The Black Cat and its Symbolism of the Authors' Guilt
            
             Poe uses his point of view along with the occurring events to create the delusional mood and superstitious tone; He also uses the Black Cat to represent the authors' stages of guilt and a certain perversity as the cats' presence overshadows and goads the author's regret and alcohol fueled desires of his own self-interest.
            
             In the Black Cat, what the cat seems to represent is numerous; it's name is that of a dark and distant planet, that of a Greek God, whose place in mythology was god of the dead and overlord of the underworld.(symbolism). Black cats also symbolize the devil or witches in disguise, or some evil and persuasive force, as the cat seems to symbolize. Though those do seem characteristics of the black cat, the cats only seem to take on an irritating and terrifying presence only by the authors' changes in state of mind, guilt, and the amount of liquor he's had in his body, thus connecting the cats suddenly foreboding and ominous character to the authors' growing guilt and festering grip on superstition, erratic reasoning and failing grip on sanity. It seems that the author is so tormented psychologically by guilt that he begins to hallucinate. The hallucinations go against the authors' stoically practical nature and scientific way of explaining events, as noted by the author explaining how the cats' impression, his, "victim of cruelty"(Poe) was compressed into the "freshly-spread plaster; the lime which, had then with the flames, and ammonia from the carcass, accomplished the portrait as [he] saw it"(Poe). When the author first discovered the second cat, he wrote in an objective way that he was surprised he didn't see before, and how strangely it had been allowed in the den and no one claimed the cat, he did not at all point out how it was suspicious, and odd how he was devising a...