The gothic genre pulls at elements of the supernatural to represent societal fears of the period, with Andrew Smith noting how the gothic can portray “a confluence of many issues reflecting on gender, race, history, class, nation”[1]. Edgar Allen Poe’s use of anthropomorphized evil rejects this notion, but rather plays into the same gothic themes by questioning innate evil and concepts of free will. Poe’s short story, The Black Cat, may be a better indication of what should have been feared during the nineteenth century, compared to the traditional gothic that used the uncanny to represent often prejudice fears of the era.
Poe frequently inserted his own beliefs about humanity and free-will into his texts. Joseph Stark explored this idea in conjunction with The Black Cat, and uncovered Poe’s “view of human nature”, that “by implication, ascribed greater freedom to the will”[2]. The narrator begins to act violently and is quick to acknowledge his own part in his evil, but by utilising the letter style narrative, the narrator speaks directly to the reader and asks, “who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?”[3], and whether these evil acts are truly so unfathomable. Stark’s observations come to fruition in this moment, where Poe’s narrator is simply unable to resist the urges of his free will. This was a shocking exposé of human character, that for the readership of the era so accustomed to asserting evil onto bad spirits, was perhaps a terrifying reminder that not only could it be the neighbour next door as represented in previous gothic texts such as Jekyll and Hyde), but that they themselves could be subject to such impulses of their will.
Dark Romanticism portrays a grittier understanding of humanity. When understood alongside Carol Ann Howell’s summary of Dark Romanticism as “the darker side of awareness […] the uncomfortable sense of being in a fantasy world which is about to reveal secrets of the human personality”[4], it encapsulates Poe’s use of supernatural gothic themes to subvert the readers expectations of evil’s origins.
Poe’s short stories exemplify that gothic images don’t always represent microcosmic societal fears, but that they can also be used to explore the threats that the ‘everyday’ individual member of society can pose to other individuals. He does this effectively by anthropomorphizing the ‘black cat’ image, which is a classic gothic motif (associated with both witches and Pluto, god of the underworld). Instead, he mocks this trope by using the cat as the narrator’s projection of his own evil. Gary Thompson establishes the link between Dark Romanticism and anthropomorphized evil, noting that “the Dark Romantics adapted images of anthropomorphized evil in the form of Satan, devils, ghosts, werewolves, vampire, and ghouls as emblematic of human nature”[5], concluding that human’s use the uncanny as scapegoats for things that cannot be explained within the realm of human morality. This is demonstrated in The Black Cat, where ‘the cat had caused the house to burn so that it could make me pay for my evil act’[6]. The phrase is oxymoronic, the narrator able to acknowledge that it is “my evil act”, but cannot accept his responsibility. Instead, “the cat had caused” the fire. Poe uses the narrators anthropomorphising of the cat to explore society’s tendencies to place individual blame onto an ‘other’ figure.
However, Poe’s narrator is not a reliable one, and shifts between remorse and abdicating blame for his actions. He claims that he is a victim of his own will, his “original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame”[7]. Poe enforces gothic tropes such as supernatural possession, as an almost Jekyll and Hyde alter-ego takes over. While the defence of ‘insanity’ became an official ruling in the UK first, when an “irresistible impulse was pleaded as insanity under the McNaughtan Rules”[8], this was a shared interest in America during Poe’s career. Poe wrote his narrator to show signs of insanity, his crime a result of human depravity, in order to illustrate the breadth of human free will. Hester and Segir considered that “while Poe may not have a scientific/medical definition for the psychopath, readers may ask if [..] the narrator meets the legal standards for sanity because he seems capable of understanding the rules of society and […] right and wrong”[9]. It is this notion, of human’s morality that sets us above animals, but can be chosen to be ignored that is so terrifying to his readership.
Considering Poe’s work in its given context, when the gothic genre was used to explore societal fears, The Black Cat is a poignant and necessary story to steer its audience away from fantasy and into reality. Poe uses the black cat motif as a vehicle for exploring human potential for evil and mocks a purely romantic view on a perfect society. Richard Fusso’s exploration that “Poe steadfastly opposed the doctrine of human perfectibility: his gothic vision could permit no other stance”[10], is evidence of such stark awareness that we are all capable of committing evils as a result of our free will.
Bibliography
Fusco, Richard, 'Poe and the Perfectibility of Man', Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism, vol. 19, no. 1 (1986), 1–6 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/45296855> [accessed 30 November 2022]
Hester, Vicki and Segir, Emily, 'Edgar Allan Poe: ‘The Black Cat,’ and Current Forensic Psychology.', The Edgar Allan Poe Review, 15. 2, (2014), 175–93 <https://doi.org/10.5325/edgallpoerev.15.2.0175> [accessed 1 December 2022]
Howard, Morgan, 'A New Genre Emerges: The Creation and Impact of Dark Romanticism', English Class Publications, 12 (2015), 1-9
Howells, Coral Ann, Love, Mystery and Misery: Feeling in Gothic Fiction, (London: Athlone Press, 1978)
Poe, Edgar Allan, 'The Black Cat', The Saturday Evening Post, 19 August 1843
Smith, Andrew, Gothic Literature, 2 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013)
Stark, Joseph, 'Motive and Meaning: The Mystery of the Will in Poe’s “The Black Cat.”', The Mississippi Quarterly, 57.2 (2004), 255–64 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/26466962.> [Accessed 1 Dec. 2022]
Thompson, Gary Richard, The Gothic imagination: essays in dark romanticism, (Washington: Washington State University Press, 1974)
White, Stephen, 'The Insanity Defense in England and Wales Since 1843', The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 477(1985), P43-57 <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1046001> [Accessed 1 Dec. 2022]
[1] Andrew Smith, Gothic Literature, 2 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), p.10. [2] Joseph Stark, 'Motive and Meaning: The Mystery of the Will in Poe’s “The Black Cat.”', The Mississippi Quarterly, 57.2 (2004), 255–64 (257) <http://www.jstor.org/stable/26466962.> [Accessed 1 Dec. 2022]. [3] Edgar Allan Poe, 'The Black Cat', The Saturday Evening Post, 19 August 1843. [4] Coral Ann Howells, Love, Mystery and Misery: Feeling in Gothic Fiction, (London: Athlone Press, 1978), p. 5. [5] Gary Richard Thompson, The Gothic imagination: essays in dark romanticism, (Washington: Washington State University Press, 1974), p.6. [6] Poe, ‘The Black Cat’. [7] Poe, ‘The Black Cat’. [8] Stephen White, 'The Insanity Defense in England and Wales Since 1843', The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 477(1985), P43-57 (p.43) <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1046001> [Accessed 1 Dec. 2022]. [9] Vicki Hester and Emily Segir, 'Edgar Allan Poe: ‘The Black Cat,’ and Current Forensic Psychology.', The Edgar Allan Poe Review, 15. 2, (2014), 175–93 (188) <https://doi.org/10.5325/edgallpoerev.15.2.0175> [accessed 1 December 2022]. [10] Richard Fusco, 'Poe and the Perfectibility of Man', Poe Studies/Dark Romanticism, vol. 19, no. 1 (1986), 1–6 (p.1)<http://www.jstor.org/stable/45296855> [accessed 30 November 2022].
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