context+of+black+cat



**Context of Time in which Black Cat was Written**

This story was written in the year 1843 and was published in //The Saturday Evening Post.// The post was a magazing that was published weekly and was aimed at the average American adult. In 1843, America was thriving. Settlers began exploring the Northwest. Entertainment was very popular and people enjoyed going to the opera and reading periodicals.

Most of the readers of this story would have probably been around the middle class. They would live in modest homes with their families and probably would have owned a cat themselves. Maybe after dinner they would enjoy a cocktail or two. The short story was very popular and went over quite well with the readers. This is interesting because the narrator himself was a normal citizen in the beginning of his story. He had a home with several pets and a wife. There was no warning for the wretchedness that would soon consume his life. Poe delves deep into the darkest recesses of the human mind and unearths how dark a human can become. Instead of readers shying away from the tales of violence, they enjoyed reading about an axe being buried in the narrator's wives heads. Not to say all the readers were sadist themselves, but they were entertained with the tale of gore.

An interesting idea is to begin to think why woman would enjoy this story.The first act of violence is bad enough. Woman are usually more sympathetic to animals and the main character dug his cat's eyes out with a knife! To visualize this act is terrible and enough to cause a nightmare! The final act of violence must solidify the terror in this story when a husband kills his wife without a singlesign of remorse. True, the narrator was brought to justice by his own foolishness and pride, but the wife was still dead. Woman liked this story and I find that very interesting. Woman have always been fans of serial killer literature and do not blanch away from stories of innocent women being brutalized and murdered. It is a dark twist to how woman are usually portrayed as meek and timid.

Sources:

Meyers, Jeffrey (1992). //Edgar Allan Poe: his life and legacy//. New York City: [|Charles Scribner's Sons]. p. 137.

Zimmerman, Brett. //Edgar Allan Poe: Rhetoric and Style//. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2005.