An Internal Analysis
In the short story, “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe, readers analyzing the text through Freudian eyes can find hints of displacement and condensation. The narrators coping mechanism as well as certain subliminal associations ties back to Freudian dreamwork. The methods in which Freud would interpret dreams can manifest onto one’s normal waking life. The narrator in “The Black Cat” is no exception as Freudian concepts further explain his actions and the courses around his life.
Every name in this story is anonymous except for the cat, Pluto. The narrators closest companion, “Pluto” is commonly alluded to the Roman god of the underworld or hell, as we know it. This diabolical association intertwines with the narrators waning of morality and the emotions he experiences throughout his shift in nature. Though once a loving and compassionate man, the narrator ceased to maintain this good-natured disposition. He began to blame alcohol for this shift, even to the extent of calling it a “fiend.”(Poe). This represents condensation as he begins to label these things as something cruel and wicked; later, becoming something cruel and wicked himself. He began to drink profusely, leading to various atrocious acts. His close relationship with Pluto, however, held him back from committing these acts onto the cat, yet he had no hesitation abusing and mistreating his wife. This can further illustrate plutos significance as the narrator was most mindful of it, displaying the good in him that was slowly dying off. Unfortunately, this was short lived as the narrator could not control himself, “The fury of a demon instantly possessed me,”(Poe) he exclaimed as he impulsively cut Pluto’s eye from his socket. His choice of diction can represent condensation as he begins to embody something deeper than just a few violent mishaps. He becomes one with evil not only in tendencies but in essence. This illustrates condensation as it represents symbols in which, “branch out in two or more directions.”(Freud, 27). The way he explains his violence is once again connected to a malevolent being which can be connected to “Pluto.” Later he gave in to this spirit of perverseness which leads to the murdering of his once beloved cat. However, “on the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire” he explains, as though the murder of Pluto had “jeopardized” his soul as he wished.(Poe). The fire can represent hell and how he completely submits to this formidable evil in him. He has converted to this perpetual state of perverseness. After crossing paths with another black cat similar to plutos image except for the white fur on its chest, the narrator began to associate its pattern on the chest with something. “it was now a representation of an object that I shudder to name- of the gallows!” he exclaimed. (Poe). The gallows, a place in which is associated with getting hung. This cat not only visibly looks like Pluto but the one distinction it has, ties to the cause of Pluto’s death. Associations that begin to condense into one symbolism is referred to as condensation. Later when the narrator is caught for murdering his wife, he refers to himself as, “a hangman.”(Poe). The guilt and consequences of his actions all ties to the murdering of Pluto. He could not rid himself of this image and so began to visualize and project what’s on his unconscious through similar associations in relation to the irrevocable murder of Pluto.
“The Black Cat,” without a doubt, showcases clear depictions of displacement. By abusing and participating in malicious behavior as an outlet, he displaces his irritability and anger on the innocent. Freud explains how, “the content of the dream,”(Freud, 35) which in this case is the narrators intoxicated self,“ seems to be concerned with the most indifferent trivialities, which would be unworthy of our interest if we were awake.”(Freud, 35) Meaning that whenever the narrator is in a state of intoxication, he inflicts verbal and physical abuse on his wife and his pets whom he regards with little importance or value. He does this as though they were insignificant to him and so does not have much to lose. So, he wouldn’t feel much guilt upon his “awakening,” which in this case is simply his sober state. Pluto being his, “favorite pet and playmate,”(Poe) had him restrained from unleashing these parts of him onto the cat. This can show how the narrator viewed the relationship with the cat as something meaningful and worth preserving. Thus, the aspect of displacement in which the individual only displaces his emotions onto something, “trivial, insignificant and unmemorable,”(Freud, 35) as Freud explains in dream work, is shown through the narrator and the disparate treatment between Pluto and the narrator’s initial victims. After the narrator murdered pluto and attempted to replace him through a cat with a similar image, He began to dread it and so it, “increased… Hatred of all things and of all mankind.”(Poe). His hatred was repressed with his dread and so he began to displace this hatred towards his wife, explaining how she, “Was the most usual and the most patient of my sufferers.”(Poe). Once again proving how the narrator intentions towards his wife were not, “justifiably stirring”(Freud, 36) as the process of displacement illustrates itself through something in which has no correlation to the cause of the inflictors emotions. The fact that his wife was also the most “patient” shows how the inflictor may not have felt like he had much to risk, for she complied to this behavior.
By analyzing one’s nature, we can come to understand ourselves. Though anyone might bat their eyes away from the narrator due to the actions he has committed, seeking a Freudian perspective helps us understand why these actions came to manifest. It is never as simple as he is angry, there is always a link to one’s emotions that may have spurred and repressed throughout one’s life. These things can then take the form of displacement and condensation as the mind must always release what has been repressed, whether through harm or projecting one’s fears and traumas outward.
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