Analysis Of “The Black Cat”

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ANALYSIS of “The Black Cat” (Part of a thesis in Univ. Al Azhar Indonesia) By: ADYA ANISA IMAN The Black Cat is one of Poe’s works, written on 1843. The time setting of the story much affected the story. During that time, 1830s and 1840s, there was a movement in America. The movement made by young people from Boston. “Among the younger people, there was much talk about “new spiritual era”, The young intellectual of Boston felt dissatisfy with the old patriotism. America’s power and wealth did not interest them. They wanted to explore the inner life.” High (1986:41, my underline) According to Oxford Advance Dictionary, inner means something inside, or private and secret (for emotion). So, inner life means something located inside in someone’s life. There was a tendency to dig the inner life of human being, because they felt dissatisfied with the old patriotism, which focus more in gaining material wealth. Most of writers during that time tried to explore humanity value. The movement much affected literature’s characteristic during that time, including Edgar Allan Poe. He was put so much interested to write about psychology and the darker side of human nature. High (1986:55) The black Cat has some similarities with Poe’s other work such as Tell Tale Heart and Berenice which consist of lunatic murderer theme and the motives of the murderer had created many interpretations. Readers have to face the clue from the first paragraph about the main issue of the story, the psychic condition of the narrator. From the second and third sentence on the first paragraph “Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. 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” Those lines give a clue to what will happen next on the story and give us interpretation about narrator
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