I have a question about Poe's short story, "The Black Cat"

-- Anonymous, May 07, 2000

Answers

Hello Cosette, I believe most of Poe's stories, poems, symbols, and so on pretty much mean the same thing. A thing that is fully explained in the poem Dream within a Dream. I sent my interpretation of that poem to someone else here's what I said: "I love Poe and I think I understand this qoute well. If you know about his life it's a little easier to understand. He had a terrible life and a equally terrible end to it. I think what he meant by saying, "Is not all that we see or seem, but a Dream within a Dream?", He's referring to Life in and of it's self as being one big elaborate dream and everyone's own personal life is they're own personal dream, hence "A dream within a dream". So in short, He's saying life is the illusion we make it. You may be thinking that if that's true why is it not happy and wonderful, well I also think he's trying to say as strange as it may seem, we also want and create our own defeats and fears, but in some strange way we don't completely control our own minds. Like zombies that only have some yet at the same time enormous control over they're world(mind). Sort of like having so much control you don't realize it." So Like in the story he's just committed something he never would have been suspected of, being a loving husband and lover of animals, it shows how we all have an opposite side of our brain we may not be proud of but it's definitely there, and yes we created it. So i think the cat is symbolic of his kind side and him killing it and hating his next cat is his other side coming out. so it just shows that, yeah we're all hypocrites and that's just human nature. ~Amber

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2002