Question

Refer to Explorations in Literature for a complete version of this story. Which quotation from "The Black Cat" best supports the inference that the cat represents the narrator's sense of guilt? "…to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight—an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off—incumbent eternally upon my heart!" "I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me." "For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse." "...My wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise."

Answer 1

Answer:

"For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse."

Explanation:

Edgar Allen Poe's short story "The Black Cat" revolves around the unnamed narrator/ protagonist's act of killing his wife which led to his present situation of being in prison. He recounts how he ended up in the state he is in, and how it all happened because of a black cat that he'd taken as a pet.

Even before his wife's death, he had done the act of killing Pluto, his very first pet cat. He was drunk and in a state of sudden frenzy and anger, he not only took out the eye of the cat but also hung it. And soon after, events followed that only he could presume to be related to the wrongful death of Pluto. He admits that "[he] could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat" which further led to his belief that "there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse".

This admission shows how he felt guilty and how the dead cat represents his guilty conscience.