Category: Virtual Coffeehouse (Page 3 of 6)

Teresa Lopez Ramos

Midterm Essay, English 2001 

Oct 20, 2020

Change v. Tradition 

            Emily Grierson is a mysterious character in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” The author tries to share the struggle of trying to maintain the idea of tradition when social and radical change occurs. Emily Grierson; herself lives as a representation of the tradition that many people of the village have a desire to respect, honor, and keep however she is cut off from the outsider world – a true outsider that many ridicule her for. This essay is framed by the teachings and the causes of how changes can be dangerous because it helps us understand how traditions can be dangerous as well. 

            “A Rose For Emily” by William Faulkner writes this story in five sections. The first section recalls the death of the main character of Emily Grierson and how the town attended her funeral in her home which is described that nobody had entered from more than a decade. In this section of the story it had recall that once elegant and wealthy neighborhood – the Grierson house is the last standing, wealthy family. Colonel Sartoris – a previous mayor had suspended the Grierson tax responsibility to this specific town after the death of her father and abandonment of the love of her life. Once a new mayor has taken the position, there are unsuccessful attempts to get Emily to resume those payments. In section II, the narrator describes a setting thirty years earlier, in which Emily is also deferring/resisting a request on behalf of the people of the town – when there is a powerful and disgusting smell that is coming from the elegant manor. Judge Stevens (the mayor at that time) declares that lime should be sprinkled to get rid o the odor during the evening. The father – Mr. Grierson is also an important part as he dies. In section III – the narrator describes that Emily has acquired an illness after the death of her father. Though a new and important character is introduced Homer Barron – a contract worker/boss to pave sidewalks and etc… As Homer becomes a popular figure in town and is seen with Emily on rides on Sunday afternoon, making the townies to gossip, patronize, and pity Emily forgetting  the first thoughts of her pride and question of being involved with a man who is beneath her. In section IV, the narrator describes the action and emotions of the townies when Emily is seen buying arsenic. As this happens, there are also actions of buying a silver toilet set monogrammed for Homer as a potential marriage is setting. We see a repetition of actions from the first section of the story; Emily distancing herself from the town people, her door remains closed to outsider despite the China painting lessons she gave on occasion. Only her servant is seen the only going in and out of that house, even Homer was never to be seen. In section V, the narrator what happened after Emily’s death. He also describes that a particular room was unsealed to the people in over forty years, that they find the monogrammed toilet seat and serval items for a weeding and Homer body and a long stand of Emily’s gray hair on the pillow.  The question is: Does death engage as an important factor of the theme of the dangers of Change vs. Tradition?  

            In the story “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson; small town villagers are gather in the square on June 27 or how it is described to be a beautiful day. Tessie Hutchinson an important character to the story is flustered due to her inability to remember an important day to the community. This day in which draws a name out of a black box to decided who to be stoned which Tessie repeats that “it is not fair”. In order to answer the question above: I will examine the scene in which the community is blindly teaching the children to continue the steps of the tradition of the lottery. Then I will also examine the character of Old Man Warner who is extremely faithful to the tradition of the lottery that many decided to blindly follow this tradition so that they fear to return to their “primitive ways”. 

Karla Morales

ENG 2001-O525

The spirit of perverseness is the force that drives people to do things that they know will be bad for themselves and others. In the stories “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, both have a character who uses the force of perversion in order to destroy the lives of their loved ones. The narrator in the story “The Black Cat”, and John in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, both create an atmosphere that eventually leads to destruction and tragic events. 

In the story “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator confesses his love for animals such as cats and dogs and he marries a woman at a young age. He has a favorite animal which is a black cat named Pluto. Shortly after, he starts suffering from violent mood swings which is the result of his alcoholism. He starts to mistreat his wife and animals, eventually he lashes out on Pluto after getting home drunk one night. The narrator proceeds to take a pocket knife and he cuts the cat’s eyes. The following day he hangs the car from a tree and on the night of Pluto’s death, his house sets on fire. The only thing left standing is a wall with the impression of a black cat. One night after being out drinking he stumbles into a black cat who resembles Pluto and the cat becomes a part of his household. The spirit of perverseness takes over once again leading to his murderous thoughts. One day he trips on the cat and he decides to grab an axe but unexpectedly , the wife defends the animal. The narrator disapproves of this and decides to bury the axe of his wife’s head. The police arrive on the fourth day and discover what he has done.

In the story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator begins by informing the reader that her husband has taken her to a summer vacation. They are staying at a house that has been empty for a while. She discusses that she suffers from depression and her husband John who also happens to be her doctor constantly disregards her illness and her thoughts.  The solution that is given by her husband John is to not do anything that will make her use her imagination such as writing. She makes the decision to keep a secret journal in order to relieve her mind. She starts to focus more on the house, especially the yellow wallpaper that has different patterns. She becomes more and more fixated on the wallpaper but John refuses to change the wallpaper because he doesn’t want to feed into her worries. She starts seeing a particular pattern and as she spends more time alone, her goal is now to figure out what the pattern of the wall is. The wallpaper starts to take over her imagination because it seems to be the only source of entertainment. She starts sleeping less and mentions that she can smell the wallpaper all over the house. Now the wallpaper starts taking the shape of a woman who is struggling inside the room’s yellow wallpaper. In an effort to help out the woman, she tears  it down. By the end of the story she has gone completely insane thinking that she is the trapped woman.

Kianna Carrington

Midterm Essay, ENG 2001

October 19th, 2020

Similarities In Gothic Fictions

Throughout the semester, we have read a number of gothic fictions that has a lot of gothic elements in them. While reading these stories, it came with confusion at first and a liking to them. The stories I truly enjoyed reading the most were “The House of Asterion” by Jorge Luis Borges, “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, and “The Black Cat” by Egar Allen Poe. Many of the stories we have read have a lot in common. But in “The House of Asterion” and “A Rose for Emily”, there are so many similarities between the two main characters, Asterion and Emily Grierson.

The short story “The House of Asterion” by Jorge Borges is about a Minotaur, half man half bull, named Asterion, who is feared by the people in the land of Labyrinth. He says to the readers that he is a prisoner in his castle but there are no restrictions holding him by his will, just society. It’s the people who made him feel like a prisoner because they judge him and make him feel less than he is, and they make up rumors about him. He can leave his castle whenever he wants but when he does go out, people are scared and they run away from him. Making him feel bad. He does keep himself entertained by constantly reminding himself that one day his “redeemer” will come, playing games with himself, and even talking to himself. Every nine years, nine people enter his home but they don’t leave, he kills them. He thinks he’s redeeming them by killing them.

Sajeevan Rangeswaran

Midterm Essay, English 2001

October 19, 2020

                                                            Black Cat Narrator vs Emily

            Gothic is writing that creates excessive emotions and actions related to nightmares, mysteries, terror, death, and madness. We have read so many Gothic fictions this semester and most of them have a different gothic element in the story. There were two stories in which I felt the character has some similarities. The two stories were “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner. The narrator from “The Black Cat” and Emily from “A Rose for Emily” had similarities in their gothic fiction.

           In the story “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe; the narrator is the main character, and he is an alcoholic who gets angry at everyone and beats his wife. One day he hanged his cat Pluto and after that, his house was destroyed by the fire. After that, he found a cat that looks like his cat Pluto. That cat followed the narrator even though the narrator did not like it. One day he could not tolerate the cat, so he decided to kill the cat with the knife, but his wife came in the middle, and instead of the cat he kills his own wife. Then he hides her body inside the wall where the cat will also get stuck. When the police came to his house, he got caught because the cat made noise from the wall. In the end, he was arrested for killing his wife and he is going to die now because of that.              

In the story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, Emily is the main character who lives with her father in the southern united states. One day her father dies, and she lives alone in the house. One time she meets Homer Barron, who she falls in love with. Homer Barron told everyone in the area that he slept with Emily, which made Emily so angry. Emily decided to kill Homer Barron because of that. Even though she killed him; she kept Homer Barron dead body with her in the house. After a few years, she dies also because of aging.

Melanie Alvarado

Midterm Essay, English 2001

Oct 19, 2020

Reading “the black cat” and “a rose for Emily” we discover that they are two Gothic stories that have much in common. First, we will talk about what the stories are about to better understand the plot. After knowing the stories, we are going to explore two characters that have a lot in common and how the Gothic elements help their development.

              “The black cat” by Edgar Allan Poe is about a man who loved animals, he married a woman who loved them too. They have many animals roaming around it, they were both thrilled and very in love with their animals. Throughout history, the man gave himself up to drink and while doing that he neglected the animals, he also yelled at his wife, but he never mistreated the cat, the man still loved his cat. But after a while the black cat receives the same consequences as the other animals and the man’s wife. Another day the man returned home drunk and hatred ran through his body when he saw the cat who looked at him with fear. So, he grabbed a rope and the cat, to hang it on the branch of a tree in a house where he hanged it. They moved, but in their new neighborhood, there was a one-eyed cat with a white spot around its neck. With fear running through his blood, he grabs the ax to kill the cat. His wife, in defense of the creature, claims him, telling him not to kill this new animal; The man, as he saw that she would not let him out, killed her. The police arrived, and in search of the wife’s body, they broke down the wall. In which there was a black cat with fire coming out of one eye and a white spot that surrounded its neck, on the corpse of the wife. 

“A rose for Emily” by William Faulkner is about a woman called Emily who loses her dad and start to have strange behavior. People in the neighborhood found out she was going to get married. However, she did not get to marry since Homer her fiancé disappeared. From that moment coming and going. A very strong smell was felt, and the neighbors complained about the smell, but one day that smell disappears. At 74 she dies at home, and the neighbors go to her funeral and discover a room that no one had entered there forty years ago. When they entered the room, they found some men’s objects on the dresser and a suit. On the bed lay a man, and next to it was a pillow that had the marking of a head and gray hair.

Both stories have two characters in common, the unnamed narrator who tells the story in “the black cat” and Emily from “a rose for Emily.” These two characters are similar. In both stories, we can see the “spirit of perverseness” is was makes people do things they know will be bad for themselves and others. “Spirit of perverseness” is used to explain and show why they both behave like this. In “The black cat” the narrator shows that has a violent and aggressive emotional behavior and that he does not feel any remorse or guilt for his actions when he kills the cat he feel nothing and he knew that he doing something wrong but he kills it anyway. In “A rose for Emily” she buys the poison knowing it is dangerous and with the idea of killing her fiancé, she knew she was doing wrong, but she did it anyway so he would never leave her. This shows how the spirit of perverseness works in both stories. We can also see in both stories many gothic elements like the black cat and the Emily’s house to represent the death. The strand of hair like reminder of love and the perverse thing that a person could do to find the happiness.

As humans we all could relate how the spirit of perversity has affected our lives whether at a low cost or a large one. The story “The Black Cat” Edgar Allan Poe and “The yellow wallpaper” Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s both have a character who plays the part of spirit of perversity at a high level. The narrator in the story “The black cat” and the narrator in the story “The Yellow wallpaper” are both two characters whose behavior created many impacted moments in the story. Both of these characters took decisions and actions that needed to happen through the spirit of perversity. The spirit of perversity can be affected more when the characters are experiencing a mental illness. 

    The narrators of both “The black cat” and “the yellow wallpaper” suffer from mental health which creates a lot of violence and actions that harm themselves and their surroundings. In the story “The black cat” the narrator used alcohol to cure his depression and anxiety but alcohol also led him to be alone. In the story the narrator had his broken point and decided to push all his anger into Pluto” his cat. In the story the narrator describes the ways he tried to harm and attend to kill pluto. He knows it is wrong to harm Pluto but his impulsive actions made him do it. 

The narrator in “The yellow wallpaper” shows the readers how the spirit of perversity can be affected more when the person has a mental illness. In the story the narrator suffered from a depression or a postpartum depression. As the narrator explains her depression she was experiencing a lot of anxiety attacks and began to cured herself through writing about the yellow wallpaper in her room. Her husband John tried to cure her depression by keeping her out of writing but she refused and wrote behind him. The narrator had an illusion that thought the yellow wallpaper in her room was moving. She began to write about it and little by little began to pull the yellow wallpaper out.  As a comparison to the narrator of the story “The Black Cat” the narrator blames Pluto for all his misfortunes and finds every excuse to blame him. The narrator creates this mentality that the cat is his enemy. 

Cody Santana

10/17/20

                             The Spirit of Perverseness

               In the two stories we will be discussing today which are Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” and Melvilles “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”we have two prominent characters which both have a desire to achieve something greater and in many ways that makes them alike, but they also have a lot of characteristics which separate them, and these are shown through how they attempt to each achieve their individual goals, and how each of their decisions in this pursuit effects the other characters around them in each of their stories. I believe both these characters share one common characteristic that will be the main theme of the essay which is defined by Poe the writer of the Black Cat the ‘Spirit of Perverseness”. His definition is “”What makes people do things they know are bad for themselves”. A very simple way to define such a complicated topic but where does this relate to our two characters? Each of these characters are trying to achieve their goals by doing things that are ultimately bad for their own wellbeing, the difference between the two characters is that one of them we know what their end goal is while the other character we will have to take a deeper dive to even try to piece together what they want to achieve in the story. 

              In the story written by Kafka “The Hunger Artist” we see a man who is not named (so we will just call him Hunger Artist) being used as a circus act of sorts. He is essentially known as the Hunger Artist, a man who starves himself for several weeks at a time. He is also monitored and locked within a cage. People come out to see the hunger artist in his cage just to see what a man who doesn’t eat anything for so long looks like. He is a very popular attraction for the circus and as such the people who run the circus want to keep him maintained. They give him a strict time period where he can and cannot eat. The Hunger Artist wants to surpass 40 days, it is his ultimate goal to break his own record, but the people who run the show won’t allow him. This always infuriates him and his way of retaliating he just doesn’t speak, which heavily affects the way the show works because when people come to see him they like to talk with him in the hopes of their questions being answered. Without him speaking the show is more or less just people staring at a hungry man. This man lives and breaths the spirit of perverseness. His own goals derive from something he very much knows could kill him down the line.

              In Melville’s story “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story on Wall Street” we have Bartleby, who isn’t the main character per say, but is very much the center of the story. When he first starts working at the lawyers office as a scrivener he is very efficient at his job, gets things done very quick and is quiet, and he is not in anyone’s way. But over time he begins to just stop doing his work, whenever he gets asked to do something he simply replies “I would prefer not to” or “I would rather not”. Even when he gets fired he comes to work and just kinda sits around and gets in everyone’s way. Eventually the lawyer tries to help him but is not met with a good response so he ends up getting Bartleby arrested and sent to jail. Even when he is locked away he continues to refuse to do what anyone says, he even refuses to eat the food given to him when asked to eat it which leads to his eventual death in the story. Now there are a lot of things to cover here but what i want to look at is how Bartleby shows his own spirit of perverseness. He simply chooses not to listen to anyone and pretty much all the time it’s to his disadvantage, he gets fired, sent to jail, and then dies because of his actions. I am certain that Bartleby knows he shouldn’t be doing this, but there has to be something that drives him to do all these nonsensical things.

Aiden Rivera 

Midterm Essay, ENG 2001 

Oct 19, 2020 

In the End All is Well 

After reading and carefully analyzing the two stories, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Marquez and “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, I’ve come to realize that they have more in common than I previously thought. At a first glance you wouldn’t think of many similarities. Mainly because one is occurring during the civil war and seems more realistic while the other is more mythical or fake by adding an old man who is an “Angel”. But looking deeper you see the main character and gothic element similarities that these two stories share. Bierce and Marquez both write stories where the main characters are coerced into traumatic situations that ultimately lead to their return to normalcy.  

In the story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”, the main character is an old homeless man with wings who is taken in by this couple. The couple has the old man live in their shack. They let him live there because they believe he is an angel and he has some correlation to their son, who was sick, get better. The old man proceeds to live with and get fed by this couple. At first it was an act of kindness till the tourist began to come see the old man. After this began to occur the couple began to take profits from the people coming to see the old man. Turning him into a circus act more or less. The wife didn’t want the old man there but once the money came along it became less of a problem. People would even throw things at the old man, treating him as if he was worthless. By the end of the story the old man’s wings opened wide and he flew away into the sky. The question here is how does the old man relate to the other character and where does he return to normalcy?  

In the story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, the main character Peyton Farquhar is standing on a bridge 20 feet above the water moments away from being hanged. In these few minutes the story takes place we basically go into Peyton’s head and view a back story on how he got into this situation. He was a southerner during the civil war who wasn’t accepted into the confederate army. But he had passion for the cause and would do whatever he could to help. The people about to hang Peyton are from the northern army. Towards the end of the story Peyton is sent off the bridge to hang but the rope snaps and he seems to get away. We end with Peyton seeing his family again and giving his wife a hug. Only to find out it was all in his head. He dreamt that he got away and saw his family again in his final moments. The fact was he didn’t get away but instead those were his final thoughts before his sad death. The question in this story is again how does Peyton relate to the old man and does this count as a return to normalcy? 

The two characters, Peyton and the old man both experience trauma that sooner or later makes them return to normalcy. Let me explain, the old man was going through the trauma of the people who would come pay to see him. He was viewed as just a show and the story doesn’t directly say it, but he was betrayed by the couple that took him in. The initial goal was to be good hearted people, but it turned to greed. This very well could have hurt and traumatized the old man more. With Peyton now, his trauma was a little clearer. He was moments away from dying. The trauma was all there. He too was betrayed, because he dedicated himself to the cause of the south and they never even took him in as a soldier. He did what he could on the side because of how much the cause meant to him. The biggest betrayal was that they never showed up to save him and although once again the story doesn’t say it, I’m sure they didn’t come after he died either. Meaning his death was in vain. Both these characters share trauma, they share the betrayal of the people around them.  

Alicia Rajcoomar 

Midterm Essay, ENG 2001 

Oct 19, 2020 

Innocence Betrayed  

Gothic literature often pushes the limits of our form of normalcy using death, mental illness and the nature of uncertainty to address an array of our everyday issues.  In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat” we witness the unnamed narrator fall victim to alcoholism and commit unexplainably violent acts that end in death, to his cat Pluto and unnamed wife. Similarly, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” we experience a series of events that makes Goodman Brown lose trust in his wife, Faith. The events that “take place” create a nature of uncertainty and pose the question, “Did these events really take place or are we witnessing a character that is descending into madness?” Both stories address the betrayal of innocence but in different ways and raises the question “Does gender play a role in the events that occurred for the women of these stories?”  

In order to answer this question, I intend to focus on the wife in “The Black Cat” and the wife, Faith from “Young Goodman Brown” by comparing their situations because in terms of the betrayal of innocence, these women were betrayed in different ways. I am going to start off by discussing in detail the events that led up to the unnamed wife’s death in “The Black Cat” and the mentality of her husband. I am then going to discuss Goodman Brown’s exchange with Faith before leaving for his journey and how the nature of uncertainty leads him to betray his wife. The betrayal of innocence will show us how individuals who don’t do anything wrong still end up getting betrayed due to a power dynamic and this is where gender comes in. This essay will be wrapped up by summarizing how these women were betrayed by their husbands because of their gender and lack of power.  

“The Black Cat” is told from a first-person perspective and early in the story the narrator admits to his alcoholism and his actions because of it. “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.” (Poe, 4) This is a prime example of the power dynamic between the narrator and his wife. He exerts his power over her by verbally and physically abusing her. The narrator is also fully knowledgeable of his actions towards his wife but doesn’t seem to care. “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 suffers.” (Poe, 11) Here we have the narrator acknowledge his abuse that’s usually targeted towards his wife by saying that she is patient and doesn’t complain. The narrator is again using his power to belittle his wife by making it seem as if she’s okay with being abused. We don’t get the opportunity to explore how she feels because the narrator murders her.  

“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.” (Poe, 11) The wife tries to stand up to the narrator in order to protect the cat, but we will see that he doesn’t like her display of power and does the extreme to reinstate his power over her, “Goaded by the interference into a rage more than demonical, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot without a groan.” (Poe, 11) The wife is betrayed by her own husband from the beginning of the story when he admits to abusing her and it gets so extreme to the point that he murders her without a second thought after she stops him from killing the cat. Now let’s look at how this form of betrayal is both different and similar to the one that Faith endures.  

Goodman Brown doesn’t hurt or kill his wife, Faith, but he does however betray their marriage like the narrator from “The Black Cat”. In both stories their betrayed by their husbands not because of something they did, but because of their husband’s personal issues. In “The Black Cat” it was the narrator’s alcoholism but in “Young Goodman Brown” it’s Goodman Brown’s uncertainty towards the events that might or might not have taken place.  Let’s first discuss when Goodman Brown and Faith say goodbye to each other before his journey. “Dearest heart, whispered she (Faith) … pr’ythee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed tonight …  Pray, tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year.” (Hawthorne, p. 1) Faith is begging with her husband to stay home for the night instead of going on his journey because of some bad thoughts she’s been having. In response Goodman Brown says “of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee” to which Faith replies “Then God bless you! And may you find all well, when you come back.” (Hawthorne, p.1) We see a bit of a display of power dynamic here with Faith giving up so easily on trying to get her husband to stay home after he states that he must go tonight. Despite this, it seems that the two love and care for each other deeply but this all changes during Goodman’s night journey.  

Before Goodman gets too far along in his journey it is important to note that he says “Well; she’s (Faith) a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night, I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven.” (Hawthorne, p.6) This is important because his actions later in the story differ from what he says and feels for Faith right now. On his journey Goodman meets an old man with a staff that is adorned with a serpent. The old man offers the staff to Goodman, but he declines and states that he’s going to return to his wife when an old woman appears. Goodman hides so that he isn’t seen with the man and witnesses the old woman referring to the old man as the “devil” and a “witch” regarding herself. He begins to hear the voices of other people in the village heading to a ceremony, and thinks he hears and sees his wife, Faith. He grabs the walking stick the old man gave him before disappearing and it transports him to the ceremony. He is then grabbed and brought in front of an unknown woman they are told that they must show themselves to each other and Goodman Brown finds out that the woman is his wife. “The husband cast one look at his pale wife, and Faith at him … Faith! Faith! Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One!” (Hawthorne, p.11) It is unclear if Faith obeyed him or not because suddenly, he was all alone.  

It is unclear to both the reader and Goodman if these events took place or not, but they drive Goodman into a form of madness and anxiousness that leaves him not trusting his wife. “Turning the corner by the meeting-house, he (Goodman) spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at the sight of him, that she skipped along the street, and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting.” (Hawthorne, p.12) Referring back to the quote about Goodman clinging to Faith when he gets back, we can see that his anxiousness is making him want little to do with his wife. Faith and her marriage are betrayed by Goodman because he no longer trusts her after the events that “occurred”. He believes that he has the power to ice out his wife and that is what he does for the remainder of his life until he dies.  

In conclusion, the fact that Faith and the unnamed wife are women does play a role in the way their husbands treated them. Both women did nothing to deserve to be betrayed but in the eyes of Goodman Brown and the narrator from “The Black Cat” the women committed acts that they felt were wrong, so they exerted their power over them as a form of punishment. The unnamed wife was brutally murdered because the narrator didn’t like that she protected the cat and Goodman Brown lost trust and acted coldly to Faith because he thought she gave disobeyed him. If the gender roles were reversed the narrator would have probably made the wife stop drinking and Goodman Brown probably would have thought that Faith was mentally unwell. Gothic literature uses the extreme actions of its characters to create an allegory for our present world. We see that it addresses relationship issues such as trust and domestic abuse as well as individual and social issues like alcoholism, possible mental illness and gender roles in the sense of power dynamics.