摘 要

爱伦·坡的《黑猫》是一部充满恐怖色彩的小说。该小说采用自述的手法，讲述的是“我”两次亲手杀死自己的宠物猫，杀妻藏尸并最终遭到黑猫报复的故事。本文以简要介绍爱伦·坡及其小说《黑猫》为开端，主要从哥特场景、象征人物和叙事技巧三个方面分析了该小说中的恐怖，从而深化了小说中所展现的恐怖是“心灵的恐怖”的主题。

关键词：埃德加·爱伦·坡；《黑猫》；恐怖；心灵恐怖

Contents

1. Introduction..................................................................................................1
2. Demonstration............................................................................................. 2

2.1. Gothic settings..................................................................................................2

2.1.1. A strange bas relief on the wall......................................................................3

2.1.2. The damp cellar of the old building...............................................................3

2.1.3. The scene of the corpse and the cat...............................................................4

2.2. Allegorical-symbolic characters.......................................................................5

2.2.1. The first black cat (Pluto)..............................................................................5

2.2.1.1 The black cat and “Pluto”............................................................................5

2.2.1.2 The eye of the black cat...............................................................................6

2.2.2. The second black cat......................................................................................6

2.2.2.1 The cat and its manner.................................................................................7

2.2.2.2 The Gallows-like white hair.........................................................................7

2.2.3. Alcohol...........................................................................................................8

2.3 Writing techniques.............................................................................................8

2.3.1 First person point of view and monologue.....................................................8

2.3.2 Contrast and repetition…..............................................................................10

3. Conclusion..........................................................................................................11

Works Cited............................................................................................................12

Bibliography...........................................................................................................13

Analysis of Horror in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat

1. Introduction

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809--October 7, 1849) was a prominent American author, poet, editor and literary criticism the 19^th century. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Poe was orphaned young when his father abandoned the family and his mother died in 1811. His career as a writer began with the publication of Tamaerlane and Other Poems in 1827, an anonymous collection of poems. Allan Poe is considered one of the earliest American short story creators and the inventor of both detective and science fiction genre. Poe produced many excellent works, for instance, The Fall of the House of Usher (1830), The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841), The Black Cat (1843) and The Tell-tale Heart (1843).

The Black Cat is a successful short story, which is told in the first-person point of view. The story tells the process of the narrator’s killing of two pet cats. From his infancy he was noted for docility; however, his general temperance and character experienced a radical change for the worse due to intemperance. He deliberately cut one eye of his favorite pet Pluto without feeling regret. He hanged the cat; on that night, a fire swallowed up his entire wealth but a standing wall with a figure of a cat was upon the surface. For months he could not rid himself of the phantasm of the cat. The second cat appeared in a bar and it followed him home, which reminded him of the shame and crime he had committed. He aimed to axe the animal but axed his wife to death when he walked down the stairs into the cellar. After walling the body into the cellar, he found that the cat disappeared. He was insane and knocked down the wall by himself when the police were going to leave; and the cat and the body were discovered. The narrator’s change and confession reveal an incisive inquiry into the capacity of the human mind to originate its own destruction and illustrate Poe’s rationale “to indulge alone in any attempted thought is inevitably lost.” (qtd. in Chang Yaoxin 113) As an important work, The Black Cat has received wide attention and been studied from different aspects by scholars and critics from both home and abroad.