The Black Cat

Content Warning: This section references animal cruelty, alcohol addiction, domestic violence, and mental illness.

“For the most wild yet homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad I am not—and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburden my soul.”

The narrator worries his tale’s “wild” elements may render it unbelievable, establishing the theme of Science Versus the Supernatural. He claims that he is of sound mind, but various events in the story contradict this assertion.

“My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified—have tortured—have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them.”

The narrator seeks to present his narration as an objective recording of facts but acknowledges that he is terrified by their occurrence. In suggesting that his tale is free from artifice or explanation, he understates the supernatural elements that will saturate the rest of the tale.

“There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.”

Though later the narrator refers to the second cat as “a brute beast,” he here uses the same word to favorably compare animals’ unconditional love with humans’ changeable affections. He uses this comparison to explain his early affinity toward animals and to start sowing doubt about the goodness of humanity.