The Black Cat

Hubris is a tragic flaw originating in ancient Greek drama; it corresponds loosely to pride, but with connotations of blasphemy in that it involves seeking to surpass one’s lot as a human rather than a god. The narrator of “The Black Cat” attempts to subvert the prophetic image of the gallows by walling his wife up, but he then boasts to the investigating police in a way that ensures his capture. Even then, the narrator does not take responsibility for the murder but sees the cat as playing an instrumental role. Thus, he does not learn from his tragic flaw, writing his tale with minimal self-awareness about how his alcohol addiction and mental state spurred his actions.

Unreliable narrators are narrators who, for one reason or another, cannot be trusted to record events accurately. They may intentionally deceive readers, but this is not a prerequisite; a narrator can be unreliable because they lack self-awareness or the ability to understand what is happening around them.

The narrator of “The Black Cat” is unreliable, as his stated intentions frequently do not match his actions. He claims to record facts objectively, yet tiny provocations drive him to commit unspeakably cruel acts, painting an image of a volatile rather than rational personality. He urges his imagined reader to take his representations at face value and make no supernatural inferences, but he continually references superstitions, ghosts, evil, Satan, and hell. The way in which he relays events often suggests causal connections—e.g., the murder of Pluto and the house burning down—that he simultaneously disavows.

What is less clear is how much each “type” of unreliability informs the narration. The narrator may be attempting to rationalize his actions to himself as much as to others, or his mental illness may lead him to reporting events inaccurately without knowing it. His justification for including details like the suspicions surrounding black cats—to make his narrative as complete as possible—suggests that he is somewhat aware readers may question his narrative. However, this only pushes the question back one step, raising the issue of how “reliable” he is in his unreliability: The justification could be a straightforward lie, an example of self-deception, an attempt at misdirection (i.e., an effort to provoke certain suspicions rather than others), etc.

Regardless of its particular nature, the narrator’s unreliability is a focal point of all three themes. It is an example of The Consequences of Alcohol Addiction, which fuels the narrator’s cruelty and perhaps clouds his judgment. It dramatizes the debate concerning The Sources of Sin, as the narrator variously ascribes his behavior to external influences and internal tendencies. Finally, it evokes the question of Science Versus the Supernatural, with the mind itself one of the mysteries Romantic writers like Poe believed science could not explain.