The Black Cat

Edgar Allan Poe

For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit
belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence.
Yet, mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen
my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment,
a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified - have tortured -
have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror
- to many they will seem less terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found
which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place - some intellect more calm, more logical, and far
less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more
than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.

From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart
was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals,
and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and
never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my
growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who
have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of
explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the
unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had
frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own.
Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most
agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.
This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing
degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with
superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as
witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point - and I mention the matter at all for
no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.

Pluto - this was the cat's name - was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me
wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following
me through the streets.

Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and
character - through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance - had (I blush to confess it)
experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more
regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At
length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my
disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard
to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or
even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon
me - for what disease is like Alcohol! - and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and
consequently somewhat peevish - even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.

One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat
avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon
my hand with his teeth. 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. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it,
grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I
burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.

When reason returned with the morning - when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch - I
experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it
was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into
excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.

In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful
appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as
might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at
first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this
feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the
spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my
soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the
indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not,
a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he
knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate
that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came
to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself - to offer violence to its
own nature - to do wrong for the wrong's sake only - that urged me to continue and finally to
consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I
slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; - hung it with the tears streaming from
my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; - hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and
because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; - hung it because I knew that in so doing I was
committing a sin - a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it - if such a thing
wore possible - even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible
God.

On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire.
The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that
my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete.
My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster
and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts - and wish not to leave even a possible link
imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen
in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of
the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure,
resisted the action of the fire - a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this
wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it
with very minute and eager attention. The words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar expressions,
excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure
of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about
the animal's neck.

When I first beheld this apparition - for I could scarcely regard it as less - my wonder and my terror
were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a
garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the
crowd - by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an
open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep.
The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-
spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then
accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.

Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact
just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I could not
rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a half-
sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to
look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same
species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place.

One night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to
some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which
constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead
for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the
object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat - a very large one -
fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair
upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering
nearly the whole region of the breast. Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly,
rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very creature of
which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made no claim to
it - knew nothing of it - had never seen it before.

I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a disposition to
accompany me. I permitted it to do so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it
reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favorite with my wife.

For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the reverse of what I had
anticipated; but - I know not how or why it was - its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and
annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I
avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty,
preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill
use it; but gradually - very gradually - I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee
silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence.

What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after I brought it
home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only
endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of
feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest and purest
pleasures.
With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my
footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat,
it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If
I arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and
sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast. 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.

This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil - and yet I should be at a loss how otherwise to
define it. I am almost ashamed to own - yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own - that
the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been heightened by one of the merest
chimaeras it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my attention, more than once, to the
character of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole visible
difference between the strange beast and the one I had destroyed. The reader will remember that this
mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow degrees - degrees nearly
imperceptible, and which for a long time my Reason struggled to reject as fanciful - it had, at length,
assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to
name - and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I
dared - it was now, I say, the image of a hideous - of a ghastly thing - of the GALLOWS! - oh,
mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime - of Agony and of Death!

And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast -
whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed - a brute beast to work out for me - for me a man,
fashioned in the image of the High God - so much of insufferable wo! Alas! neither by day nor by night
knew I the blessing of Rest any more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in
the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my
face, and its vast weight - an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off - incumbent
eternally upon my heart!

Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed.
Evil thoughts became my sole intimates - the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my
usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and
ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife,
alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.

One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which
our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing
me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish
dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have
proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife.
Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and
buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.

This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of
concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night,
without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I
thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved
to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard
- about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to
take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I
determined to wall it up in the cellar - as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up
their victims.

For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed, and had
lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had
prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney,
or fireplace, that had been filled up, and made to resemble the red of the cellar. I made no doubt that I
could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that
no eye could detect any thing suspicious. And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a
crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I
propped it in that position, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it originally stood.
Having procured mortar, sand, and hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which
could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new brickwork.
When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance
of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked
around triumphantly, and said to myself - "Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain."

My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness; for I had, at
length, firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the moment, there could
have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of
my previous anger, and forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to
imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in
my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night - and thus for one night at least, since its
introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder
upon my soul!

The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a
freeman. The monster, in terror, had fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My
happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been
made, but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been instituted - but of course nothing
was to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured.

Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the house,
and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the
inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me
accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or
fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of
one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom,
and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. The glee at
my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to
render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.

"Gentlemen," I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, "I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I
wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this - this is a very well
constructed house." [In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.] -
"I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls are you going, gentlemen? - these walls
are solidly put together;" and here, through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane
which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the
wife of my bosom.
But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the reverberation
of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! - by a cry, at first
muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and
continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman - a howl - a wailing shriek, half of horror and half
of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in
their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.

Of my own thoughts it is folly to spea. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the
party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen
stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with
gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary
eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice
had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!

The Black Cat Summary

How It All Goes Down

From his prison cell, the unnamed narrator is writing the story of how everything in his life fell apart.
Since he will die the next day, he wants to set the record straight, and tells us the story of his life…
From the day he is born, he is mild and kind. He loves animals and has lots of them. As he gets older up
these qualities grow stronger. Taking care of his pets and hanging out with them is his favorite thing to
do. His favorite animal companion is his dog.

Before long, he gets married. His wife loves animals too, and fills the house with a variety of them.
One of these is a humongous, all black, super-smart cat named Pluto. When the man starts drinking, his
personality takes a turn for the worse. He starts physically and verbally abusing his wife and pets. One
night, the narrator comes home from partying completely drunk. Thinking Pluto didn't want to hang out
with him, he grabs the cat and cuts his eye out with a pen-knife.

One morning, not long after the eye-gouging, the narrator is overcome with a perverse impulse. He
hangs Pluto from a tree in his garden, murdering him. Writing from his jail cell, the narrator claims he
did it precisely because he knew it was wrong. That night, the night of the murder, the man's house
catches fire and burns down. Only the man, his wife, and one servant are left alive. But, they lose all
their money in the flames, along with the house. When the narrator returns the next day, there is a
crowd in his bedroom, looking at his bedroom wall. On the wall is the slightly raised image of a
"gigantic cat" with a rope around its neck

Since he left the cat hanging all day and all night, he figures one of the neighbors cut it down and then
threw it through his window to wake him up. Somehow it stuck in the plaster of the wall. This bothers
the man for a long time.

One night when he's out drinking, another black cat appears on the scene. This cat looks just like Pluto,
except for the little white spot on his chest. The man takes the cat home, and his wife is quite pleased.
When it is discovered that this cat is also missing an eye, the man begins to despise it, while the woman
loves it all the more. After some time passes, the woman shows the man that the white spot on the cat's
fur has grown. Oddly, the white spot now forms an image of "the GALLOWS!" . (The gallows is a
wooden device used to hang people.)

The man is too afraid of the cat to abuse it. The cat never leaves him alone for a moment, and even sits
on his chest and breathes in his face when he is in bed. So, the man doesn't get any sleep. As his
loathing of the cat increases, so does his physical and verbal abuse of his wife. One day he and his wife
go down to the cellar of the crummy old house they live in now that they are poor. The cat follows
them. In a fit of extreme irritation, the man tries to kill the cat with an axe. The woman stops him, and
the man "burie[s] the axe in her brain," killing her

The narrator wonders how best to conceal the body? After much deliberation, the man decides to hide
the body in a space behind the cellar wall. That night, the man sleeps peacefully for the first time in
ages. The cat is nowhere to be seen.

The cops come around, but the man has finesses them. No big deal. On the fourth day, still no cat. But,
the police return and search the house again, especially the cellar. Right when they are about to leave,
abandoning their search of the cellar, the narrator decides to start bragging about how well built the
house is. He takes his cane and hits it against the spot in the wall where he's hidden his wife's body
A noise answers his knock! It is a sad sound, like a kid crying. It sounds horrible and desperate, but
also victorious. The police are on it. They take down the wall only to find the dead body, with the cat
on top of its head. And that's why the narrator is in jail, sentenced to death by hanging. The narrator had
accidentally shut the cat up in the wall with the body

The Black Cat Themes

Little Words, Big Ideas

The Home
Edgar Allan Poe's horror classic "The Black Cat" offers a sinister portrait of the home. Things seem
alright in the beginning. A young couple, animal lovers both, get married and fill their home wi...
Violence

In "The Black Cat" the unnamed narrator offers us a parade of violent acts. Eye gouging, hanging,
axing – these are the gruesome highlights. Until the end of the story, when somebody is kille...
Drugs and Alcohol

In some stories (think stories by Ernest Hemingway) drinking has both positive and negative effects on
the drinkers. Not so in "The Black Cat." The unnamed narrator of this grim tale claims he bega...
Freedom and Confinement

"The Black Cat," a claustrophobic tale of marital life gone wrong, offers a distinct movement from
freedom to confinement. We meet the narrator already in his prison cell, writing, to free himself...
Justice and Judgment

Since the unnamed narrator of "The Black Cat" is writing from his prison cell, we can be sure that
justice and judgment are on his mind. In the 1830s, when Poe was writing, the wheels of legal just...
Transformation

Disturbing physical and psychological transformations – often for the worst – are characteristic of most
horror and Gothic tales. In "The Black Cat" some form of transformation occurs i...
The Black Cat Plot Analysis

Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict,
complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the
recipe and add some spice.

Initial Situation

Death Row
The first thing we learn is that the nameless narrator is going to die the next day, and that he wants to
write his story, which will be ugly. This story, the narrator says, is going to be about some things that
happened to him at home. The "consequences" of what happened "have terrified – have tortured – have
destroyed" him (1). We don't yet know why he's going to die the following day, or where exactly he is.

Conflict
A Drinking Problem
The narrator tells us that as a kid the he was a kind, sensitive animal lover. We also learn that he and his
wife had had "birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat" (3). The cat, of course, is
Pluto. The conflict begins to unfold when the man describes the way his personality changed for the
worse when he started drinking heavily, several years after Pluto became his pet. The conflict is within
the narrator's home, between himself and his wife and pets, who he begins to abuse, physically and
verbally, except for Pluto.

Complication
Pluto is Murdered
When the narrator turns on Pluto, he doesn't do it halfway. First he cuts the cat's eye out, and then he
hangs him from the tree in his garden – leaving the body there when he goes to sleep. This definitely
complicates things for the narrator. He is now a cat murderer, and his once happy home seems to be
more and more nightmarish, especially for the other characters.

Climax
Fire
Somehow, when the narrator goes to sleep that night (after murdering Pluto in the morning) his house
catches on fire. Someone (it's never revealed who) wakes him from his sleep with a warning, just in
time. The narrator, his wife, and "a servant" escape the flames. All the family's financial security goes
up in smoke. Presumably, the birds, gold-fish, […] fine dog, rabbits, [and] small monkey perish in the
flames, though the narrator never mentions them again (3). The climax propels this desperate family
into poverty and into changing residences.

Suspense
The Cat Comes Back
As we discuss in "What's Up with the Title?" we can think of the second cat as either a modified
version of Pluto, or a completely different cat. In any case, the arrival of the second cat marks the
halfway point in this story. It is suspenseful precisely because we aren't sure what the second cat is. If
the narrator can be believed, the cat is not only missing an eye, like Pluto, but also grows an image of a
gallows on his chest (a "gallows" is an apparatus used for hanging people). The cat also seriously gets
on the narrator's nerves. We might see the cat as affectionate, and desperate for affection, but the
narrator sees him as executing some awful plot against him. In the stage we see the narrator getting
worse and worse. And we learn that the narrator is writing from a "felon's cell" (20). Waiting to see
what lands him in jail adds another layer of suspense to the story.

Denouement
The Perfect Crime
During that fateful trip to the cellar of the family's new residence (an "old building") the narrator tries
to kill the cat with his axe. When his wife intervenes, the axe is turned on her. The narrator thinks he's
successfully hidden the body and bluffed the cops. He isn't upset about killing his wife, and is happy he
has managed to make the cat run away.

Conclusion
The Cat Come Back, Part 2
In the conclusion, the cat reappears, and the murder is discovered. The man seems convinced that the
cat exposed him on purpose. The description of the cat's "voice" coming from inside the wall suggests
that if the cat did intentionally allow himself to be walled up, in order to expose the man, he paid an
awful price for it. Check out "What's Up with the Ending?" for a deeper analysis of this moment, and
some other aspects of the ending.