The Black Cat
The Narrator Timeline and Summary
- We meet the man in his jail cell writing the story of his life, the day before he's scheduled to be executed.
- As a youth he was mellow and kind.
- He loved animals and his favorite thing was spending time with them.
- When he marries a woman who also likes animals, they get many pets, including a big, black cat named Pluto.
- He and Pluto have a great relationship.
- Even when the man starts drinking and starts verbally and physically abusing his wife and the other pets, he leaves Pluto alone.
- At first.
- When Pluto gets on his nerves, he cuts out one of his eyes.
- Not longer after, he hangs Pluto from a tree, killing him
- When his house burns down that night, the narrator loses all his wealth, and is forced to move.
- One night, while drinking, he meets a black that looks just like Pluto.
- It follows him home.
- This cat stays near the narrator all the time, and makes him crazy.
- When the cat follows the man and his wife down to the cellar of the old house they have to live in, he tries to kill it with an axe.
- His wife stops him and he kills her instead, walling up her body in the cellar.
- The police suspect the man of doing something to his wife, and search his house.
- When they are about to leave, he hits the wall behind which the dead body is hidden.
- The voice of the cat responds, and the police tear down the wall and find the body, with the black cat sitting on its head.