The Black Cat

I enjoyed The Black Cat upon my first reading of it due in large part to it's brilliant descriptions of madness and the dark side of human nature. The story holds no punches when describing the "perversion" as the tale calls it of the main character. It examines how hatred can easily overcome a normally good individual. Poe seemed to have an immense perception of the human mind, and not one that was clouded by silly idealism like his contemporaries the Transcendentalists.

The novel exemplifies the differences between the Transcendentalists and the Dark Romantics vividly.

"This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard -- about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellar -- as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their victims."

This quote shows the character cooly contemplating how best to dispose of the body of his wife, but moments after he slew her in a fit of rage. A Transcendentalist would not have described such a horrible act. But that is the great failing of their school of thought; the act described in the Poe story is a grimly realistic and cruel act of humanity. The Transcendtalists seemed to give only lip service to the fact that human beings can be truly cruel and evil things; Dark Romantics like Poe showed all perspectives of the human spirit and the human soul.