Assignment 12: The Black Cat

     After reading the "Black Cat", by Edgar Allen Poe I think that the story is mostly about the values of trust, self-injuries, betrayal, and how a relationship can easily be turned into hatred. This story has trust within it because at the beginning, the narrator is a kind man who loves his animals and who is in a loving marriage with his wife. His favorite pet was the black cat. Animals are very loving and trustworthy. They don't care weather you are short, tall, smart, dumb, all they want is to feel the love that they give you.

     The beginning of the story, where the man is loving his animals, the cat loves him back until one day the cat starts to bug him. When the man starts to change, he doesn't like the cat as much and his marriage starts going down hill. This is the time in his life where he starts to let alcohol control his actions and his life. Then one day the man got so annoyed by the cat that he decided to kill him. He strangled him with a white rope. This is the part of the story where betrayal takes place. The cat was betrayed by the man because with  all the love that he gave him, what he got in return was not what he deserved. As his alcoholism was getting worse, he started to betray his wife, maybe not by big things but just by having the alcohol. A relationship can so easily be turned into hatred, by little things, but with the man he changed his whole life by allowing himself to drink the alcohol, and get as bad as he did.

     I believe that the first black was used as a symbol of the good, loving times that he has now in his life. He was blessed with a loving wife, and the ability to love animals so much. When he killed the first black cat, he was getting annoyed because he started to drink and that made his temper worse and him more moodier. When the second black cat came into his life, it was a symbol of the bad that was in his life now. The white spot that was located in the breast of the cat, symbolized the white rope that he killed the first cat with. I think that when the second black cat came, it was a sign that what he did was wrong and that all the cat wanted was to be loved, just like the love that he gave to the man, and that something else was going to happen if he didn't stop drinking. Then later in the story he kills his wife and puts her in the wall of the house. When the police realized that the woman was gone, they knew it was the man. Then the man gets sent to jail. I think that the cats could be a symbol of the good he had in his life at the time, but by letting the drinking into his life, he was betraying his family and letting bad come into the family.