In both “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe’s narrators are ruled by negative emotions,
demonstrating the Dark Romantic characteristic of eschewing reason and logic. In “The Black Cat,” after
the narrator returns home drunk, he becomes angered that Pluto avoided his inebriated violence. This
causes the narrator to become so emotional that he says, “The fury of a demon instantly possessed me.
I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more
than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame” (Poe, Black Cat 2). The
narrator clearly acts based upon this “fiendish malevolence” when he then stabs his cat with the penknife and not with any sort of logic. The narrator “knew [himself] no longer” because he is no longer
capable of rational thought. Rather the “gin-nurtured” violence and emotion “thrilled every fibre” of his
being. The fact that the narrator refers to himself in such demonical terms emphasizes that he becomes
animal-like himself, acting purely based on emotions and instincts. While alcohol affects the narrator in
“The Black Cat” in a violent way, it is the fear of his neighbor’s eye that causes the narrator in “The TellTale Heart” to commit his heinous crime. When the narrator attempts to tell his story, he opens with “It
is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and
night” (Poe, Heart 1). Though he claims to be very sane and rational, the narrator himself cannot explain
why he decides to kill his neighbor. This is a classic Romantic trait in offering mysterious explanations.
The narrator attempts to find a reason for his deed, however, and decides, “I think it was his eye! yes, it
was this! He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my
blood ran cold; and so by degrees -- very gradually --I made up my mind to take the life of the old man,
and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe, Heart, 1). When the narrator says “my blood ran cold”
when the eye falls on him, he implies that the eye causes him fear. It is this fear which makes the
narrator commit murder. There is no rational reason given for the deed, only an emotional one. James
Gargan argues that “in allowing his narrator to disburden himself of his tale, [Poe] skillfully contrives to
show also that [the narrator] lives in a haunted and eerie world of his own demented making” (Gargan
179). The fear which causes the narrator to murder the old man is, therefore, irrational because it was
created in the narrator’s head, based on nothing but his own imaginings. Acting based upon emotion is a
very Romantic trait because writers like Poe felt that reason and logic limited a person’s creativity and
self-potential. Poe uses this characteristic in a Dark Romantic way, however, because his protagonist
demonstrates this emphasis on emotion in a violent and murderous way.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“Thus, Poe, in allowing his narrator to disburden himself of his tale, skillfully contrives to show also that
he lives in a haunted and eerie world of his own demented making” (Gargan 179).
Gargan, James W. “The Question of Poe's Narrators.” College English. 25.3 (Dec., 1963): 177-81.