In "The Black Cat", the author, Edgar Allan Poe, uses a first person narrator who is portrayed as a maniac. Instead of having a loving life with his wife and pets, the narrator has a cynical attitude towards them due to his mental instability as well as his drinking. The narrator is an alcoholic who takes out his own insecurities on his family. It can be very unfortunate and even disastrous in some cases to be mentally unstable. Things can take a turn for the worst when alcohol is involved, not only in the narrator's case, but in many other cases as well. Alcohol has many effects on people, some people can have positive effects while others, like the narrator of "The Black Cat", can have negative effects, such as causing physical and mental abuse to those around them. he likes. The combination of the narrator's mental instability and alcohol consumption caused the narrator to lose control of his mind as well as his actions, driving him to the brink of insanity. Although the narrator describes his story in the hope that the reader will feel sympathy for him, he tries to draw attention to his alcohol abuse to demonstrate the negative effects it can have on your life and, in the end, destroy it. It often happens that the narrator describes his actions towards those close to him while under the influence of alcohol. Since the narrator seeks to draw attention to his drinking, he tries to ensure that his actions trace back to it. In the short story, the narrator says "But my illness has grown upon me - for what illness is like alcohol!..." (Poe 23), which shows his growing dependence on alcohol . The narrator's madness seems to be accentuated by alcohol. It begins to change...... middle of paper .......Works CitedBadenhausen, Richard. “Fear and trembling in fantasy literature: “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe.” Studies in Short Fiction 29.4 (1992): 487-498. MLA International Bibliography. Internet. March 29, 2014. Bliss, Ann V. “Domestic Horror: Domestic Masculinity in Poe’s “The Black Cat.” » Explainer 67.2 (2009): 96-99. Humanities Full Text (HW Wilson). Internet. May 3. 2014. Cleman, John. “Irresistible Impulses: Edgar Allan Poe and the Defense Against Madness.” American Literature, Vol. 63, no. 4 (December 1991), pp. 623-640. JSTOR. Internet. May 1st. 2014. Reilly, E. John. "A source of immunization in 'The Black Cat'." 19th Century Literature, Vol. 48, no. 1 (June 1993), pp. 93-95. JSTOR. Internet. March 28, 2014. Shulman, Robert. Poe and the Powers of the Mind. Flight. 37. Np: The John Hopkins University Press, 1970. 245-62. 2 vol. JSTOR. Internet. May 3 2014.