Confession and Optimistic Moral Plot: Analysis of Poe’ “The Black Cat”

Introduction: It's a World Literature Analysis about " The Black Cat" by Allan Poe. It dwells confession as genre and the correlation between confession and moral plot.

“The Black Cat” is viewed as one of the Poe’s masterpieces in a confession genre. In this essay, I demonstrate that “The Black Cat” is a literary confession and an optimistic moral tale. The tale reaches optimistic moral conclusions about human existence through a literary confession.

The part analyzes the “The Black Cat” as a romantic tale. Compared with a realistic tale with an explicit logic, a romantic tale contains contradictions that cannot be explained logically. For instance, in “The Black Cat,” the pronoun of two cats changes arbitrarily between “it” and “he.” “It” and “he “are different words but all represent cats, so in the tale,“it” is not only “it”, it is equals to “he”. In other words, “it” or “he” is used in the same context in “The Black Cat”. However, “it” and “he” are contradicted because “it” is used in the animal while “he” is used in human usually. Hence, romantic tale usually has the kind of contradiction. It argues that things are what they are while two unconnected things can be equal and put together. A romantic tale can jump out of logic and reality. That is a big feature that I find in “The Black Cat” as a romantic tale.

Furthermore, there is the second characteristic of “ The Black Cat” as a romantic tale. The central images and characters move from and to and acquire direct and implicit meanings in three areas presenting the structure of the world according to Christian mythology: heaven, earth, and hell. In “The Black Cat,” Pluto, the narrator and his wife, and the second cat are presented to heaven, earth, and hell. In a further explanation, the first cat, Pluto, is a symbol of heaven. First, Pluto shows desirable characteristics. It is friendly and sweet. Second, killing Pluto leads to a house burning. That is a reminder from heaven for narrator’s evil. As for the narrator, as well as his wife, has two-side qualities. They represent earth because goodness and evilness are both exited on earth. Readers can make a moral judgment to attribute to the narrator’s behavior. furthermore, the second giant black cat represents hell. It is evil and gives a punishment of hell to the narrator. Specifically, at the end of the tale, “ Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire and hideous beast…”(859). That is an image of Devil from hell brought by the second black cat. A direct indication is given to the narrator due to his evil spirit. He has to confront a punishment of hell.

Summarily, “The Black Cat”, as a romantic tale, contains the three area mentioned at the beginning: heaven, earth, and hell. This structure of the world is from Christian mythology that Christian believe heaven is relevant to God, light, hope, and justice while hell is connected with Devil, evil, darkness, and injustice. The earth is the place where has both sides of good and bad. Thus, the three areas of the world structure another feature of “ The Black Cat” as a romantic tale.

Since two black cats play important roles in the tale, this part speaks meanings and functions of the two cats. Pluto and the second black cat have similar meanings. Two of them are presented to the earthly, heavenly, and devilish meanings. First, Pluto and the second cat are both earthly animals and pets for the character. Two cats are raised as pets by the narrator and are murdered by his evil. They are normal and weak animals mastered by humans. Second, two cats bring prophetic or Godly reminders of punishments. For instance, torturing Pluto gives the narrator “a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse”(854). That can be regarded as a Godly warming to condemn potential evil in the character’s mind. Similarly, the second black cat increases the partiality of the character towards himself and pushes him to confess the previous crime. The appearance of the second cat arouses the guilt and the fear of the narrator. That represents a second warming to the evil spirit of the character.

Third, two cats are incarnations of the Devil. The character breaks the golden moral rule: do to others what you want to be done to you, and he hurt the two cats which are friendly to him. That opens the door to the evilness. Murdering Pluto unlocks the triumphant evil in narrator’s mind. Likewise, the second black cat’s coming flourishes the evil thought of the character. When the character sees “upon (the cat’s) head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire” (859), it is the Devil brought by the second cat. Concludingly, Pluto and the second cat are the Devil incarnation to stimulate the evil spirit of the narrator.

After an introduction of the tale and characters, this analysis asserts “The Black Cat” as a confession. Here are the proofs: First, in the first paragraph of “The Black Cat,” the narrator writes, “but to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul” (851). The sentence indicates that the narrator is going to confess his sin next and unburthen his soul. He wants to improve his situation by telling some truth. Second, the tale reads, “I neither expect nor solicit belief” (851). The words speak out the sin of the narrator to get forgiveness from his addressee. Hence, two proofs in the first sentence state the tale a confession.

Since “The Black Cat” is proved as a profession, this part further analyzes the four types of confession, the kind of confession of “The Black Cat” and evidence, and common features of the confession.

Here to introduce four kinds of confession in the life. The first one is a confession of faith. It is a confession that confessing people ask to be accepted into a certain religious community due to their desire or for their own sake. The second type is a religious confession. The confessing people, usually Catholic or Cristian, speak out their sin to God or priest to wash their soul. Another confession is a legal confession. It makes a confession by following certain rules or laws to ask for a slight legal penalty. The last one is a literary confession. That is written by a writer and the addressee are all human beings. These four types of confession are often adopted in the life.

Since the four kinds of confession are introduced, here to discuss the confession type of “The Black Cat.” I demonstrate “The Black Cat” a literary confession. It can be proved by three places in the first paragraph. First, “pen” in the first sentence directly indicates that the character is going to write his confession literarily. Second, a literary confession speaks to peers or humans. In the fourth sentence, “world” implicates that the addressee of the confession is human beings in general, instead of God or a court judge. Third, in the last two sentences, “many they” and “intellect” also demonstrates the community of human beings are the addressee because there can be a number of humans but only one God. Hence, the three evidence can prove the tale is a literary confession.

The reason why a confession is necessary for life should be considered. Here to talk about the common features of religious, legal and literary confession that can explain the importance of the confession. First, a confession takes place as a key point of human life. That means confession is important to humans’ life. For example, according to the Bible, Cristian have six work days and a holy day. Cristian go to church and make a confession to God in the holy day. It is because they want to arrange their life with a higher principle and look to a high level of spirit. They believe heaven and hell after death. If a human wants to go heaven, he should confess in his lifetime. In this way, the confession can clean humans’ soul and raise their thoughts. That is why it is essential in the human life. Second, a confession starts at a moment in the past and narrates the events from this moment to the moment of confessing. In the “The Black Cat”, the narrator begins with his memories of his domestic pets, two black cats, and his murders. They all happened in the past and before the narrators wrote out them as a confession. In other words, the confession never starts with things that do not happen yet. It is a narrative of the past events and the sin happened before. Thus, making a confession is a way to think and reflect the past life and adjust the current situation. Third, the goal or purpose of confession is to improve the moral status of the confessing people. A wrongdoer can receive a moral condemnation and trapped into an awkward situation, so they choose to speak out their sin to ask for a forgiveness and get their situation better. In other words, a confession is out of significance if it cannot improve the moral status of people. That requests an honesty of a confessing person and push him to speak the truth. Hence, the four features of religious,legall and literary confession can demonstrate the significance of itself.

Back to the literature, “The Black Cat” as a confession come from fabula but offers moral plot. This part analyze the fabula and the plot. there is a tension between a fabula and a plot in “The Black Cat.” A fabula is narrated events following a chronological order. That is one thing happens after another. A plot is the narrated events following a logical order, which is one thing happens because of another. A moral plot is about moral guilt or right and wrong, and an amoral plot is about natural causes and effects without a moral judgment. Under the given definition, the tension between a fabula and a plot in literary confession is that the literary confession pretends to be a fabula or an amoral plot (an objective logical narrative), but, in fact, is a moral plot (a subjective logical narrative).

Three cases in the “The Black Cat” can explain the tension. The first two cases are in the first paragraph. First, the narrator promises his “immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events” (851). That implicates a relevance of the events he confesses. That is a fabula. In the second case, he writes “in their consequences, these events have terrified…” (851). That shows a moral plot because he believes the events are penalties for his moral guilt and he is terrified. However, he changes the moral plot into amoral plot next: “…nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects” (852). It means the narrator alter his words not to pass an ethics judgment. He wants readers to believe the causes and effects of the events have no relevance with his guilt. Summarily, in the first paragraph, although the narrator promises his reader a fabula, he gives a moral plot. Then he offers an amoral plot rather than continuing his moral plot. The two cases show the tension between the fabula and the plot.

Additionally, the third case is when the narrator experience house burning. The house of the narrator burns down and the carcass of the first cat is imprinted as a bas-relief on the wall of the burnt house. For that, the narrator suggests “the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effects”(852). That is a fabula. However, the fabula turns to the amoral plot afterword. The print of the cat is just because of a physical and chemical phenomenon, which only have scientific causes and effects. That is an amoral plot. Unexpectedly, the amoral plot is changed to a moral plot next. There is a hidden correlation between the events showed in the subtext. The subtext is the meaning behind the literary text that shows an implication or correlation of events. Accordingly, the burning of the house is shown as a moral problem--the murder of Pluto leads to a punishment reminiscent of hell. The house burning, as well as the words “flames,”” blazing,” and “conflagration,” indicates the fire in the hell that may bring the punishment to his evil. Therefore, the third case shows the tension between fabula, amoral plot and moral plot.

According to the analysis below, the tale is a moral plot. This part is to analyze the relationship between a confession and a moral plot. Confession as a genre corrects moral evil. The religious, legal, literary confessions are made to restore the moral disorder to a moral order.

A moral order is a moral behavior that can pass a moral judgment. Oppositely, a moral disorder is crime and evil. The moral order is given at the beginning of the story. The narrator stated to tell his life with pets and his wife. It seems everything goes well.

Nevertheless, the evil of the narrators is presented in a short way as it grows: the blinding and hanging of the first cat is portrayed with more details than the murder of the wife. Then it comes to the moral chaos, which are his insobriety, spirit of perverseness, nihilism and other forms of evil. The moral chaos or moral disorder appear and replace the moral order in the tale.

Then, at the end of the story, the narrator saw the Devil from the hell and get the penalty. The punishment of hell comes to the evil and moral judgment is clear again. It is because the confession restores the moral chaos into a moral order. The evil is admitted, punished and rejected and the goodness is recognized, desired and affirmed. It returns to the optimistic moral principle that people get what they deserve at the end. Therefore, a confession can restore a moral disorder to an optimistic moral order.

Summarily, “The Black Cat” is a literary confession and an optimistic moral tale. Poe uses the literary confession to reach the optimistic side of humanities. An optimistic conclusion to the tale asserts that human can find a way to restrain and overcome evilness and have a good life.

Work Cited

Poe, Edgar, Allan. “The Black Cat.” PoeStories.com: An Exploration of Short Stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Aug. 3, 2012. Web. https://poestories.com/read/blackcat.Accessed Dec.8, 2017.