There are major differences between the
film we saw in class and The Black Cat by
Edgar Allen
Poe. The film had added effects to get
the viewer's attention. The film also
let out important
parts that were in the short story. The
short story gave the reader a
better background
for character analysis. Although the
story was much more enticing
because the
reader knew the main character better.
In the short story the man(abusive
husband) is described as a loving and caring
husband, who is
very fond of animals. He describes to
the reader how his obsession with
alcohol is like a
disease. He gets more irritable everyday
because his cravings for alcohol
become greater
and greater. He was often physically
abusive to his wife. One night the
man came home
very drunk and violent so Pluto(the black cat) scratched him out of fear.
then the man lost
his temper and cut out the cat's eye with his penknife. One morning the
man hanged the
cat from a tree limb with a noose around its neck. That night his house
burnt to the
ground. In the morning he found a
petrified white cat with a rope around its
neck in the
charred remains. A few days later the
man saw a black cat with a white chest
and he liked it
so much he let the cat follow him home.
The cat made itself at home but
the man avoided
it because of a sense of shame for his former deed. The next day the man
noticed that the
cat was missing an eye just as Pluto.
His wife pointed out that the white
spot on its chest
resembled the Gallows! The cat made the
man trip in his basement one
day. So he picked up an ax to kill the cat, and
his wife stepped in the way and he put the
ax through her
brains. The man decided to hide the body
and the cat behind a bricked up
wall in the
basement. The police came and looked at
everything. Just before they left,
they heard a
noise from the basement wall. So they
tore the bricks down. Thus they
discovered the
body and the black cat.
The film hints that the man was once a
loving and caring husband. The wife told
her husband he
was not the same man she married. The
film shows how the alcohol made
the man abuse his
wife for more drinking money. There is
no hint of affection for animals
shown. The man's wife is having an affair because
she doesn't love her husband anymore.
When the man
finds out what his wife is doing he poisons his wife and her boyfriend.
Then he bricks
them up behind a wall in the basement along with the black cat he hated.
Based on this information the critic can
see these two story plots are completely
different. They even describe the man differently. There is one similarity between the two
plots. "A guilty conscious never feels
secure." The man experiences the
truth of this
statement because
he basically gives the murder away when the cat is heard. Although the
two story plots
were different, Poe's unique style of writing can entice anyone.
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