Monday, July 8, 2013

How does Poe demonstrate the narrator's calmness, nervousness, confidence and panic in "The Black Cat"?

You might want to analyse the ending of this excellent
story, that has lots in common with Poe's other classic, "The Tell-Tale Heart." Having
killed his wife, the narrator conceals the body in an extremely cunning location that he
thinks will escape the detection of the authorities. When policemen do come around to
investigate the disappearance, he shows them the cellar where his wife's body is stowed
away with complete calmnesss and confidence:


readability="13">

Secure, however, in the inscrutability of my
place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment watever. The offficers bade me accompany
them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third
or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart
beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in
innocence.



In spite of this
confidence, the narrator's calmness quickly gives way to nervousness and panic when he
knocks the wall behind which his wife's corpse lies and the sound of the cat is heard,
revealing his crime. Note how he responds:


readability="7">

But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs
of the Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I
was answered by a voice from the
tomb!



Thus we can see when
the narrator discovers that he had buried the black cat with his wife's corpse, his
confidence and calmness give way to panic and a state of
nervousness.

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