How he had done it....?

Parallelism

This story contains various parallel structures. Typically at the beginning of the story which shows parallel features and repetition of key words.

“In their consequences, these events have terrified, - have tortured – have destroyed me.”

The phrases are parallel, which have an effect of clarifying the narrator’s actual condition. He is in a great tension by the consequences of his madness deed. The phrases put at the beginning of the story intentionally, in order to indicate the coming ghostly event. The negative words like, “terrified”, “tortured”, “destroyed” give emphasis for the message.

The purpose of these parallel features is to give emphasis to the narrator’s hard condition. There is also another parallel, written after he accidentally killed his wife, in the presence of the police men.

“I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to and fro.”

The parallel sentences show the enormous anxiety of the murderer. They create image of the circumstances. The power of this parallel structure and lexical choice makes the narration interesting.

The process of torturing the cat is presented by the use of repetitions and a parallel construction in order to emphasize the psychological state of the murderer and points out his concentration on what he is doing, his being caught in an endless loop of reflection on this terrible deed, here is the example:

“One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; - hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; - hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; - hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin…."

This clearly makes the thoughts of the character displayed and helps the reader get closer to his bizarre nature. By the means of parallelism, the write could make connections between ideas and claims of his character and also helped keep the reader on track. 

Repetition

The repetition is due to some specific reasons, which all support to describe the narrator's state of mind, his thoughts and views when telling the story. It is important to mention that these kinds of repetition sometimes create parallel structures too. Some of the examples are: 

"I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others."

"When reason returned with the morning -- when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch -- I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse,"

“These walls are you going, gentlemen? – these walls are solidly put together…”

“Some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place – some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own.”

"I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity"

The purpose here is to emphasize on the condition of narrator's mind and how he wants to declare his destroyed mood and sometimes stressing on the speeches to attract reader's attention.

Metaphor and Personification

The story under the analysis is rich in metaphors. Metaphors which are used to illustrate the changes of the inner world of the character and his behaviour with others can be found in such cases as:

 “Many projects entered my mind.”

“I had walled the monster up within the tomb!”

“…and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.” 

“the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder…”

 “This peculiarity of character grew with my growth.” 

“The fury of a demon instantly possessed me.” 

“…and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.”

 “But at length reflection came to my aid.”

Personification is used as regards to the abstract inanimate objects and notions in order to present them as some kind of mystical powers that “grow upon” the narrator and that he is unable to control:

“evil thoughts became my sole intimates”,

“the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of man”,

“and then came…the spirit of PERVERSENESS”

“My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame”

Paradox

In the first line of the first paragraph, there is an obvious paradox with a parallel structure, which grabs the attention of the reader, as below:

“For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief.

The narrator introduces his story, which deviates from the normal story, in an antonyms parallel approach, that his story is peculiar. The paradoxical phrases, “most wild” and “most homely” create contradictory vision to the reader since they are nearly antonyms. The one who reads this first line becomes eager to know what wild and homely narration is. There is also another paradoxical expression which is an antonym parallel at the same time. In the middle of the story saying:

“...even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.”

He referred to God as the most merciful and most terrible. This also reflects his madness, that how could be merciful and terrible at the same time. Yet, the paradox here holds a purpose, for to show in what kind of dilemma he has been to.

Symbolism and Allusion

This story has a great deal of symbolism which plays an important role throughout the whole story. From the symbolism in the story we learn a lot about the hidden messages that are behind the narrators actions.

“The Black Cat” symbolizes death, darkness in traditional terms. As in one of the speeches of the wife of the narrator usually regarding that, “… all black cats are witches in disguise.” Yet black cats can symbolize a lot more things such things as death, sorcery, witchcraft, spirits of the dead, and most common a symbol of bad luck.  The cat s name itself can be interpreted as a symbol. Pluto, the name of the cat, can symbolize what we know from Greek and Roman mythology, which is that Pluto was the god of the dead and ruler of the underworld which is an Allusion also (Nilsson, 1997).  Another part in the story which can symbolize a lot of things is the fact that the cat is half blinded, this could exemplify that the narrator too is somehow half blinded maybe by drinking, or by guilt, or the disinclination to see disturbing things. The physical harm the narrator imposes upon the cat can symbolize how he instead wants to harm his wife.

Even though the narrator blinded and hanged the black cat. Another white-spotted black cat appears. This makes the story deviant, that it is connected with the spiritual world. Here, the symbol is clearly seen that the evil spirit is not flesh and blood that could be killed. He follows the human beings as the black cat follows the narrator.

Fire is another symbol in the story which represents the judgment for the committed crime, in the story. His house is burned after the killing of the black cat. (Adera, 2013)

“The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire -”

The story is enriched by these symbols which gained the author a good reputation in terms of style variation.

Irony

There are various ironies in this story. The typical one is when the narrator worries that after he relates his story, others will not give it much thought and will not probably consider it as an ordinary event. Nonetheless, the narrator is telling the story from his prison cell awaiting his death, and his tale is a criminal one out of his wrath. Undoubtedly, this seems very far from ordinary. He describes his events as normal and that he had committed no mistakes or faults which in fact he is a dangerous murderer. This example clarifies how he narrates in an ironical way:

"Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events."

As we see, we get the first impression as if we are listening to a very rational and intelligent man who is about to explain a series of bizarre events (Harris: 1990: 285), consequently, we identifies how ironically he impressed his feeling when we find out he is really a mad person.

Irony also can be found when the narrator cuts out Pluto's eye, the cat sees well "…but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual...". Previously, the cat loved and trusted the narrator, following him everywhere, and they were fond of each other. But after the cat misses an eye, it sees the narrator for what he is, an imprudent, dangerous man.

Simile

This is a prevail figure of speech and its use is inevitable in the sequences of the story. The narrator attempts to liken and associate between things. The famous conventional belief about the evil spirits of the cats is confirmed by such a simile: 

"all black cats as witches in disguise."

The collapse of the narrator's soul is revealed through the following simile:

"the spirit of PERVERSENESS as if my final and irrevocable overthrow."

The case of simile is also used in the final part of the story to intensify the tension of the events:

 "a cry…like the sobbing of a child."

There other multitude uses of simile which has been used by the author to attach between images and meanings of phrases and expressions.

As for the style of the text under analysis, the general atmosphere of mysticism, dark romanticism and extreme terror is brilliantly presented in the story and well emphasized by the appropriately applied stylistic devices that enable the readers to feel and live through all the events described by the author.

Obviously, all these elements made the story deviated semantically and contributed prominently to the effect of shocking events in Poe’s work “The Black Cat”. Poe’s skillful use of all of these elements needs further deep stylistic analysis under other methods, but since we attempted our focus to be on the semantic method, we could only discover and analyze the story according to the features we discussed previously.