Sabrina Mena

FIQWS HA12
October 28, 2018

A Path to Self-Destruction

Sigmund Freud has developed concepts pertaining to psychoanalysis, which can be used
to analyze the actions and personalities of characters in literature. In Freud’s “Five Lectures on
Psychoanalysis”, he unfolds his ideas of repression, and displacement, along with other concepts
which can be utilized to understand and explain the reason behind the actions of an individual. In
lecture two, Freud delineates repression as being a way for the mind to protect itself, like a
defense mechanism that removes negative thoughts from the conscious mind. Displacement is
described in lecture three as a transfer of emotions from one thing, to something more socially
acceptable. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat”, is about a man narrating the events that
occurred in his life, starting from being a man living a fulfilled life with his wife and animals, to
the alteration of his personality due to alcohol. Eventually his aggressive personality leads him to
self-destruction when murdering his wife and animals. The unnamed narrator undergoes
significant shifts in emotions and develops an abusive expression towards his wife and the
animals. Due to these alterations, the psychoanalytic concepts of repression, and displacement
are illustrated through the narrator’s behaviors.

In the opening passage of “The Black Cat”, the narrator commences by explaining the
state of his personality earlier on in his life. He describes himself as having a “tenderness of
heart” and talks about his love for tending to animals as a boy. However, the narrator points out
that the shift in his personality commences after he reaches adulthood. He states “…I grew day by
day more moody more irritable more regardless of the feelings of others”. The cause behind
these changes in his personality was the addiction he developed from drinking alcohol. Usually
when someone excessively drinks, it can be a way of distracting the mind from issues happening
in life. Clearly, the narrator is going through something, because instead of being home with his
wife, he goes out late and comes home drunk and lashes out in anger. For this reason, the
narrator can be experiencing an internal conflict or dissatisfaction with his life, causing him to
use drinking as a means of repressing hidden emotions. In Freud’s second lecture, he mentions
that when a person represses emotions, they can drive them out of the unconsciousness in order
to ease themselves from an immense amount of displeasure.

As Freud continues to talk about repression in his second lecture, he talks about the
symptoms a person repressing emotions experiences. Freud states, “But the repressed wishful
impulse continues to exist in the unconscious. It is on look-out for an opportunity of being
activated” (Freud, 2215). Here Freud is explaining that repressed emotions continue to live on in
the unconscious and continue in trying to find a way to escape. If an individual continues
repressing emotions, they eventually begin experiencing symptoms of these emotions trying to
escape the mind. In “The Black Cat”, the narrator undergoes a series of symptoms caused by the
way he attempts to repress emotions through drinking. One instance where this occurs is the
incident where the narrator comes home intoxicated trying to pet his cat, and the cat decides to
bite him, causing a wave of anger and violence within the narrator. Instead of yelling or putting
the cat down like someone normally would in this situation, the narrator states “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.” The irrational behavior of the narrator in this situation is a
symptom of the emotions he had been repressing through his drinking. In the beginning of

story the narrator talks about his love and fascination for his cat Pluto, which does not explain
why he would hurt him in this way.

After the act of cutting out the cat’s eye, the narrator experiences a profound sense of
guilt and remorse. This leads him into further repressing even more emotions. Like Freud
mentions, these repressed emotions remain in the unconscious finding the right moment to
escape. Eventually, the narrator’s symptoms of aggression, lead him into killing his beloved cat
Pluto. Coincidently, later in the story another black cat crosses his path one night. To his surprise
however, the narrator quickly realizes that a “disgust” and “annoyance” came upon him towards
the new cat. These emotions eventually turned into hatred because the cat offered a remembrance
the incident with his cat Pluto. Freud states “Alongside the indication of distortion in the
symptom, we can trace in it the remains of some kind of indirect resemblance to the idea that
was originally repressed”. Freud explains that at times symptoms of repressed emotions can
show up as something like what the person is trying to repress. In this situation for example, the
narrator is now repressing the guilt and remorse of killing his cat Pluto. The symptom of
repression has shown up as another black cat like his cat Pluto, and he is experiencing hatred
because this new cat is activating those repressed emotions. Here the psychoanalytic concept of
displacement can be seen, as the narrator transfers his emotions of guilt from killing his first cat,
onto this new cat. The new cat is allowing these emotions to escape, causing the narrator an
immense disturbance.

As explained before, the psychoanalytic concepts Freud develops in his five lectures, can
be applied to understand and analyze the behaviors pertaining to many characters in literature.
The unnamed narrator in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” strongly enforces how Freud’s
concepts can interpret a character’s actions in literature. The concepts of repression and
displacement are two of the many psychoanalytic concepts, which can be used to uncover the
underlying meaning to the actions and personality of this character. The narrators shift in
emotion throughout, portrays the experience of someone repressing emotions and the symptoms
that surface as a result.

Works Cited
Freud, Sigmund. “Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis”, Clark University, Worcester
Massachusetts, 1910.
Allan E, Poe. “The Black Cat”, The Saturday Evening Post, August 19, 1843.

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