Coffeehouse Post #4(Midterm essay draft)

Jessica Goriah

The Evil Within 

In the story “The Black Cat”, written by Edgar Allan Poe, is published in 1843. This story is written in the first person and is taken place at home. The main character is the black cat and narrator which remain nameless throughout the story. In “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, it is a novel that is written by Robert Louis Stevenson and published in the year 1886. The narration is in the first person and is told by 3 different characters from their point of view. In both stories “The Black cat” and “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, shared a similarity of self-sabotage, brutality, and redemption. The main similarity between these two stories is the theme of gothic. These stories have a sense of hate, darkness, and negative energy. The characters that are particularly the same is Mr. Edward Hyde from the novel and the narrator from the story.  The other two charters that are similar are Mr. Jekyll and the black cat they are the ones that ended up getting hurt and had good intentions. 

In “The Black Cat”, At the beginning of the story, the narrator starts off as gratified with his life. He is happily married at a young age, and he is surrounded by animals which he loves, but at some point, the narrator takes a turn and has a drinking problem known as alcoholism. Although he starts to abuse his most beloved animals and wife, he specifically goes after his black cat. He starts to scold the cat and dig the cat’s eye out and eventually killing it. In “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, Dr. Jekyll is a doctor who was a very fortunate man but felt guilty about having a dark side, so he decided to take it upon himself to try and separate the good and bad side no matter what the consequence was even if it meant possible death for him. He mixed up a couple of ingredients that created a potion. He took the potion and turned into a short and evil-looking man. Dr. Jekyll’s experiment ended up giving his bad side a form. His bad side was known as Mr. Hyde.   

According to Poe, the spirit of perseverance is what causes people to do things that they know is wrong and can be deleterious to others including himself. Spirit of perseverance is a token place in both stories one by the narrator and Mr. Hyde. In “The Black Cat”, the narrator abuses his animals and cuts the cat eye out. He isn’t just hurting the cat and animals but he’s hurting a part of himself too because he has a love for his animals. In “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, the wrong that was done was done by Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde who is part of Dr. Jekyll, accidentally tramples over a young girl, when he looks back at what he has done he had no remorse. He had full knowledge that what he did was wrong, and he hopes to get away with it. Both Hyde and the narrator committed brutality to loved ones around them. The narrator killed his cat and at the end of the story his wife as well. Mr. Hyde put Jekyll dear old friend in harm’s way. After Mr. Hyde transformed himself in front of Lanyon, he soon became sick and died within days. He also murdered Sir Danvers Carew with a cane because of rage.   

Both the narrator and Mr. Hyde blame someone for their hate and anger. Because Mr. Hyde is Dr. Jekyll suppressed dark side; Jekyll does not like him because he has only evil intentions however, Hyde dislikes Jekyll because he suppressed him his entire life and threatened to get rid of him once and for all. In “The Black Cat”, the narrator He keeps having an urge to hurt this cat like it’s the problem, but the truth is, the narrator is the problem. The black cat symbolizes the narrator’s guilt, darkness, evilness, violence, and aggression. This symbol affects the understanding of the overall meaning of the story because the narrator sees his reflection in the cat. 

Dr. Jekyll committed a few errors however he is redeemed in chapter 10. In chapter 10, before Mr. Jekyll commits suicide killing both Hyde and he writes a letter to his good friend Utterson, which explains his side of the story. He is redeemed by getting rid of Hyde once and for all while sacrificing himself. While Mr. Jekyll is stuck in Hyde’s body, he drinks poison and is found on the floor. In “The Black Cat”, rather than the narrator doing the redeeming the cat does the redemption. At the end, when the narrator kills his wife and buries her in the wall in the cellar, he doesn’t notice when the cat sneaks in the cellar with the wife. when the cops come looking for the missing wife, they hear the cat inside the basement. By doing this they find the wife, cat, at puts the narrator away in jail.     

Another similarity between Mr. Hyde and the narrator is that they both ended up self-sabotaging themselves. Although Jekyll gave his evil side a form, Hyde unknowingly caused his own demise by going on this self-centered path to evil. Hyde committed cold-blooded murder on, hurt a friend, including trampling over a girl. He also tried to take over Jekyll and his life. Both stories share a similar path, almost as a splitting image to the narrator in “The Black Cat”, who killed his wife along with the cat. Both result in their selfish motive of evil. Unconsciously to the fact that justice would prevail in both stories, Jekyll ends up killing hide and the narrator getting arrested. In both stories, they show ignorance of their actions that led to their own death or punishment.