Hawthorn's Comments on Poe's story "The Black Cat"

Dear Edgar Allan Poe,

I really like how the Black Cat is such a large symbol in your short story.  It causes transformation in the narrator in a negative way.  It highlights human flaws and shows how the human race will inflict damage on each other without reason.  Also, the cats name is Pluto which is genious!  The god of death is following the narrator around all day which eventually leads to his death.  The cat can represent so much more than these two examples listed but these are the most prevalent out of all of them.  Your story and my short story "The Birthmark" have some similarities between them.  One was mentioned above about how humans transform and have many, many flaws.  The narrator in your story transforms and shows his flaws because of the cat and Alymer (character in my story) transforms and shows his flaws because of the birthmark on his wife's face.  The second is shown through the wives in our stories because they only try to please their husbands and in the end they end up dead.

Sincerely,

Nathaniel Hawthorn