Edgar Allen Poe "The Black Cat"

                      The short story “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe is a story that brings you into the mind of a murderer who is an alcoholic’s head. The story is told from the first-person point of view. The advantage of telling this story in the first-person point of view is that the reader is able to really grasp the emotions that the narrator is feeling and see what he is seeing. If this was told from a third-person point of view the reader would only be able to see how the man looks and feels from the outside, which wouldn’t be as dramatic or exciting.

            A good example of being able to be inside the narrator’s head comes from when he returns home drunk and realizes that the cat is avoiding him. He finds the cat and picks it up, in defense the cat bites his hand and the author says, “the fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, ginnurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame” (pg. 231). This quote really exemplifies and gives and in depth look at the emotions that the narrator is feeling. If this was told from the third-person point of view, the author wouldn’t be able to display these emotions so intensely, thus not giving the reader the sense of anger that the narrator is feeling.

            Not only does the reader get a better sense of the emotions of the narrator but they also get a much better image of what he is actually seeing. After his house burns down there is only one wall left standing and there is a crowd of people surrounding it. He goes to see what everyone is looking at and describes what he sees as “if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvelous. There was a rope about the animal’s neck” (pg. 232). Here the reader is able to see exactly what the narrator is seeing and not what everyone crowded around the wall is seeing. The narrator immediately assumes that the crowd is seeing the same thing that he is when he hears people saying the words “strange” and “singular” (pg. 232). As far as we know, he is so paranoid that he is imagining that the shadow is there, and the other people are in awe thinking that it was “strange” that a “singular” wall was the only thing left standing after a huge fire. This makes the story more suspenseful and mysterious to the reader, which is appealing to many audiences.

            The first-person point of view allows the narrator to provide the readers with the opportunity to more closely relate to the emotions and feelings of the narrator. It can also add more excitement and suspense to the story. On the other hand, a third-person point of view can give the reader different perspectives of what is happening but will not be as in depth as a first-person point of view.