“When he sails back he’ll be laden with jewels and exotic fruits”.
‘The Black Cat’ is from a retrospective narrative. The male protagonist is imprisoned so we all know that he has done something wrong, but he says of his early life
“I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition.”
He even indicates
“My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous.”
He is presented to us as caring and kind. The writer of these stories have made the protagonists out to be subtle and delightful young men, thus by doing these atrocious crimes they are seen as being much worse than what they are really.
The narratives reveal the atrocious behaviour of the male protagonist. In the story ‘Lucy Blue’ the child is dreams of her father in a very positive way, but he returns to disappoint her. The author shows clearly his potential for evil,
“He was ragged and hunched, his face blackened with stubble and rage”
This shows that the father didn’t live up to expectations.
The father had incestuous thoughts about Lucy
“He smacked his lips for the pretty thing he had spawned.”
Her father has a perverted view towards his daughter which is very frightening for a child of Lucy’s age. Even the people from the village are gossiping about his behaviour. He has a fearsome aura to him. He is involved in a fight with other men from the village, one night they all met at the beach for a fight…
“The mans venom as he ran at them sent them fleeing as if from hell!”
The writer uses this simile to describe hideous in the most graphic ways. The male protagonist also kills the mother by smashing her skull and placing stones in her pockets and throwing her into the sea, so she could drown. The impact now on the child is devastating. The writer has created a totally hateful character with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
“I smelt his livid breath.”
He is vile from the very core of his being.
The negative side of the protagonist in ‘The Black Cat’ is shown through his impatience towards living things. The difference between the male protagonists in ‘The Black Cat’ and in ‘Lucy Blue’ is that in ‘The Black Cat’ the protagonist shows remorse and is sorry for what he has done, which develops a closeness between him and the reader. The protagonist charts his downfall, from the benevolent pet owner to the caring husband to the deranged murderer. This makes the reader appreciate his honesty.
“The reader will remember that this mark, although large…”
We feel that the protagonist is talking to us and writing it for our benefit. We have some sympathy for him because he shocks himself to think back to what crimes he has committed.
“I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity!”
It is almost like he in pain to write this down. We feel like he is talking to us because he says
“Through the instrumentality of the fiend intemperance-had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical attention for the worst.”
“The fury of a demon instantly processed me. I know myself no longer, my original soul seemed, at once, to take flight from my body; and a more fiendish malevolent, gin-nurtured thrilled every fibre of my frame.”
The protagonist confides in us. The protagonist’s character change is brought about by alcohol, which makes him do terrible things. This makes us sympathic towards him because we know why he has changed. It is the alcohol which makes him commit these hideous crimes, like gouging the cat’s eye out, hanging the Cat from the tree and planting an axe through his wife’s head. These behaviours are not the behaviours of a sane man. He reveals that he is doing these crimes because he knows that they are wrong. This shows that true darkness of the human spirit. The line between a pet owner and a criminal is very thin because this behaviour is potentially in everybody.
“I knew that he loved me and because it had given me no offence, hung it, because I knew in doing so I was committing a deadly sin.”
We have more sympathy for the protagonist ‘The Black Cat’ but we also get annoyed with his behaviour because it is more perverse than the protagonist in ‘Lucy Blue’. The protagonist acts like he wants to get caught, as he is so confident about not being caught. The protagonist taps on the wall, in the exact place he had buried his wife, in front of the investigators. This is a very perverted idea, because anything could happen. This is the twist in the ending of the tail.
In terms of language there are some similarities and some differences in the stories. In Poe’s story he paints a clear picture of horror. The language in ‘The Black Cat’ is typical pre-20th century, the sentences are elongated and long winded. The stories are hard to read due to the difference in language, especially for a younger child. Nowadays we write, read and talk in a different way from what they did so many years ago, so it is hard for us to excess this piece, but if you can get to grips with it, it is very rewarding to accomplish. Poe goes into a lot of detail in the story and really expresses sentences. The text is really elongated.
“These walls- are you going gentlemen? - These walls are solidly put together; and here through the mere frenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brickwork behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.”
The language in ‘Lucy Blue’ is also very descriptive. The different language is used for the purpose of the description. The language in ‘Lucy Blue’ reflects the needs of the 21st century audience. The language is used to build up an evil character. The writer uses adjectives in a very effective way. The stories show imagery,
“Sent them fleeing as if from hell!”
The writer focuses on the dark and light as the metaphor of the story, light representing innocence and purity and dark representing evil and sin. The lighthouse is part of the metaphor used in the story. When the lighthouse spins it only lights up parts of the surroundings for a second and then it is dark again, so the writer is putting across that there is more evil than good, which is why the lighthouse is use in the story as one of the surrounding. The mother also lights up the house with light bulbs, to erase the past of her husband. She paints the house white to bring out the purity and goodness of the life she wants. The husband disagrees with this because he likes the dark and the way nobody can see what goes on behind closed doors.
“All around her were scattered switches and power points and bulbs…”
“… He had ripped out everything!”
The setting in ‘The Black Cat’ is very effective. The environment in ‘The Black Cat’ is a cramped small house with a cellar. The cellar is allows is a traditional place for a murder to happen, it is like a horror room. The cellar allows the body to be disposed of discretely. The cellar allows the twist in the end of the story to take place, without the cellar the twist at the end of the story would not have been as effective.
The setting in ‘Lucy Blue’ is isolated by the beach, so from the town you cannot see the house but from the beach you can see the house clearly. Nobody from the village knows what is going on in there. So it is very remote place. The mother acts like she wants to be part of the village and wants to talk to people and be sociable, but her husband isn’t like that at all, he doesn’t want anything to do with the village as he has a lot of fights.
“She had cables laid from the village and switches and power points and dangling bulbs installed in every room.”
This essay has looked at two stories from different periods of time. The stories have similar themes and they both explore and reveal the darker side of the human nature. Both stories are also from the horror genre and both writers illustrate the themes by using similar techniques…
…the writers use settings, themes, characters and language…
…character, the characters in both stories play very strong parts and both behave in an evil way.
…the writers both use similar language, they both use metaphors and imagery.
… For the setting they both use horror, dark and gloomy settings.
All of these combine together to prompt two stories which reveal a lot about the possibilities for humans to behave in a deproved and evil way.
