Skip to main content

The Black Cat

 The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe is the very epitome of the slasher horror genre.  The way the narrator speaks makes no sense.  The whole narrative is him explaining why he did his acts of violence.  The cat’s only crime was that it loved the narrator too much and the narrator becoming an abusive person by nature.

It makes no sense.  However, if I read a book or a story and it reminds me of The Black Cat or The Tall Tale Heart, I know at once I’m reading a slasher horror story.  It’s where you have a character who is living in an ordinary world and then something triggers them and they go off and do acts of violence.  The old man’s evil eye is the trigger for The Tall Tale Heart.

In this story, we don’t get to see him interact with anyone except for the cat.  There is no interaction between the narrator and his wife.  So we don’t get see her reaction when he starts to be abusive towards animals.  I think this is a way for the narrator to put a distance between himself and the world.  One way to show that there is something strange going on with the character.


The Black Cat was published in 1843.  The audio program I listened to was narrated by Gil Anders.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

9 August 2020

  So I made some changes in plan for my birthday.   I decided to get a room at Aksarben Suites.   I’ll spend the day in Aksarben and pretend that I traveled.   What I will have, I’ll decide tomorrow, although I suspect that it will be Pickleman’s pizza.   I’ll read and chill.   Maybe I’ll take a bus to the Dundee Dell.   So many things I can do.   For coffee, I’ll go to the Starbucks on 90 th and Pacific.   That one has the Verismo coffee machine makes an excellent cup of coffee.   I can even take an early walk at the lake as I make my way to Aksarben.
Post a Comment
Read more

Trends on Horror

Here are some trends I picked up on recently. The big push for horror isn’t in October.  It’s June, July and August.  As someone who self publishes books, I’m not at all interested in what’s trending.  Mainly because I just need to write as many and publish as many books as possible.  Following trends gets thrown out the window when you want to publish four to six books a year. I already knew that books and dvds, perhaps most streaming get released on Tuesdays.  At one time I knew why. It was the whole business of everything getting shifted because of the pandemic that I realized that the push for horror was June through August.  Harrow the Ninth was supposed to be released in 25 June and now is 4 August.  The Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones was supposed to be released on 14 July and is now 1 September.  That was supposed to be my Birthday book this year. What I found out about Stephen Graham Jones is that a novel of his should have already been released, but i
Post a Comment
Read more

16 August 2020

  Song mood: New Sensation by INXS. I figured it out this morning.  I figured out how the Traveler defeats the Dark Prince.  And on the same token, I figured out how Milo de Ford defeats the Dark Prince. It is in the realm potential.  The power of the Traveler, of Milo de Ford is in one of the realms of potential.  One realm is the realm of possibility, the other realm is the realm of probability.  The Traveler is able to trap the Dark Prince within the realm of potential, but in the act of doing it, traps himself. Milo de Ford without knowledge releases the both of them in the series.  In order to defeat the Dark Prince, Milo has to do something similar to what the Traveler did. I didn’t get much accomplished in writing today.  Just figured something out for the rest of the series.  At the moment, I have my doubts but must soldier on. I thought about the realms of probability and possibility.  I think I live too much in the world of potential.  Too afraid to move forward becau
Post a Comment
Read more