded that “The Black Cat” can be interpreted as
a narrative dealing not with the supernatural, but
rather with the natural and the causal.
