"THE BLACK CAT" BY EDGAR ALLEN POE

SOCRATIC QUESTIONS:

CLOSED ENDED QUESTION:

    HOW DOES THE MAN DESCRIBE HIMSELF DURING HIS CHILDHOOD?

ANSWER:

  In "The Black Cat" the man describes himself as having "docility and humanity for his disposition". He states that he had a kind heart that made him favorable between his friends. He mentions that he was fond of animals and enjoyed nurturing them.

OPENED ENDED QUESTION:

 HOW DOES HIS PERSONALITY DEFER FROM WHEN HE WAS A CHILD TO HIS ADULTHOOD?

ANSWER:

 In the beginning he says that as a child he was kind and joyous. He even goes deep enough to say he loved animals and the best part was nurturing them and caressing them. When he became an adult he married a woman who had a same fondness for animals and together they had many different animals varying from a small monkey to a cat, they also had a gold-fish, a dog, and some birds. He soon fell into a deep depression he cured with alcohol and began to abuse his wife and malnourish his animals. He even got so lost in his fall to the bottom the he even killed his favorite animal their cat Pluto, not before cutting out the poor things eye. He changed so drastically from being a kind and gentle, animal loving kid, to a animal tormenter and killer, adult.

 

WORLD CONNECTION QUESTION:

 LIVING IN TODAY'S WORLD, DO YOU BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE CAN ABUSE THEIR ANIMALS THAT DEVISTATINGLY EVEN KNOWING THE SCIENCE THAT ANIMALS HAVE FEELINGS? 

ANSWER:

 Yes, upon reading this story my eyes were opened a little wider t the abuse inflicted upon animals. I soon went around telling my friends about the brutal story I had just read and confessed with them that it made me want to cry that someone can do that to their own animal. After hearing my reaction people began to say that they would kill a cat because e they are useless and give no benefit to the household. I even heard a story about someone killing kittens because they wanted them gone and it was to much trouble to give them away apparently.

UNIVERSAL THEME:

 IF THE STORY WAS BASED IN OUR GENERATIONS WHAT ASPECTS MAY HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT AND WHAT ASPECTS MAY BE KEPT THE SAME?

ANSWER:

  In today's generation people have less of a respect towards animals as when they did back then. The aspects that would be changed would have been the part when he hung his cat on a tree by his house, in today's world most would have either shot it or they would have ran it over. The majority of the descriptions and details about how he treated his wife and animals would have been the same because today's society has a lack of dignity towards anything or anyone who is not them. People mistreat their animals by not feeding them on a day to day basis, also if someone in the 21st century were to kill their wife they would have no remorse and would cover it up as quickly as possible and sleep soundly through the night.

LITERARY ANALISYS QUESTION:

 DOES POE USE ENOUGH BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND SENTENCE STRUCTURE TO PROVE THE THESIS OF HOW A MURDER MAY ORIGINALLY START OFF AS A LOST SOUL TRYING TO RECOVER COMPARED TO SOMEONE SET ON KILLING THEIR LOVED ONES?

ANSWER:

 Poe uses the background knowledge of what alcoholism effects a persons change in attitude towards others and he does a good job of setting up the structure to lead the reader in from an innocent young boy who is kind and loving. To an angry, depressed, lost middle-aged man who slowly looses his sanity which leads him to murder. He also sets it up from the man starting off with neglecting his animal, to physically harming them, to murdering the animal. Even from there it leads on and goes from a cat murder, to a man looking for a savior in a new look alike cat found at his apartment, to someone who was once again lead off the right path, and lastly becomes a human murder. Poe shows that maybe not all murders start with someone who is crazy to begin with, but maybe they start with someone that fell off their path and was never able to find the right road that leads back to it.