The Freudian Feline

Throughout Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat” we see many instances of psychoanalytic concepts being displayed by the story’s narrator. Four Freudian principles that stand out in “The Black Cat” are split conscious, repression, displacement, and wishful impulse. The narrator displays a splitting of personality within the story, switching between a docile nature and a more violent one which he struggles to control. This splitting of personality can be attributed to the splitting of his conscience. His submissive personality is his conscious mind, and his violent one is his uncontrollable unconscious. This violent personality stems from his repressed hatred for his wife, which he finally expresses at the end of the story when he put an axe in her head. Although he never physically harmed his wife before murdering her, it is clear he has a hatred for her that he does not address. The narrator displaces his contempt for his wife to those undeserving, his pets. The narrator develops a wishful impulse to inflict harm on his pets, which he fulfills when he tortured and killed Pluto.

When the narrator is describing his change of temperament, it is evident that there are psychoanalytic processes in play. The narrator experiences a constant shift between being a man with a tender heart to a man with violent tendencies. Freud describes split consciousness as, “…in one and the same individual there can be several mental groupings, which can remain more or less independent of one another, which can ‘know nothing’ of one another and which can alternate with one another in their hold upon consciousness” (Freud 2208). The struggle between the narrator’s personalities can be compared to the battle over control of the consciousness between the two conscious states. Before attacking Pluto, the narrator says, “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). It is evident that the narrator is experiencing split consciousness when his “original soul” is replaced by a “fiendish malevolence.” 

    The narrator’s battle between conscious states originates from his repressed loathing for his wife. His hatred for his wife is most evident when he says, “I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence” (Poe). His repressed anger towards his wife is further evident when realizing that the narrator avoids talking about her throughout the story, much like how he avoids talking about his hatred for her. As he developed a hatred for his wife, he also began to abuse his pets. His violence towards animals was the narrator’s way of unconsciously expressing his hatred for his wife. This transference of emotion coincides with Freud’s ideas of displacement. Freud describes displacement as “… in the course of the dreamwork the psychical intensity passes over from the thoughts and ideas which it properly belongs on to others which in our judgment have no claim to any such emphasis” (Freud On Dreams 34). Freud is saying that displacement transfers thoughts and emotions onto something more acceptable. 

    Another psychoanalytic concept present in “The Black Cat” is wishful impulse.  Freud describes wishful impulses as “…a wishful impulse which was in sharp contrast to the subject’s other wishes and which proved incompatible with the ethical and aesthetic standards of his personality” (Freud 2212). The narrator displays wishful impulses when he gets a new cat. When explaining his hatred for the new cat the narrator says, “At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly — let me confess it at once — by absolute dread of the beast.?” (Poe). This is a plain demonstration of Freud’s idea of wishful impulses, the narrator wants to destroy the cat but refrains from doing so because he cannot.

    All four previously mentioned psychoanalytic concepts present themselves at the end of “The Black Cat” when the narrator murders his wife. His repressed anger for his wife finally reveals itself when he kills her with an axe. This anger revealed itself as his unconscious mind, where this anger was buried, took hold of his consciousness. The narrator says, “Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed” (Poe). It is apparent that the narrator had lost all control over his emotions and could no longer restrain his impulses nor displace them onto a more acceptable subject.

The narrator of “The Black Cat” represents the damage that can occur from neglecting strong emotions. He was a kindhearted man who loved animals, but due to his repressed feelings towards his wife, he became a murderous alcoholic. His repression led him to displace his emotions onto his pets and develop violent impulses. He found relief in killing his wife because he saw her as the root cause of his problems. The story is less about the black cat and more about his wife.

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