In the storytelling tradition, few concepts are as popular as supernatural intervention in human life. These interventions typically feature a collection of very familiar, almost domestic, descriptive forms: angels, demons, invisible kinetic forces, and even nature itself are all used as representations of divinity and unknowable power. It is the mark of a true master to escape from this gallery of clichés and handcrafted details that make a unique statement; in Edgar Allen Poe's short story The Black Cat, so much is accomplished in a frightening and gruesome style. For Poe, the Christian concept of God is of no importance, and he writes from a position of his own morality, in which there is no guardian, no benevolent light to guide souls from the path darkness. There is only unstoppable and disembodied punishment, because the narrator's abuses are punished not spiritually, in the other life, but in the present, with shocking violence. After Original Sin, in which the narrator cuts out the eyes of one of his beloved cats Pluto with a pocket knife as repayment for a "slight wound to the hand" (Poe 30), madness quickly breeds madness, as the patterns of destruction reverse on the narrator's body. life and the psyche. The lack of a clear antagonist in the story is essential. Pluto, alcohol, the house fire, and the gallows: distinct events and narrative aspects, each touched by an indeterminate element of the supernatural, fit together like images from a reel of film, weaving a concept of spirituality in which evil is not part. of life, but a vast looming framework in which the trappings of mortal life are but small parts. In The Black Cat, horror itself is the only God Poe recognizes, fear is far from abstract, and morality is not imposed by a just and perfect creator, but by the vicious twists and turns of madness and destiny. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The key to a correct interpretation of this tale is the narrator's indifferent regard for the concept of rational explanation. In his own words, “I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between disaster and atrocity” (Poe 31). There is no truly sensible explanation for the image of the hanging cat appearing in the rubble of the sudden fire, just as there is no truly sensible explanation for the wild and violent mood swings that the narrator experiences several times. Instead, the reader is forced to turn away from reality and towards the extra-sensory world, the world of fate, madness, fortune and misfortune. In Poe's imagination, this second world is just as real as the first, fully capable of crossing the boundaries of perception to leave a damning message on a crumbling wall, on a cat's chest, or at the bottom of a bottle of gin. Of course, Poe is not just a teller of ghost stories and gory parables; his work The Black Cat notably lacks any formal theological or mythological structure in which to place the supernatural events that occur. In an ideologically mature literary decision, Poe eschews dogma, whether Christian or even pagan, in favor of humanity's ultimate bogeyman: the unknown. Additionally, free moments of irony, hidden between the action-packed lines of this brief narrative, do much to illustrate its anti-Christian themes. It is no coincidence that the first cat, Pluto,.