1. Discuss the following questions.

1) What is important about the title?

2) How does Edgar Allan Poe reveal character in The Black Cat?

3) What are the themes in the story? How do they relate to the plot and characters?

4) What are the symbols in The Black Cat? How do they relate to the plot and characters?

5) Do you think there are two black cats, or just one?

6) Does the story give any clues as to how or by whom the fire was started? If so, what are they?

7) Do the use of capital letters help set the tone of the story? If so, how? Would the story have been better or worse without these touches?

8) Is this story relevant to you, and your life? Why or why not?

9) How do you feel about cats? Did the story change your feelings? If so, how?

10) Does The Black Cat remind you of any other stories you’ve read, or movies you’ve seen? What are the similarities and differences?

2. Tell whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F).

1) The Black Cat is a sinister portrayal of animal. ( )

2) Hanging and axing are examples of the theme “violence”. ( )

3) The narrator writes from his bedroom. ( )

4) The narrator’s friendship with Pluto lasts for several years. ( )

5) The alcohol pushes the narrator into fits of intemperance and violence. ( )

6) The narrator is unaware of the transformation in himself that has led him to become a murderer. ( )

7) Pluto never recovered from his injury and died in the fire. ( )

8) The second cat is the same size and color as Pluto and is even missing an eye. ( )

9) The second cat was purchased from the landlord of a tavern. ( )

10) The Black Cat is in many ways a moral tale that deals with the tension between love and hate and that warns of the dangers of alcohol. ( )

3. Solo Work: Fill in the blanks to complete the summary of the story.

The narrator tells us that from an early age he has loved animals. He and his wife have many pets, including a large black cat named 1) . Although his wife often refers to the superstition that black cats are actually disguised 2) , the narrator is particularly fond of the unusually intelligent cat.

In subsequent years, the narrator becomes increasingly moody and irritable due to 3) , and he begins to verbally abuse and threaten his wife as well as his pets. One day, when he comes home drunk and, imagining that Pluto is avoiding him, he seizes the cat, which 4) him on the hand in fear. In response, the narrator loses control and cuts one of Pluto’s 5) out with a pen-knife. After sobering up the next morning, he feels remorseful but returns to drinking. The cat recovers, but it conspicuously avoids its owner, who is at first grieved and later annoyed and provoked. He describes it as a primitive impulse of 6) that drives him to complete his attack on Pluto by 7) the cat from a tree, although he cries as he does the deed, aware that he has committed a deadly sin on an animal that once loved him.

The same night as the cat’s death, the house is set on 8) , and the narrator, his wife, and his servant barely escape. Peculiarly, on the single wall that did not fall in the fire is an image of a gigantic 9) with a rope around its neck. The narrator explains the phenomenon away, reasoning that someone must have thrown the cat into his window to try to wake him up in the fire and that as other walls fell, they must have compressed the animal into the plaster, where the lime, the heat, and the ammonia from the cat’s body combined to form the 10) . However, he remains disturbed and feels a sense of regret that falls just short of remorse.