During his life Edgar Allan Poe suffered from the death of many of his loved ones. It is very clear that this greatly influenced his stories and poems. Early in his life, Poe's mother died of tuberculosis. Shortly thereafter, her adoptive mother and brother also died of tuberculosis. By this time Poe had lost most of the people he loved and had fallen into a dark period in his life. He began to be recognized for his dark writings and began to make a name for himself. He found love again with his younger cousin, whom he soon married. They lived a happy and joyful life, but once again death overtook Poe and his wife also died of tuberculosis. His wife had been ill for five years, and that was the period when Poe's writings began to become darker. At that time he wrote “The Black Cat”, the story of a man who kills his cat, and soon after his wife, because of his crazy emotions. The story represented his feelings at the time, and almost symbolized his life from the beginning until his wife's death. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay “The Black Cat” began as a first-person narrative, the man described himself as a happily married man who only found companionship in animals, especially a large black cat he owned called Pluto. One unfortunate day, he came home drunk and mutilated Pluto by gouging out his eye. At this point in the story, the narrator has had a quasi-recovery period in which he has become extremely resentful of his actions. Because of his resentment, he decided to hang Pluto because he knew that Pluto loved him dearly, but was unable to reciprocate that devotion. Later in his life, he found a cat that looked very much like Pluto, down to the fact that it had a patch of white fur on its chest that resembled the gallows, which frightened him greatly. He then again attempted to kill the cat with an axe, which his wife attempted to stop. He then decided to kill his wife by driving the ax into her skull. He hid the body in the wall, and when he was done, he couldn't find the cat. Later, when the police were searching for the body and couldn't find anything, the narrator became arrogant and essentially taunted the police as it was. leaving the house. He talked about how well built his house was and banged his stick on the section of the wall where he had hidden his wife. This caused the cat that was hiding over his wife's body to meow, which immediately made the police suspicious again. The police broke down the wall and found his wife's body. The story ended with the narrator's hanging. Throughout the story, it is very clear that it resembles his life. Throughout his life he had moments of happiness, but also moments of sadness, which also happens in history. The theme of death, especially its repetitiveness, was evident in his story “The Black Cat” as well as in his life.