The Black Cat

1. Discuss the significance: There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of man.”
-There is love, but it is often tested by conciousness.

2. How does the description of the cat as “sagacious” contribute to the meaning of the story?
-The cat was smart.

3. What is the significance of the cat’s name, Pluto?
-It was a good cat. Pluto is big planet and so is the cat’s friendship.

4. What is the significance of the narrator’s change of disposition from docile and tender to “…more moody, more irritable and regardless of the feelings of others”?
-The narrator hates anything that he used to love.

5. Why did the narrator initially restrain himself from maltreating the cat while maltreating the other animals?
-He loves the cat.

6. Why does he eventually mistreat the cat?
-He did not like the cat. His hatred made him mistreat the cat.

7. Describe the narrator’s feelings after abusing the cat. What is the significance?
-He felt guilty but at the same time he felt good about it.

8. How does the narrator define “perverseness? Do you agree with his definition? Do you agree that it is human nature?
-Perverseness is when he wants to do something so bad which he knows isn’t the right thing to do. I agree with him, because everybody does something bad once in their lifetime. It just depends on how bad it is.

9. Significance: [I] hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason for offence; because I knew that in doing so I was committing a sin.”
-It says that even thought I love him, I hung him because I know that what I did was wrong.

10. Discuss the significance of the fire. How does the narrator explain the phenomenon he discovers after the fire? What does the phenomenon symbolize?
-Fire represents anger in him of how much he hated everything that he used to love. He saw a portrait of a cat on the wall.

11. What is significant about the new cat and his markings? What does the cat symbolize?
-The new cat looks like pluto, but he have white marking on its chest. The cat symbolized loved to him but then it turned into hatred.

12. Discuss: “And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast to work out for me – whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed – a brute beast to work out for me – for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God – so much of insufferable woe!”
-He’s in some kind of pain, because of what he did to Pluto and he now feel resentment toward the new cat.

13. Why is it significant that this cat will not leave the narrator alone?
-The cat love the narrator, because he’s the cat’s friend.

14. How does the fact that the narrator kills his wife instead of the cat add to the meaning of the story?
-He is a twisted man and he would do anything to get to his goal. He also doesn’t have any feelings anymore. He just doesn’t care about anything or anybody.

15. What is significant about the narrator’s method of disposing of the body?
-He is smart and think through clearly, and he is a very proud man of his works.

16. Discuss the significance, “I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole thing up as before, so that no eye could detect anything suspicious.
-He’s trying to think of a way to buried his wife’s corpe. He doesn’t want anybody to find out about it.

17. Why is the narrator able to sleep well after he conceals the body?
-He is at last peaceful, because there’s no one to bother him, and he feels proud of his works.

18. Significance: “Once again I breathed as a free man.”
-He is relief, because there’s no onw to bother him anymore.

19. Why does the narrator feel triumphant when the police arrive?
-He thinks that no one’s going to know or find the evident.

20. Discuss the syntax and punctuation in the following: “No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! – by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into a one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman – a howl a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult in damnation!”
-He hears a crying sound and then it got louder and worsen until it’s too much to bear.

21. How do you explain the ending? Discuss the symbolism.
-The ending was suprising, because he ended up telling the police about what he did. The scary part was the cat in a tomb with the wife’s corpe. I think it symbolized that the cat liked the wife better.