Freudian Analysis: the Black Cat

The stories of Edgar Allan Poe really stuck in my head when I finished reading it. There was a disgust feeling in me but I may say that his stories can really happen in the real life. Relating his one of his works which is the “The Black Cat” in the Freudian themes, there is a proof that the character was being dominated by his unconscious intentions or the Id. I say that this was explored in the story because at first, he was drunk at that time when he killed his cat whose name was Pluto and second, he was being irritated by the black cat because it reminds him of killing Pluto but instead of killing the black cat, he accidentally killed his wife because of his irritation on the black cat. He was also driven by the Thanatos or death drive because of the violence and aggression happened in the story.

“The Black Cat” reveals Poe’s personal experience of being the alcoholic and maybe because of his personal experience, he wrote about what was happening in a drunken person. So that others might be alarmed to not drink too much alcoholic because it may lead to the dominance of your unconscious mind.

Another Freudian theme that was explored in the story was the presence of some ego defense mechanisms. One is the Repression, which we know defined as lack of awareness of one’s situation. In the story, the main character was drunk at that time when he suddenly killed the cat. As we all know, drunken person sometimes cannot control what he do. Also, the main character was driven by his emotions. Second is the Denial and Rationalization. It was when he tried to deny to the police officers that he did something bad and also, when he tried to pretend that nothing happened. He also made a joke to the police officers when he said, “... this is a very well constructed house." (In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.) -- "I may say an excellently well constructed house.” This statement proves that he made a joke for them not to...