The symbolism in Poe’s “The Black Cat” centers on the idea of ​​self-awareness. The narrator is aware of his descent into madness and spends the novella trying to convince himself (and the reader) that what he considers to be truth is based on reason; he's not crazy. The poet's story tells of a man in his final hours confessing to the murder of his wife and his cruelty towards his two cats. He believed that his first cat, Pluto, was naughty and violently gouged out one of his eyes with a penknife; he then hung Pluto from a tree in front of his house. The next cat he acquired was also missing one eye (a fact the narrator did not know when he decided to keep it) and so because of this, as well as the color of its fur except from a white area, the second cat recalls the narrator of Pluto and by extension his cruelty towards the creature. This excerpt introduces the second cat and the aftermath of Pluto's murder. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essayAnalysis of symbolism in "The Black Cat" through the narrator's storyIn this excerpt, the narrator claims to be "above of the weakness of seeking to establish cause and effect, between disaster and atrocity.” He contradicts this in the next sentence where he describes himself as "detailing a chain of facts", which is arguably no different. This contradiction on the part of the narrator shows that he is aware of his madness since he categorically recognizes that trying to create a rational story from irrational events is a “weakness”; despite this, that is exactly what he does in the next sentence when he tries to tell the reader what he believes to be a reasonable story for what is in front of him (the outline of Pluto on his wall). By using the phrase "chain of facts", the narrator is trying to validate his line of thinking by convincing the reader that it is an irrefutable certainty and therefore cannot be the ramblings of a crazy - he tries to prove his sanity through seemingly unfalsifiable language. . Likewise, later in the extract, the narrator uses what seems to be the argument of science to try to defend his idea: "of which the lime, with the flames, and the ammonia of the carcass, had then realized the portrait as I saw it." By using a scientific explanation of the image before him, the narrator tries to make himself more credible and therefore increase the chances of being believed. In this excerpt, the narrator attempts to argue that for his story to be plausible he must have been awakened by the dead Pluto "thrown out a window." Although this almost certainly amounts to madness to anyone hearing his story, it also conflicts with the narrative. earlier of the events by the narrator Earlier in the story, the narrator had told the reader that he was "awakened by the cry of the fire", not by the sound sensation of his murdered cat being thrown out of the window in an attempt to kill him. wake up From this, I argue that the narrator simply fell further into his madness and forgot the reality of events and instead chose to convince himself of his lies in order to ignore his obvious madness. This means that he is aware of the irrational nature of his accounts (because he must know that previously, in his written confessions, he spoke about what really happened rather than the illusory version he adopted to defend his mental health) and that he still believes them. be completely honest. This is Foucault's definition of madness: a belief in the unreal that is reinforced in the madman by an emphasis on the logic, or reason, of the situation. The belief.