Poe's Stories brief biography of edgar allan poe

The narrator of "The Black Cat" tells us of his boyhood, which was easy. He had a particular love of animals and had a lot of pets and this love only increased into adulthood. He thinks there is something in the loyalty and unselfishness of a dog that you can’t get from a man. But the narrator did marry, and was lucky to find a wife who appreciated his love of pets, and filled their house with a host of them, including a black cat.
The setup of the story is nice and friendly. The narrator’s childhood
sounds loving and the description of his love of animals paints a
picture of a kind household, full of life. But because of the
introduction, we know to be suspicious of this happy family scene.
This cat was unusually large and intelligent. The narrator of "The Black Cat" remembers how his wife used to talk about the superstition that black cats are all witches in disguise, but he assures us that this is unimportant to the story. He just remembers the detail. Anyway, the cat’s name was Pluto and became a favorite of the narrator, following him everywhere.
This special bond lasted several years.
The narrator zooms in on the cat, Pluto. Though he assures us that
his wife’s superstitions are unimportant, the mention of them
increases the sense of foreboding we already have for the titular
black cat.
Meanwhile, though, the mood of the narrator of "The Black
Cat" became progressively worse. He drank a lot and suffered from bouts of very bad temper, in which he even lost patience with the animals, and even with Pluto. One night, drunk, the narrator returned home, and imagined that Pluto was avoiding him. This sent him into a fit of rage, and, he is ashamed to write it, he attacked the cat and gouged out one of his eyes with a quill pen.
Note how the act of violence is particularly directed at the symbolic
eye, which Poe often uses to show the supernatural spirit or soul.
But there is also another symbolic act at play here – the weapon
that the narrator uses is a quill pen, a writing tool, suggesting both
the power and the violence that Poe feels towards the written word.
In the morning, the narrator of "The Black Cat" felt horrible about the cruel act. The cat’s eye socket healed, but he now knew to avoid the narrator and their bond was lost. At first, this loss saddens the narrator but that feeling of regret gives way to anger and perverseness. He explains this word, perverse. It is a natural phenomenon inhuman beings, to do the thing that one knows is wrong just because it is wrong. It is this phenomenon that the narrator uses to explain his attack on the animal, and in the spirit of perverseness, he also commits a further act, and hangs the cat from a tree. He cried as he did it. He knows that this sin places him beyond the reach of mercy.
The narrator is tormented by his own mind. It is not the cat’s
behavior that provokes his feeling of perverseness, it is his own
disordered mental state. This is an interesting take on the traditional
Gothic genre adding psychological explanations to the mix, such as
the description of perversity, creates the opportunity for the reader
to sympathize with the narrator, that isn't traditionally a feature of
Gothic tales of past eras.
That very night, the narrator of "The Black Cat" and his wife were awoken by the sound of flames. The house was on fire.
They escaped but they saw all their possessions go up in smoke.
The narrator resigned himself to despair. He says that he does not try to prove a series of causes and effects but that he must relate a chain of facts. He went back to the house the day after the fire and sees that all the walls have caved in except for one.
It is the part of wall above the head of the bed, and now has a crowd of people around it. Going closer, the narrator realizes that within the wall, there is a shape in relief, of the murdered cat.

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