Is the desire to do evil part of human nature, or does this desire come from elsewhere? In the short story "The Black Cat" (1843), Edgar Allan Poe illustrates the difficulties faced by the narrator through his personal point of view, which portrays him as an unreliable narrator due to his questionable mental health. “The Black Cat” begins with the narrator illustrating the events that led him to where he is now, death row, in which he appears insane. Although many would disagree with the narrator, he states that his motivations behind his actions come from human nature or evil. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Edgar Allan Poe's short story begins with the narrator locked behind bars describing the horrors he experienced. He begins his personal story by describing that he was a very gentle and caring man who had a loving marriage, in which he and his wife cared for many animals, which he claimed to love very much. When he starts drinking, he begins to be very aggressive towards his pets and his wife, except for their favorite black cat, Pluto. However, one night, when the narrator was drunk again, he felt that the black cat was ignoring him, causing him to reach for his cat in turn, biting him, which then gouged out his eye. The next day, he claims to have felt great remorse, but as an excuse, he explains that because of his perversity, he had to continue the abuse, which led him to hang the cat later that day when he was drunk. On the same night of Pluto's death, the house the narrator lives in caught fire, causing the loss of his possessions and leaving a large image of a cat hanging on the only remaining wall. The narrator then finds another black cat, which almost resembles Pluto, which he takes home, but begins to feel hatred towards it soon after. He explains that it reminds him too much of Pluto, but his breaking point was when he sees her white spot as a gallows, in which he promises to take revenge in and on her. He later pulls an ax on the cat, causing his wife to stop him from killing it, killing her instead and calmly hiding its lifeless corpse, hiding it in the basement wall next door of the cat, which got him locked up when the cat made noise during a police investigation. The narrator opens the story by acknowledging that he may seem crazy based on the story he is going to share, but pretends that he is not, which makes him seem like an unreliable narrator since the reader can't trust what he reports since sane people don't. I don't tend to feel the need to tell others that they are sane. This leads to an informative description of what it would be like to be crazy, as he shares strange information, for example, he claims he regrets hurting Pluto and understands that it is wrong, but he kills him when even blaming alcohol for his mood. the swings and the dark path he follows. Edgar Allan Poe solidifies the concept of madness by showing the narrator taking violent action without any ulterior motive or consideration for the consequences, for example, in the strangest moment in the text where the narrator calmly disposes of his wife. body. “And then came, as for my definitive and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSETY. Philosophy takes no account of this spirit. Yet I am no more sure that my soul lives than I am that perversity is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart, one of the indivisible primary faculties or feelings which direct the