Imbedded in the tale is the psychological journey of an egocentric who derives pleasure from cruelty."(Pritchard, 148) While this explanation stands, it must be observed that Poe's intention went beyond the psychological investigation: his description of evil doing is almost always accompanied by a certain symbolism that alludes to the intrusion of the supernatural in human life. As Madden notes, Poe's primary goal is to make the readers uneasy by facing them fully with the un-explainable, with that which surpasses human understanding: "Poe makes his readers uneasy by confronting them with the limits of rational thought. He does not present the uncanny, but elicits it in the mind of the reader by presenting some things that are un-explainable and asking the reader to interpret them. It is not written as a psychoanalytic exercise, but to elicit uneasiness in the face of the un-explainable."(Madden, 60) Thus, Poe always combines the psychological with the supernatural in his stories, hinting at the connection between the human psyche and some hidden...

"Poe's 'The Black Cat' and Freud's 'The 'Uncanny'.'" Literature and Psychology. 39.n1-2 (Spring-Summer 1993): 52(11)
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Poe, Edgar Allan. The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Poe. New York: Random House, 1992.

Pritchard, Hollie. "Poe's the Tell-Tale Heart." The Explicator 61.3 (Spring 2003): 144(4). General OneFile. Gale. http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS.

Stark, Joseph. "Motive and meaning: the mystery of the Will in Poe's 'The Black Cat'." The Mississippi Quarterly 57.2 (Spring 2004): 255(9). General OneFile. Gale. 13 Nov. 2007 http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS.