The Black Cat- Interpretation

The Black Cat

             { Thinking Task }

                 Hey everyone my this blog is based on Thinking Task of unit-1 "The Black Cat" of paper no-19 , A study of American Literature.

Here is link for the story.."The Black Cat"

           The Black Cat 

           The Black Cat is a American short story by Adgar Allan Poe. 

1. What does The Black Cat symbolises?

A black cat naturally symbolises evil and for Poe to say that when he see's a black cat, he feels anger, this gives the reader an ideal that the black cat in Poe's short story, also symbolises evil. Poe uses symbolism to impact the overall tone of the story by using symbolism and imagery throughout his story. A black cat symbolises mystery and secrecy,”

2. List out the word which give thrilling effect while reading the story.

• Tomorrow I die.
• Free my soul from the horrible weight.
• I have been distroyed.
• I became less loving in my manner.
• I took a small knife out of my coat and opened it.
• I forgot how to smile and laugh.
• My soul seemed to fly from my body.
• I cut out one of its fearful eye.
• I tied a strong rope around cat's neck.
• I hung it from one of  the wood beams above my head.
• I hung it until it was dead.
• My entire house will filled with fire.
• I begun to hate that cat.
• I turned and put the knife's points deep into her heart . She fell to the floor and died without sound.
• I felt a cold feeling up and down my back as we heard coming out of the wall itself a horrible cry.

3. What do you think why does the Black cat keeps following the narrator.?

The narrator and Pluto are very close and their friendship lost for many years until the narrator becomes an alcoholic. The Black cat illustrates best the capacity of the human mind to comment upon its own destruction. Poe uses irony to indicate the cat's newfound insight and detechment from the narrator after seeing his true nature. Once the cat loses loses an eye , for who he really is. The Black cat is the past truma and reality which keep following him . The narrator deceives and manipulates those around him because of an impulsive , egocentric personality knows as psychopathy.

4. "Anything excessive is bad " what is your take on this....?

Everything in life should only be in the correct and adequate quantity. Excess adds stress and anxiety to our lives. Excessive means going beyond a normal limit. Anything that is way too much be it, money, relationship, emotions,ego etc. Only cause problems and issues or bad things.

  5. Find out any two scholarly articles from Google and summarises it in your own words.

Article no. 1

The story is a short one…about a man in a drunken rage who attempts to kill the second, black cat in his household by swinging an ax at it (he already maimed their first black cat by digging out it’s eye and then hanging it from a tree). The wife intervened in the swinging of the ax. You can imagine what happened next…but do read the story. It’s a morality tale with a lot of symbolism.

                       (  Linda Robinson )

Article no.2

The analysis of policy convergence, or: how to chase a black cat in a dark room

Thomas Plümper, Christina J Schneider

Journal of European Public Policy 16 (7), 990-1011, 2009

Political science research on policy convergence has largely remained inconclusive. While many studies found support for the convergence hypothesis, an almost equally large number of studies rejected it. Convergence thus could be a less general phenomenon than many theorists believe. This article identifies a second possible explanation. The variance approach, which dominates political science research on policy convergence, is likely to lead to wrong inferences. Analysing various artificially generated convergence processes, we find that neither the variance approach nor the coefficient of variation detects convergence when it is conditional or when theoretically unidentified convergence clubs exist. Our analysis suggests that researchers should estimate rather than measure convergence. By estimating convergence researchers may (a) test the causal relationship, (b) account for conditional convergence, (c) control for the existence of convergence clubs, and (d) examine convergence to an equilibrium level of a policy.

View at tandfonline.com

[PDF] researchgate.net

Cited by 99

Related articles

All 3 versions

Black cat bias: Prevalence and predictors

Haylie D Jones, Christian L Hart

Psychological reports 123 (4), 1198-1206, 2020

There is anecdotal and empirical evidence for black cat bias, the phenomenon where cats (Felis silvestris catus) with black coats are viewed more negatively, adopted less often, and euthanized more often than lighter colored cats. Despite the anecdotal claims, there is scarce empirical evidence for black cat bias. Using evaluations of cat photos, the researchers examined differences in people’s attitudes toward black and non-black cats of various colorations on measures of perceived aggression, perceived friendliness, and willingness to adopt. The researchers also explored whether participants’ levels of religiosity, superstitious beliefs, and prejudicial racial attitudes were related to black cat bias. Finally, the researchers explored whether black cat bias was related to difficulties people had in reading the emotions of black cats compared to non-black cats. This study provided evidence of black cat bias in the sample. People exhibiting higher degrees of black cat bias had higher levels of superstition, but not religiosity or racial prejudice. Additionally, people who had difficulty reading the emotions of black cats tended to exhibit a stronger bias against adopting black cats. 

      [  Haylie D Jones, Christian L Hart, "Black Cat bias : Prevelence and predictors", 2020.]