摘 要

《黑猫》是美国著名作家爱伦坡的经典作品之一，凭借其精湛的人物心理描写及恐怖氛围营造而广受读者喜爱。以往针对《黑猫》的研究多涉及人物形象象征意义及不同理论下对主人公杀妻行为及动机的不同解读，而较少细究主人公病态心理的发展与表现。本文通过探索主人公看似理智合理的故事讲述与自我辩白，挖掘隐藏在其酗酒表象之后的病态心理发展及受其影响产生一系列残暴行为的原因。详述主人公充满控制欲的畸形之爱、自我否认的潜在暴力倾向、不受控制的恶意及发展出这些病态心理的可能原因，进而为读者更好地体会《黑猫》这篇作品提供见解。

关键词：黑猫；爱伦坡；病态心理；恐怖小说

Abstract

“The Black Cat” is one of the representatives of the famous American writer Edgar Allan Poe, wining universal popularity among the readers for the delicate depiction of the characters’ inner development and the amazing creation of the horror environment. Previous studies on “The Black Cat” mostly cover the symbolic meanings of different characters under various theories and diverse explanation of the main character’s motives in killing his wife but seldom focus on the mere expression and development of the protagonist’s morbid psychology which is hidden under his deceptive narration. Through probing into the protagonist’s allegedly reasonable “house hold events” of atrocities, this paper digs out the development of the protagonist’s morbid psychology hidden under the alcoholism excuse and the process how his morbid psychology influences him to the series violent misdeeds. The protagonist’s aggressive abnormal love, self-denial hidden violence and unlimited malice are talked thoroughly while the reasons of such morbid psychologies are discussed so that insights can be offered for readers to better experience the horror tale “The Black Cat”.

Key Words: The Black Cat; Edgar Allan Poe; morbid psychology; horror tale

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Edgar Allan Poe and His Works 1

1.2 Literature Review 3

2 Abnormal Love 5

2.1Expression of the Protagonist’s love 5

2.2Distorted love 5

3 Hidden Violence 8

3.1Results of the protagonist’s violence 8

3.2Self-denial to hidden violence nature 8

4 Unlimited Malice 10

4.1Expression of the malice 10

4.2Inner connection with abnormal love and hidden violence 10

5 Conclusion 12

References 13

Acknowledgements 14

The Morbid Psychology of the Protagonist in “The Black Cat”

1 Introduction

1.1 Edgar Allan Poe and His Works

Edgar Allan Poe is a preeminent American poet, critic and short story writer who contributed much to American literature, inventing the detective fiction genre, putting forward aesthetic and literary theories and creating quality poetry and tales. During his lifetime, Poe was mostly accepted and recognized as a literary critic while his literary works, especially those involved with horror elements and characterized by eccentricity were marginalized by publishers and critics in the 19th century United States. Unfortunate family life as well as unstable patrons and publishers, had brought unimaginable difficulties to his life and writing career.

Poe’ family life from childhood to marriage was covered by uneasiness. Raised by a foster family, Poe did not really know his biological parents. His father left the family in 1810, only one year after his birth and his mother died of tuberculosis when he was three. His name was given by the Allans, the foster family. Poe lived with John Allan, a successful merchant and Frances Valentine Allan, John’s wife since then. However, though getting along well with Frances Allan, Poe’s relationship with John Allan seemed not smooth because of Poe’s gambling and the insufficient money for his study life. During his time in University of Virginia, Poe’s beloved fiancée married someone else, and he left school after one semester because of the lack of money and his debt. In 1827 then, Poe joined the Army when he began his publishing career as his first book Tmaerlane and Other Poems was published during this time. His relationship with John Allan became even worse after the death of Frances Allan and eventually he left John Allan. Struggled in a life of poverty, Poe focused on full-time writing and finally got a break with short stories published. In 1836, he married his 13-year-old cousin Virginia who was his literary inspiration and passed away in 1847.

Known as the first one who earn a living by writing alone in America, Poe’s publishing career was remarkable. He worked for different magazines like Southern Literary Messenger and Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine where he contributed critics, poetry and prose before he started his own journal The Stylus. The two volume Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque was published during this time. However, during his life time, those short stories received less attention and positive remarks. Meanwhile, Poe received criticism like “a jingle man” by Emerson, the representative of American Transcendentalism and “three fifths of genius and two fifths sheer fudge” by James Russell Lowell, the famous American critic (Neimeyer, 2002). Though being undervalued during this period, Poe’s reputation was established belatedly after his death till the 20th century. Due to his great contribution to detective and mystery fictions, The Edgar Allan Poe Awards was set named after Poe by the Mystery Writers of America.

Poe’s works cover poetry, criticism, and fiction. His most praised and popular fictions include “The Black Cat”, “The Cask of Amontillado”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “Ligeia”, “The Tell-Tale Heart” etc. These works, all involved with gothic and horror elements are highly appreciated by readers these days. Besides the traditional ways of depicting and exaggerating the outside environment and actions, Poe probes into the characters’ psychological process and development in his detailed description of the characters’ inner voice, which provides the readers deeper and more delicate reading experience. He investigates the subconscious condition of the mind and probes beneath the surface of normal existence. It seems that he is attracted by the deep unknown part of people’s unconscious and subconscious mental activity and he focuses on digging the subterranean recesses of the mind at work (Chang, 2008).

“The Black Cat” is a representative among Poe’s horror fiction, first published in 1843. The story is told from the first-person perspective. The protagonist, also the narrator, confessed his murdering of his wife before imprisonment. His confession seemingly suggested that he was a mild one since childhood and always loved animals until he was deteriorated by alcoholism and some mysterious spirit. Their pets were maltreated by him, and Pluto, his favorite black cat who once escaped his abuse because of his consciously controlling himself, was finally gouged out one of its eyes. The protagonist felt guilty at the preliminary but soon get irritated by the cat’s avoiding him. He hanged the cat to death deliberately one day in the garden and his house caught fire that night. Together with his wife and servant, he escaped from the conflagration, losing his entire wealth. He returned to the ruins the next day and found imprinted on the wall escaped the fire, the figure of Pluto’s corpse. The sense of terror and guilt aroused. He then found a cat who extremely took after to Pluto and followed him home. Not long after it came to his home, the protagonist became even more resentful and disagreeable to the cat when he found it also lost one eye whereas his wife loved it even more. He abandoned himself and finally accidentally killed his wife when she tried to prevent him from killing the cat. However, he did not feel any guilt this time and focused on the tactic of burying the corpse in the wall. He could have escaped the imprisonment if he had not talked that much to the police and rapped the wall. The cat’s voice from the wall revealed his crime.

1.2 Literature Review

Studies on “The Black Cat” range from various perspectives abroad and at home. Focusing on the cat’s symbolic meaning, Bylund (2013) figures out that the cat is a symbol for Hel, Odin and Bast these mythological deities. Apart from the cat, narration of the protagonist is explored to unmask the character’s alienation to societal expectations (Mccoppin 2012). The protagonist’s psychology of eccentricity is discussed from the aspect of forensic psychology by Hester and Segir(2014). Moreland and Rodriguez (2015) study the feminized figure of the character by comparing it to a painting by Fuseli.

As Chang Yaoxin has commented that “The Black Cat” is an incisive inquiry into the capacity of the human mind to originate its own destruction, the narration of the protagonist in The Black Cat not only expounds the sequential events but also reflects his morbid psychology, which arouse the sense of horror in this tale (Chang, 2008). Some studies have analyzed the protagonist’s psychology from various aspects in which some directly connect the protagonist’s madness with his alcoholism while others apply Carl Gustav Jung and Sigmund Freud’s theories into research. Archetype, persona and collective unconsciousness by Jung are universally used in these studies. Huo thinks that the protagonist, who struggled in the uncontrollable destiny of disastrous big fire, unavoidable black cats, unbridled emotion, and inescapable sentence can be “considered as Sisyphus, the prototype who fights against the destiny in vain” (Huo, 2011:202). Tao owes the abnormal psychology of the protagonist to the human being’s inner evilness in accordance with Jung’s concept of shadow, the hidden and repressed dark inconspicuous side in one’s negative personality (Tao, 2013). Zuo (2012) probes the feminine traits on the character while Gong (2016) discusses Poe’ using defamiliarization in fiction to improve the literariness and catch readers attention. Meanwhile, Tong explores the protagonist’s horrible and unstable moods from the prospective of Sigmund Freud’s uncanny theory as “reciprocal impulsion” and “recurrent of repression” (Tong, 2011:116). The protagonist’s confession, categorized as “psychological monologue” or “dramatic monologue”, not only depicts the murder from his perspective but also shapes his character and image (She, 2012: 105). Focusing on the protagonist’s morbid psychology would help readers better experience the horror sense subtly designed by the writer and better understand Poe’s emphasis on the depiction of humanity’s unconsciousness and sub consciousness in fiction writing (Zhang, 2011).

Although the short story has been studied from different perspectives, the psychoanalytical analysis of the major character is rarely touched upon. This paper would explore the morbid psychology of the protagonist in “The Black Cat” from three aspects ranging from his abnormal love, hidden violence and unlimited malice on the base of his narration and Carl Gustave Jung’s theory of Shadow. While readers draw a picture of the protagonist in mind through analyzing his confession, one point should be noted that the protagonist is not fully convincible as the terror he feels is caused by himself and his so-called household events is an irrefutable murder. These obvious lies exist through the whole story which will be discussed in the following part. However, it is this kind of deceptive description that vividly and frankly reflects the protagonist’s morbid psychology of morbid love, hidden violence and unlimited malice in certain time and scene.

2 Abnormal Love

2.1Expression of the Protagonist’s love

Through the protagonist’s confession, at first sight it seems that he is kind in nature, friendly to animals and especially cares for his black cat Pluto and his agreeable wife. The protagonist is so docile since childhood that he is even mocked at by his friends because of his tender temper as a boy. Besides, he is always willing to spend time with all kinds of pets, gaining great happiness from just touching and feeding them. His love for animals also propels him to ask his parents for more pets. This special habit in taking care of animals also influences his standards in choosing his wife as he comments his wife “not uncongenial with his disposition” for her buying various pets for him as soon as she observes his “partiality for domestic pets” (Poe,1984 :598). His docile disposition lasts for several years during which he shows unique affection to the black cat Pluto among all the pets since he considers Pluto as his favorite pet and playmate. Even when later his general temperament changes, he still tries hard to control himself not to maltreat Pluto though he has already ill-used other pets and he also feels suffered after using intemperate language to his wife. From all these evidences, it is undeniable that at least the protagonist loves the black cat Pluto and his wife for his several years’ kind companion and his trying to control himself several years later when he becomes alcoholic.

However, though the protagonist does love Pluto and his wife, this love is abnormal, mostly aggressive and it requires absolute obedience from not only the cat Pluto but also people around him like his wife. Yet, the protagonist never realizes the shadow that his love is abnormal. According to Jung, shadow is the unconscious side of personality, mostly dark, evil side and sometimes the positive side. These dark sides in shadow are closely connected with “an emotional nature, a kind of autonomy” and as emotion is something “happens to the individual” rather than “an activity of the individual”, one with the type of dark side shadow tends to “behave more or less like a primitive” incidentally (Jung, 1969: 8). One may never find his own shadow, the dark side without much moral efforts.

2.2Distorted love

His weird love to Pluto, the giant black cat, is especially suggested by his dynamic relationship with it. To expound on this point, firstly his excuse of “Fiend Intemperance”, that alcoholism changes his disposition should be distinguished (Poe,1984: 598). If getting rid of the deceptive excuse of alcoholism, readers can find that the protagonist’s first maltreating to his beloved Pluto is after he fancies that the cat avoids him. The trigger is apparently opposite to that of his maltreating to other pets, for he maltreats “the rabbits, the monkey or even the dog when by accident or through affection they came in his way” (Poe, 1984: 599). If his love for Pluto is the same for other pets, he would not be irritated by the assumption of the cat’s avoidance. Rather, just as he still restrains from maltreating Pluto, his affection to Pluto is extreme, to some extent abnormal, filled up with desire for control which is embedded in his shadow. The best evidence is his getting mad when Pluto only “inflicted a slight wound” upon his hand. The idea that his beloved cat is uncontrolled, is disobeying him and trying to challenge his dominant status in their relationship freaks him out. It is his failure in understanding his excessive love for animals that predicts his incapability to figure out his motivations for his actions (Gargano, 1960). Consequently, though he knew it had given him no reason of offense, the unconscious desire for control, the abnormal love which does not permit any seemingly disobedience together with the hidden violence and the propels of alcohol push him to punish the imagined betrayer Pluto and cut one of its eyes.