The loss of Consciousness

 

Sigmund Freud in his “Five Lectures of Psychanalysis” formulated many theories and conclusions dealing with mental disorders. Many experiments and analyses were done to understand these patients’ sufferings to figure out what made them worse and what helped them progress. Based on Freud’s ideas of wishful impulses and mnemic symbols, it could be seen that these symptoms bring out the worse in a patient. Wishful impulses being desires that need fulfillment even though they could be justified as wrong and mnemic symbols being symbols that make you relieve the trauma that is affecting you. These two theories can be discovered in the short story, “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe an American author recognized for his gritty and spooky short stories. “The Black Cat” is a short tale about a narrator reflecting on his murders on his cat, Pluto, and his wife while being held in jail. Many events lead up to this point and Freud’s theories support the reason why. In “The Black Cat”, the narrator murdering his wife and cat is the product of mnemic symbols and wishful impulses flooding the conscious.

The narrator’s wishful impulses are what drove him to kill his cat, Pluto. He introduced the audience to his love of animals and animals is a big part of his life growing up, but hatred grew in him as he got older. Down the road, in his life, he started growing hatred and displayed it on his other animals and even his wife, but he restrained himself from hurting Pluto. Therefore, one can assume his relationship with Pluto was very loving and close, but his alcoholism changed all of that surfacing his wishful impulses. “One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence… I took from my waistcoat-pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!” (Poe 6). The narrator’s anger of Pluto avoiding him enraged him, so in return he desired to inflict pain, introducing his wishful impulse. His alcohol abuse exposed his wishful impulse of inflicting pain, and Pluto happened to be one that suffered from it. As Pluto continued to avoid the narrator after he withdrew his eye, the main characters wishful impulse surfaced again. This time his wishful impulse leads him to hang Pluto, bearing his life and in the moment, he thought it was right due to his wishful impulse making it feel right. His alcohol abuse flooding his conscious with the wishful impulse of inflicting pain took his most dear pet away from him, causing him to get worse.

As the narrator grew worse, mnemic symbols drove him to more madness, leading to his murder on his wife. “Their symptoms are residues and mnemic symbols of particular (traumatic) experiences” (Freud 2206). Freud is saying mnemic symbols are the symbols that trigger the patient to experience their traumatic experience. This is perceived in “The Black Cat “when the narrator explains the second cat. The second cat was a mnemic symbol reminding him of the trauma he had with Pluto, which was his wishful impulse of inflicting pain. “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” (9). He grew that hatred again with the second cat and he wanted to slay it just like Pluto, but the guilt of his “former crime” halted him from doing so. This goes to show the second cat reminded him of his previous murder, not to mention this cat also had one eye missing and was black just like Pluto. “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 ax in her brain.” (Poe 11). This is the narrator’s breaking point in which his wishful impulse of inflicting pain surfaces his conscious again due to the cat. And in his attempt to killing the cat, his wife got in the way leading to him executing her. His wishful impulse of inflicting pain resurfacing his conscious didn’t end till his desire got fulfilled. This is why he murdered his wife with the ax, he had the desire to still hurt something, so he put it towards his wife, taking her life.

Alcohol abuse has a huge toll on people, and in “The Black Cat” it was the downfall of the narrator. Alcohol exposing him to his wishful impulses lead to his first-degree murders on both his cat, Pluto, and wife. His consciousness being filled with all this hate, and the second cat bringing back his trauma of hate showed us, the audience how Freud’s ideas developed this story.

 

Work Cited 

Giordano, Robert. “The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe.” PoeStories.com, https://poestories.com/read/blackcat. Rasch. “About Psychoanalysis.” Sigmund Freud: 5 Lectures about Psychoanalysis, https://www.rasch.org/over.htm.