Introduction

In his short story “The Black Cat,” Edgar Allan Poe explores the depraved mental state of a narrator whose alcoholism drives him to disturbing domestic violence. Poe’s narrator exhibits increasingly cruel behavior towards his household companions, abusing his beloved pet cat and eventually murdering his wife. Throughout the graphic descriptions of violence towards the cat and other members of the household, Poe repeatedly points to the narrator’s alcohol use, blaming “the fiend intemperance” for his unusually cruel disposition (Poe, “Black Cat” 192). During Poe’s time, the popularity of the Temperance movement grew; a campaign advocating against alcohol use whose messages were disseminated largely through works of literature. Many scholars view “The Black Cat” as part of the temperance genre because of the presence of alcohol. However, while “The Black Cat” does follow many of the conventions of typical temperance literature, it is more likely that Poe was subverting the genre to comment on the weaknesses of these stories. “The Black Cat” is a work of subversion that critiques didactic temperance literature because of Poe’s use of the cat and the narrator’s wife as symbols of the movement’s fatal flaw.

Historical Background

The Temperance movement began in the eighteenth century as an evangelical effort to reform society by advocating for moderation in drinking and often complete sobriety. Temperance reformers pointed to alcoholism as the root cause of many of society’s ills, including poverty, crime, and domestic abuse, and they believed Americans should stop drinking to become pure Christian individuals. In 1826, the movement gained momentum with the establishment of the American Temperance Society, and by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, temperance values appeared in many works of American literature. No doubt a popular and widely read genre, temperance stories were “often didactic, and sometimes insufferably so,” preaching “the values of sobriety and castigat[ing] the evils of drunkenness” (Reynolds and Rosenthal 1). These stories typically revolved around “an inexperienced young man who is seduced into the deceptively attractive life of drink” or “a miserable father who batters his family physically and economically” (Reynolds and Rosenthal 2). While modern society perceives alcoholism to be a mental illness, temperance reformers traditionally believed alcoholism was a “moral failure” (Reynolds and Rosenthal 4). However, there was growing discussion during Poe’s time about the possibility that alcoholism was a disease. One of the leading proponents of this theory, Benjamin Rush, wrote in his book An Inquiry Into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind that alcoholic drinks, rather than the drinker, “convey into the soul a host of vices and crimes” (qtd. in Matheson 71). He saw drunkenness as a “fit…whose paroxysms occur, like the paroxysms of many diseases, at certain periods, and after longer or shorter intervals,” and he asserted that the drinker was “ignorantly and undesignedly seduced into the habitual and destructive use” of liquor (qtd. in Matheson 71). Because of this, he professed that society should feel empathy towards, rather than condemnation of, alcoholics, and he encouraged readers to “…administer to [alcoholics] the same relief” that they would “afford to a fellow creature, in a similar state, from accidental and innocent cause” (qtd. in Matheson 72).

Temperance Ideology in “The Black Cat”

This compassion for alcoholics as victims of a disease out of their control appears in many works of temperance literature and is notably present in “The Black Cat” with the narrator’s frequent use of passive language to convey that his drinking was an illness he suffered from rather than the result of his own actions. When he first begins his descent into violence, the narrator blames it on “the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance” (Poe, “Black Cat” 193). He does not reflect on his failure to control his drinking and his violence, but rather blames it on some third-party “Fiend” taking control of him. Additionally, when discussing his cruelty towards those in his household, he narrates, “I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length I even offered her personal violence” (Poe, “Black Cat” 193). His use of passive voice further conveys that he takes no responsibility for his moral failure. He did not abuse and curse at his wife; he “suffered himself” and “offered” her violence. The same rhetoric occurs when he discusses his violence towards his pets, who he explains “were made to feel the change in [his] disposition” (Poe, “Black Cat” 193). Again, he employs passive voice to take blame away from himself and to suggest that he wasn’t hurting his pets, but that instead they were made to feel his anger. In this way, “The Black Cat” follows the opinions of Benjamin Rush and many temperance authors that alcoholism is an affliction that causes the drinker to act in ways they would not normally condone, rather than a moral failure for which the drinker should take responsibility.

Poe’s story also bears a notable resemblance to the works of Timothy Shay Arthur, the leading author of temperance literature. Arthur is best known for his book Six Nights with the Washingtonians, which consisted of six formulaic temperance stories that each ended with the drinker returning to respectability by signing the Washington Temperance Society’s pledge to abstain from drinking. In the chapter “The Drunkard’s Wife,” Arthur’s narration follows Doctor Harper as he turns from a sensitive, morally sound man to a violent individual. Arthur writes, “How sad the change which a single year had made! Twelve months before, there was not a kinder husband nor a happier wife to be found.” He then expresses that “like too many others, when he was drunk, [Harper] was a devil and seemed to take a cruel delight in tormenting those whom he most loved when in his right mind” (Arthur 161). These lines follow closely with the sentiments in “The Black Cat,” further suggesting that Poe’s story is an example of temperance literature. Just as Harper was the “kind[est] husband” with the “happie[st]” wife, the narrator in “The Black Cat” describes himself as a man “noted for the docility and humanity of [his] disposition” with a “tenderness of heart” that was “conspicuous” to his peers (Poe, “Black Cat” 192). In both instances, the drinker, when sober, is not just kind and tender but exceptionally so, standing out amongst those around them as a noticeably pleasant person. Additionally, the sentiment from Arthur’s tale of a drinker taking “cruel delight” in tormenting those he “most loved when in the right mind” is central to Poe’s story. The main plotline in “The Black Cat” centers around the narrator acting violently towards the cat, who was his “favorite pet and playmate” (Poe, “Black Cat” 192). This phenomenon of drinkers acting violently towards those they most love when sober helps characterize the alcoholic as someone acting out of character: a key feature that allows for their redemption in classic temperance tales. Furthermore, Poe’s narration frequently employs “memory-elicited attestations” that “interrupt the story time with abrupt and direct intrusions” (Piacentino 153). For instance, when explaining how he cut out his cat’s eye, the narrator of “The Black Cat” interrupts, “I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity” (Poe, “Black Cat” 193). These interruptions act as “authorized commentary on the action” and are a staple “form of didacticism” that is common in temperance tales (Piacentino 153). Since Arthur and Poe were writing at the same time and knew of each other’s works, these similarities are difficult to ignore. Logic suggests that, since Arthur’s story is a prominent piece of temperance literature, Poe’s similar plotline would fall into the same genre.

Poe’s Opinions on Temperance Literature

However, in Poe’s published correspondence, he explicitly criticizes Timothy Shay Arthur as a writer. In a letter to American physician and temperance editor Joseph Allan Snodgrass, Poe expresses, “I never had much opinion on Arthur. What little merit he has is negative” (Poe, “Letter to Snodgrass”). In fact, Poe frequently criticized elements of the temperance genre. In his essay “The Poetic Principle,” Poe condemns what he terms “the heresy of the didactic.” He asserts that poetry and art should not teach a moral lesson or follow the typical evangelical didacticism that characterizes temperance literature. Instead, writers should create art for art’s sake (Poe, “Poetic Principle” 508–526). Why, then, if Poe looked down upon Arthur and his works and believed that moral lessons defeat the purpose of writing, does “The Black Cat” bear so much resemblance to Six Nights with the Washingtonians and other pieces of didactic temperance literature? Why would Poe write in a genre that he believed had no merit? The answer lies in Poe’s tendency to play with genre norms in a satirical manner.

Subversion of Temperance Conventions in “The Black Cat”

Poe is known amongst literary scholars as a “practical joker” who poked fun at and criticized popular discourse. In Poe and the Subversion of American Literature: Satire, Fantasy, Critique, Robert T. Tally Jr. explains that the “principal force” of Poe’s work lies in “its ability to disrupt identities and continuities that go into forming [the] image-repertoire of American national narrative” (qtd. in Hanrahan 647). In other words, Poe’s tendency to employ popular genres and emerging national discourses did not stem from a desire to capitalize on their popularity but to satirize conventions. Therefore, when analyzing “The Black Cat,” readers should look not for how it fits into the popular genre of temperance literature, but how it contradicts or subverts these stories.

As mentioned before, “The Black Cat” and Six Nights with the Washingtonians bear notable resemblance in their plotlines, with narrators who are exceptionally kind but begin to show violence towards those they love after drinking. However, where these tales differ, and where Poe’s subversion begins, is in Poe’s use of unreliable narration. Unreliable narrators are a staple across many of Poe’s works. While he presents narrators who are desperate to convince readers of their sanity, he simultaneously intends that readers see through this narration. In “The Black Cat,” like many of his other tales, the narrator’s unreliability is evident through the “irony of his… self-betrayal and the development and arrangement of his dramatic actions” (Gargano 178). While the stories of Timothy Shay Arthur and other temperance writers are straightforward, with a linear progression depicting a morally sound man who falls victim to the evils of alcoholism and either succumbs to it or overcomes it by deciding to abstain from drinking, the narration in “The Black Cat” is sporadic, contradictory, and leaves the reader questioning the narrator’s mental state.

The clearest case of the narrator’s contradiction occurs in his overarching claim that he is a victim of alcoholism. While the narrator begins the story with passive language, blaming his actions on “the Fiend Intemperance” and claiming that his pets were “made to feel the change in [his] disposition,” this passivity is confusingly juxtaposed with clear, active narration when he describes acts during which he was allegedly in a drunken state. For instance, when the narrator cuts out the cat’s eye, he explains, “I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket” (Poe, “Black Cat” 193). In this line, the narrator recalls his actions with language that is unusually precise for someone in a drunken stupor. The inclusion of details like the weapon he used, its exact location, and direct language like “deliberately” hints to the reader that the narrator was not entirely “possessed” by alcohol, and that his actions were not as out of his control as he claims.

There are numerous points in the story where the narrator is sober and still commits violent acts. For instance, despite his remorse at cutting the cat’s eye out, he is sober when he decides to hang the cat, blaming this violence instead on the “spirit of perverseness”: the human impulse to commit acts they know are wrong. He appeals to the reader, asking, “Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?” (Poe, “Black Cat” 194). In this case, the narrator is not only sober but consciously choosing to act violently and offering another feeble explanation for his behavior. By claiming he was acting cruelly for “no other reason than because he knows he should not,” the narrator renders his previous justification that alcohol was the root cause of his depravity insufficient. If Poe wanted to warn readers about the dangers of alcoholism, he could have written the narrator in a drunken state when he was performing these actions. Instead, the narrator’s sober acts of cruelty and alternate justification represent the “flimsiness of his attempt to use alcohol as the cause of his evil,” pointing to his unreliability (Matheson 74). This is where “The Black Cat” differs starkly from straightforward temperance stories in which a morally sound man falls victim to alcoholism and overcomes it by deciding to abstain. When considering the narrator in “The Black Cat” as an unreliable source, it is difficult for readers to accept his claim that he was once morally upstanding and docile, and consequently to view him as a victim of alcoholism rather than as someone who is simply cruel by nature.

Furthermore, a staple of the didacticism in works of temperance literature is that when the drunkard fails to overcome their alcoholism, they show signs of guilt or remorse at ruining their life. However, the narrator in “The Black Cat” is not remorseful for his actions. Though he shows initial signs of guilt after cutting the cat’s eye out, awakening with a sentiment “half of horror, half of remorse” for “the crime of which [he’d] been guilty,” he describes his guilt as “at best, a feeble and unequivocal feeling,” asserting that his “soul remained untouched” (Poe, “Black Cat” 194). Again, this directly contradicts the lessons in temperance literature and the ideas of figures like Benjamin Rush, who believed that alcohol “convey[ed] into the soul a host of vices and crimes” and that, without alcohol, the soul would be cleansed (qtd. in Matheson 71). Even when the narrator reflects on his drunken cruelty when sober, his soul remains “untouched,” further demonstrating that it is not just the alcohol that is causing his moral failures. Additionally, the story’s climax occurs and resolves abruptly when the narrator accidentally and impulsively murders his wife. While this action shocks the reader, despite its unintentional nature, the narrator is chillingly unshocked—and, notably, sober. He does not express remorse at his actions, or any emotions for that matter, but continues unsentimentally, “with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body” (Poe, “Black Cat” 198). The narrator’s lack of guilt is disturbing and further characterizes the narrator as an unreliable, depraved individual rather than a remorseful victim of the dangers of alcoholism.

The ending of “The Black Cat” is Poe’s final act of differentiating the story from temperance literature and thereby subverting the genre. After the narrator conceals his wife’s body, the story concludes when he accidentally reveals his crime to the police, sending him to prison, where he is narrating this story. The last lines consist of the narrator explaining the flaw in his plan of entombing his wife, and he finishes by exclaiming, “I had walled [the cat] up within the tomb!” (Poe, “Black Cat” 201). This finale is a stark contrast to typical temperance plotlines, which conclude with a moral lesson when the drunkard either vows to abstain from drinking or expresses great remorse at the effects of their alcoholism. In this case, Poe “pointedly omits obvious moralizing” or “any implied counter-narrative of redemption” so that his story “present[s] ‘little but Horror’” (Fisher 102). Not only is the narrator unreliable in his claim that alcoholism is the cause of his behavior, but he also shows no substantial remorse for his actions. He does not represent any moral lesson against abusing alcohol. These characterizations of the narrator demonstrate that “The Black Cat” does not share the same goals as temperance literature.

Poe’s Critique

If “The Black Cat” is not a piece of temperance literature, but rather a subversion or critique of it, what aspect of this genre is Poe critiquing? The answer can be found by analyzing the reasoning behind the narrator’s violence. Throughout the story, the narrator is angered by the cat’s and his wife’s loyalty to him, explaining that the cat’s “evident fondness for [himself] rather disgusted and annoyed [him]” (Poe, “Black Cat” 194). He also expresses that he hung the cat “because [he] knew that it had loved [him],” and he refers to his wife, whom he ultimately murders unremorsefully, as “uncomplaining” and “the most patient of sufferers” (Poe, “Black Cat” 197). The narrator’s disgust for others’ fondness towards him hints at the kind of critique Poe is making.

Writers like Rush and Arthur remove blame from cruel drunkards and encourage society to feel compassion towards them. The cat and wife demonstrate this school of thought by showing the narrator compassion regardless of his actions. At the close of the story, each of the characters who excuse the drunkard’s behavior faces a terrible fate: the wife is brutally murdered, the cat is entombed, and the narrator himself is imprisoned by his own confession. The fates of these characters represent the fate of society if people ignore signs of moral failure in drunkards and blame their behavior solely on alcoholism. As the narrator condemns these characters for excusing his behavior, Poe condemns Rush’s school of thought in temperance literature, arguing that it is not alcohol that leads people to act in morally corrupt ways, but that there are other moral flaws causing their behavior.

Poe’s Alcoholism

Poe’s attitude towards temperance can be gauged further when examining his attitude towards his own alcoholism. Poe joined the Shockoe Hill Division of the Sons of Temperance shortly before his death. However, despite joining a temperance society, his opinions surrounding alcoholism differ from temperance ideas. In a letter to George W. Eveleth in 1848, he writes, “The causes which maddened me to drinking are no more, and I am done drinking forever” (Poe, “Letter to Eveleth”). This sort of language is very different from the language the narrator in “The Black Cat” uses and is particularly telling for Poe’s views of alcoholism. While the narrator refers to his drinking as “the fiend intemperance” and uses passive language to explain how alcoholism was the root cause of his behavior, Poe instead references the causes that “maddened” him to drinking. This encapsulates Poe’s view of alcoholism and temperance literature. To him, alcoholism was not a “disease” or third-party force that caused someone to behave poorly, like the narrator in “The Black Cat” would like the audience to think. One’s moral failures cannot be cured if they vow to never drink again, like writers of temperance literature naively report. Instead, alcoholism and moral failures go beyond just drinking, including other flaws in human nature: the causes that madden people to drink in the first place.

Conclusion

What makes Poe so interesting to read is that few, if any, of his works can be taken at face value. Poe frequently dabbles in the subversion of popular discourse, with unreliable narrators and plot lines that subvert genre conventions. Given that he was writing during the rise of the temperance movement, it is no surprise that he would touch upon temperance literature and discussion, but the way he does so is far from conventional. In “The Black Cat,” Poe plays with the temperance genre to critique this form of literature, using the narrator’s loathing to represent Poe’s loathing of didactic temperance literature itself. Just as the narrator condemns those who excuse his behavior and show him sympathy, so does Poe condemn literature that names alcoholism as the sole cause of human depravity. Instead, Poe argues that it is human character flaws that lead to drinking, and that eliminating drinking is not a surefire method for stamping out moral corruption. In this way, Poe comments on the fatal flaw of the temperance movement: its lack of depth in understanding the weaknesses of the human spirit.

Works Cited

Arthur, Timothy Shay. “The Drunkard’s Wife.” Six Nights with the Washingtonians: A Series of Original Temperance Tales, L. A. Godey and Morton McMichael, 1842, pp. 155–180.

Fisher, Paul. “Alcohol, Addiction, and Rehabilitation.” Edgar Allan Poe in Context, edited by Kevin J. Hayes, Cambridge UP, 2012, pp. 96–106.

Gargano, James W. “The Question of Poe’s Narrators.” College English, vol. 25, no. 3, 1963, pp. 177–181. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/373684.

Hanrahan, Heidi M. Review of Poe and the Subversion of American Literature: Satire, Fantasy, Critique, by Robert T. Tally Jr. Journal of American Studies, vol. 51, no. 2, 2017, pp. 647–648. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875817000111.

Matheson, T. J. “Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’ as a Critique of Temperance Literature.” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, vol. 19, no. 3, 1986, pp. 69–81. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24777637.

Piacentino, Ed. “Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’ as Psychobiography: Some Reflections on the Narratological Dynamics.” Studies in Short Fiction, vol. 35, no. 2, 1998, pp. 153–167.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Black Cat.” The Portable Edgar Allan Poe, edited by J. Gerald Kennedy, Penguin Books, 2006, pp. 192–201.

—. Letter to George W. Eveleth. 29 Feb. 1848. Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, LTR-263, Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, www.eapoe.org/misc/letters/. Accessed 11 Nov. 2025.

—. Letter to Joseph Evans Snodgrass. 12 July 1841. Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, LTR-120, Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, www.eapoe.org/misc/letters/. Accessed 11 Nov. 2025.

—. “The Poetic Principle.” The Portable Edgar Allan Poe, edited by J. Gerald Kennedy, Penguin Books, 2006, pp. 508–526.

Reynolds, David S., and Debra J. Rosenthal, editors. The Serpent in the Cup: Temperance in American Literature. U of Massachusetts P, 1997.

Tally, Robert T., Jr. Poe and the Subversion of American Literature: Satire, Fantasy, Critique. Bloomsbury, 2015.