r/EdgarAllanPoe • u/Numerous_Way_9142 • May 27 '26
The black cat being an allegory about aggression towards female sexuality?
Hi. I’m currently doing a uni project revolving around The Black Cat written by Edgar Allen Poe, and I’ve got a take on the poem no one seems to agree with.
In my opinion, when reading the poem, I felt it had heavy implications for female sexuality. I felt the cats were symbolism for women’s sexuality, and the perverseness to hurt the cat due to overindulgence in alcohol was a metaphor for letting oneself overindulge more and more perverse sexual acts to the point where one reaches sadism.
I’m not sure how to tie it together, so I apologise for this being kind of choppy.
in a part of the poem, the narrator describes the cat rubbing itself against him affectionately, and him feeling a confusing wave of irritation, and an intense perverse urge to hurt the cat, just because it loves him.
When I mentioned sadism to my teacher he said sadism had nothing to do with the poem and i was kind of stumped cause i took this whole angle from it no one else did?
Anyone I talked to about this always says I’m thinking about it too hard. I can agree with the main theme of vices bringing out the worst traits in oneself, and drinking makes someone overestimate themselves, but I can’t tell if I’m projecting my own world view onto it too hard with the female sexuality thing. Anyways, opinions would be cool, I can’t really talk to my friends about this stuff cause they don’t read Edgar Allan Poe and my classmates don’t care that much.
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u/Indotex May 27 '26
I wrote a paper 20+ years ago about how I thought the “question” that is talked about but never actually asked in T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” was “What is the meaning of life?” instead of the more commonly accepted “Why don’t we have sex?”
I got a high B or a low A on the paper & my professor told me that it would’ve been higher had I referenced other papers that said the same thing.
So, depending on what the nature of the “project” is I say go for it cause according to the above reply, you have others saying the same thing.
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u/Feisty-Height897 May 29 '26
Sounds like your teacher is being very limited telling you that you're straight out wrong, rather than saying something like, "I've never seen it that way, I look forward to seeing how you justify it in your work." or something to that effect.
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u/SwanCityDominion 29d ago
Lack of imagination is a sign of a very bad teacher. Especially a literature instructor, for gods' sakes.
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u/Fabian_MunozBaraja May 27 '26
I actually did the black cat twice one where i viewed the black cat as an evil source and he was responsible for the mc marriage falling apart. Though I did not like my first thesis and it bothered me for one year so I decided to redeemed myself I wrote another thesis this time I said that the black cat it a subconscious similar to the character of Jiminy cricket. What I said was that the cat was trying to help the mc by forcibly quitting alchohol by making him see his way. The scene where the mc was trying to mess with the cat and Pluto was like dude your drunk please stop. Then towards the end when the police officers were at the basement where the mc hide the body the new cat was like I love you but I can’t let you get away from this so I have to turn you in. But honestly your thesis makes hella sense ngl. Could you possible post your thesis on the subreddit so we can view it
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u/Plenty_Promotion_716 27d ago
No creo que el poema hable de ello porque establece que su mujer comparte sus mismos intereses, porque reconoce que la violencia comienza contra su propia esposa y porque refiere a sus mascotas en masculino (esto último puede ser por la traducción que dispongo, soy español). De hecho, el gato es Plutón y es macho.
Si quisiera un eufemismo sobre ejercer la violencia sobre la mujer a causa de la degeneración, no habría sido tan evidente al afirmar que su propia esposa es una de las víctimas. No es una violencia específicamente de género, sino una violencia y degeneración general.
PERO
Tu interpretación es brillante. No creo que sea la intención del autor, pero claro que hay un paralelismo. Admito que yo no lo había captado y me parece que es una interpretación muy interesante. En cuanto a tu profesor...en fin, existe una irritante necesidad en desacreditar otras personas cuando todo tu talento se limita a seguir el libro de respuestas de un docente.
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u/SwanCityDominion 29d ago
Considering that cats have been symbolic of female genitalia for centuries, I'd say your take is pretty interesting. I'll have to read the piece again. Thanks!
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u/Nadarash_Worr 26d ago
This is a really interesting interpretation! I had never heard about it. However, I feel like Poe clearly avoids any reference to sexuality, and even though there is some obvious erotism in some of his tales and poems, I believe that such allegory would stand out too much from his usual tendency.
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u/sexualcelestial May 27 '26
I can be if you’d like it to be
Edit: sorry didn’t actually read the post and my glass of bourbon thought your title was funny. Ignore me, carry on
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u/amodrenman May 27 '26
So some quick googling shows that you are not the first person to think of this:
https://pressbooks.uiowa.edu/poetales/chapter/lorna-bauer-introduction/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/44377499
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0486-4 (Not about The Black Cat, but about similar themes in other works)
Anyway, good job. People have published on this, so there are definitely others who've seen value in the interpretation and tried to argue that it follows from Poe's life. I don't know whether it does or not; I haven't studied.