The symbolism in Poe's "The Black Cat" centers on the idea of ​​self-awareness. The narrator is aware of his descent into madness and spends the story trying to convince himself (and the reader) that what he understands as truth is based on reason; he's not crazy. Poe's story tells of a man who in his final hours confesses to the murder of his wife and his cruelty to his two cats. He believed his first cat, Pluto, was evil and violently gouged out its eye with a penknife; he later hanged Pluto from a tree outside his house. The next cat he bought was also missing an eye (which the narrator did not know when he decided to keep it) and so for this reason, as well as the color of its fur with the exception of a white area, the second cat reminds the narrator of Pluto and by extension his cruelty towards the creature. This excerpt introduces the second cat and the aftermath of Pluto's murder. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Analysis of Symbolism in “The Black Cat” Through the Story of the Narrator In this excerpt, the narrator states that he is “above the weakness of trying to establish cause” and effect, between disaster and atrocity ”. He contradicts this in the next sentence where he describes himself as "detailing a chain of facts" that is probably no different. This contradiction on the part of the narrator shows that he is aware of his madness as he openly agrees that trying to create a rational narrative from irrational events is a "weakness"; despite this, he continues to do just that in the next sentence, when he tries to tell the reader what he believes to be a reasonable story for what is in front of him (Pluto's profile on the wall). By using the phrase "chain of facts" the narrator is trying to validate his line of thought by convincing the reader that it is an irrefutable certainty and therefore cannot be the ramblings of a madman - he is trying to demonstrate his sanity through a apparently unfalsifiable language. . Likewise, later in the passage, the narrator uses what appears to be the argument of science to try to defend his idea: “the lime of which, with the flames, and the ammonia of the carcass, he had then made the portrayed as I saw it." By using a scientific explanation for the image before him, the narrator tries to appear more believable and therefore increase the chances of being believed. Within this excerpt, the narrator tries to argue that in order for the If his story is plausible, he must have been awakened by the dead Pluto being "thrown through a window." While this is almost certainly madness to anyone listening to his story, it also conflicts with his previous account of events narrator Earlier in the story, the narrator had told the reader that he was "roused from sleep by the cry of the fire", not by the audible sensation of his murdered cat being thrown through his window in an attempt to wake him. From this, I argue that the narrator simply fell further into his madness and forgot the reality of the events and instead chose to convince himself of his lies to ignore his obvious madness. This means that he is aware of how irrational his accounts are (since he must know that earlier in his written confession he had spoken of what really happened rather than the illusory version he adopted to defend his sanity) and yet he still believes that they are like this. be completely sincere. This is Foucault's definition of madness: a faith.