Edgar Allan Poe: "The Black Cat" and "The Masque of the Red Death"

Introduction: Poe's Recurring Themes

"The Black Cat" appears to contain a number of themes that fascinated its author Edgar Allan Poe, such as reincarnation, perversity, and retribution and/or revenge. In the tale itself, Poe mentions that the main protagonist — an unnamed narrator — has experienced "a series of mere household events" that have "tortured" and destroyed him (234), due to having Pluto, a black cat, as a pet. Pluto is described as a most beautiful animal, coal-black all over, taken in by the narrator and his wife.

This unnamed narrator, perhaps Poe himself, seems to have a serious problem with alcohol. He states that at times he is driven insane by drink and ends up doing things that go against his own morals. He calls alcohol "the Fiend Intemperance," suggesting that alcohol — at least for the narrator — is like a demon that attacks the mind and leads to utter destruction.

The Black Cat: Alcoholism and Psychological Decline

The narrator becomes drunk and cuts out the eye of the black cat with a penknife, after which he once again "plunged into excess and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed" (235). As the cat recovers from his horrible wounds, the narrator becomes extremely melancholic, and upon getting drunk again, he takes the black cat, slips a noose around its neck, and hangs it from the limb of a tree.

Then his house burns down under mysterious circumstances, and once the fire is extinguished, the narrator sees the image of the dead black cat set against some plaster left over from the fire. After the fire, the narrator obtains another black cat that is very similar to Pluto, except for a spot of white between its front legs. For some strange reason, the narrator comes to hate this new cat, and when he tries to kill it, his wife steps in to stop him. He kills her with an axe and proceeds to bury her body behind the wall in his cellar.

The Masque of the Red Death: Gothic Atmosphere and Allegory

Poe's use of grotesque images and highly descriptive narration is best exemplified in "The Masque of the Red Death," published in 1842. The tale concerns Prince Prospero and his court in an unidentified location somewhere in Central Europe or perhaps Italy. Many scholars consider it Poe's masterpiece, as it illustrates his supreme artistry as one of the literary giants of American literature in the nineteenth century. The plot revolves around the supernatural, but its main events are grounded in historical truth. The "Red Death" referenced in the title is not related to the Black Death — the form of plague that killed millions during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Europe — but rather serves as a metaphor for consumption, also known as tuberculosis, the disease that killed Poe's wife Virginia at the age of twenty-seven in 1846.

As compared to "The Black Cat," "The Masque of the Red Death" concerns Prince Prospero and his devotion to the dark arts — he is portrayed as a devil worshipper. As Poe relates, the "Red Death" "had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous" (267). Unlike the villagers who live far below the walls of his spacious castle, Prospero and his friends are well-protected from the "Red Death," which, if contracted, results in a horrible death. To celebrate this supposed safety, Prospero holds a masked ball "of the most unusual magnificence" (267). Poe then describes the rooms in which the masquerade takes place, each adorned in a different color: blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet.

The last room is "shrouded in black velvet tapestries" with window panes of scarlet — "a deep blood color" (268). There is also a "gigantic clock of ebony" with a pendulum that swings "with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang" (268). Through these descriptions, Poe recreates the Gothic style of writing that flourished in England and Germany during the late eighteenth and early to mid-nineteenth century, best exemplified by poets such as Coleridge, Shelley, and Lord Byron.

As the celebrations continue, Prospero suddenly sees "a spectral image," a symbol of the "Red Death" that has managed to infiltrate his castle. Poe then reveals that this strange figure is the "Red Death" in human form, and it proceeds to kill all the revelers and even Prince Prospero himself: "And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls. . . and died each. . . and Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all" (269).

Conclusion: Poe as Master of the Macabre

These two tales clearly represent the genius of Edgar Allan Poe as a writer and master of the supernatural, the strange, and the bizarre. They truly demonstrate that Poe was far ahead of his time in expressing terror as it exists in the human mind. Whether through the psychological unraveling of a guilt-ridden murderer or the allegorical sweep of death consuming an entire court of revelers, Poe's fiction continues to resonate as a foundational achievement in American literature.

Bibliography

Poe, Edgar Allan. 50 Tales by Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Random House, 1998.