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Edgar Allan PoeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Content Warning: This section references animal cruelty, alcohol addiction, domestic violence, and mental illness.
Foreshadowing is a literary device that clues readers into a narrative’s eventual outcome. In this tale, the second cat’s tuft of white hair, which takes the shape of a gallows, prefigures the narrator’s eventual capture for the murder of his wife. The narrator interprets this image as an omen and ascribes it to the black cat’s supposedly evil nature. He reckons the second cat to be the cause of his misfortune and current misery, refusing to acknowledge his own agency in the deed for which he is to face execution.
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.
By Edgar Allan Poe
A Dream Within a Dream
Edgar Allan Poe
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe
Berenice
Edgar Allan Poe
Hop-Frog
Edgar Allan Poe
Ligeia
Edgar Allan Poe
Tamerlane
Edgar Allan Poe
The Cask of Amontillado
Edgar Allan Poe
The Conqueror Worm
Edgar Allan Poe
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
Edgar Allan Poe
The Fall of the House of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe
The Gold Bug
Edgar Allan Poe
The Haunted Palace
Edgar Allan Poe
The Imp of the Perverse
Edgar Allan Poe
The Lake
Edgar Allan Poe
The Man of the Crowd
Edgar Allan Poe
The Masque of the Red Death
Edgar Allan Poe
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Edgar Allan Poe
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
Edgar Allan Poe
The Oval Portrait
Edgar Allan Poe
The Philosophy of Composition
Edgar Allan Poe