Explored The Black Cat and Metamorphosis

According to Mathews (2016), Edgar Allan Poe had been a personality who demonstrated the most profound sensibilities concerning the exploration of the sense of fear in the human psyche. Halliburton (2015) has observed that this sense of the sinister and the ominous has been amply manifested by the violence of perversity and the vivacious inexplicable phantasy which have been exhibited through “The Black Cat”. Fantasy has been the key perspective in this regard which could be best discerned through fact that the narrative of Poe in this tale has managed to claw at the notion of the countenance of terror as a particular spiritual design.

In this context, Burduck (2017) has suggested that it has been quite remarkable for Poe that he has kept the Phantasmagoric elements, including that of abject fantasy, absolutely inscrutable within the entire narrative. This has surmounted to the projection of the insanity associated with visualisation of the physical impossibility which has been further characterised by the complete absence of reason. Clarke (2016) has thus averred that the aforementioned fictional creation of Poe could be considered to be a direct specimen of the genre of literature of fantasy which simultaneously delves into the contrasts between fantasy and reality, logic and insanity and life and mortality. Green (2019) has further acknowledged that “The Black Cat” has the plot which finally collapses over the notion of primeval terror and fear. This lends the story the consistency of the mindless tragic genre also, even though at the surface level.

According to Botting (2015), this short fictional story is a persistent rendering of the psychological process through which the breeding process of the human mental maladies is presented in the most stark manner, through the literary instrument of a slowly developing malice. This has brought forth the conclusive understanding that madness could be considered to be an outcome of abject malevolence. Furthermore, the plot also suggests that self-inflicted malevolence is the catalyst of such madness.

Henry (2018) has stated that the instrument of fantasy has been applied by Poe to formulate the intonations of the actual inception of the narrative through the frantic scrawling by the anonymous narrator in the most sinister tone of a final confession. The self-contradictory tone of the narration exhibits the attempt to formulate the semblance of realism through the self-proclamation of apparent sanity by the narrator in spite of voicing the obvious negative perception about his sanity which the readers could be bound to deduce. The narration then moves towards the articulation of the grotesque through a cavalcade of functionalities of morbid psychological self-destructive perversion on part of the narrator. This has been considered by Tresch (2016) to be the endeavour to impart the most dramatic effect on the readership by Poe through the masterful utilisation of the grotesque and often disastrous intentions of the protagonists of the stories. The literary instruments of alcohol, the black cat and the progressively disturbing and sinful acts by the narrator which culminate in the murder of the wife could be considered to be another endeavour by Poe to shape the emotional responses being generated within the readership. The fantasy associated with such vivid expressions of the immoral and often reprehensible acts, has been presented by Poe through the psychological perspective of uncontrollable passion of the narrator for alcohol.

According to Monnet (2016), the exploration of the boundary between realism and fantasy has been undertaken by Poe through the subtle imageries such as the sanguineous axe, the concealed tom, the black cat which brandishes the solitary and fiery eye strenuously perched on the head of the corpse which is depicted in the upright posture and the omens. Jackson (2018) has discerned such imagery to be the consistent gravitation of the narrative towards the final jeopardy of the immorality of the soul of the perpetrator of the murders. The two significant yet fantasised catalysts which shape such inevitability have been hinted at as disgust and despair. The realism of the consistent decay of the moral fabric of the human consciousness has been thus depicted through pertinent gore associated with the fantasised imageries by Poe in the entire narrative.

To this effect, the research of Hammond (2016) suggests that the exploration of the boundary between factual realism and that of fantasy has been performed through the incessant yet unpredictable twists of the structure of the plot. The conflict between the rational and the irrational has been also considered to accentuate this borderline between fantasised fiction and factual reality. According to Moreland and Rodriguez (2015), the emphasis of such exploration has been to present a fearless challenge to the expectations which get generated through the human experiences which are both mundane and common. However, the process does not only substitute the natural causes with supernatural causes. Instead, the explanation is kept obfuscated and obscured by the expert plot structure developed by Poe in the similar manner of the genre of short stories. This apparent ambiguity engulfs the readership with an extensive measure of uncertainty and terror. According to Xiong (2018), such uncertainty and terror could be related with the most principle and primal conduits of human apprehensions, the fear of the unknown. This challenge is deemed to be necessary since the primary tenet of realism is the congruity with the experiences which human beings could derive from the social existence. Thus, Lippit (2017) has concluded that there have been certain inquests which have remained throughout the ages in the minds of the readership of “The Black Cat”. These could be identified as the constituents of the demarcation between reality and fiction as well as fantasy and fact. The most significant of these inquests has been identified as the literary veracity of the claims presented by the narrator since these are often readily interpreted as events which are inexplicable in nature since the narrator was in the shadow of his impending execution and consequently, he could have become delusional from a realistic perspective. Apart from this, the allegory of the black cat has been also consistently delved into by the rationalists and the phantasmagoric proponents alike to arrive into differentiated explanations which have also ranged from the absolute realistic to the outright fantastic such as the black cat being portrayed as the representation of the human subconscious which could become uncontrollable at times from the realistic senses and views. Another confusion which is encouraged by the inconclusive culmination of the fiction is the inquest of whether God could be either absolutely merciful or principally terrible since the narration of the entire fictional structure could be identified to have both of such hints.

As has been opined by Elswick (2016), the truth could be found in between the absolutist notions of either reality or fantasy. The effect of the fictional plot is a tantalising realisation that the nature of perversion could remain to be absolutely terrifying when the associated suspense could not be resolved from a realistic perspective. Furthermore, it is always a conundrum to accept, from a philosophical perspective, to take into account any instance of irrational evil. This has been also an undercurrent of the thematic construct of “The Black Cat”. The veiled suggestion has manifested itself in the notion that various sins could exist which could remain bereft of any rational explanation from the philosophical perspective.

Edger Allan Poe had consistently struggled to resolve this burden of explaining the inexplicable which could be compared with that of psychological crucifixion. This apparent condemnation of the general human conscientiousness could be also understood to be the source of the fantasy and fascination associated with the writings of Poe. This special iniquity between the realistic and the fantastic has prowled the entire narrative of “The Black Cat” in the form of feline omniscience associated with the imagery and the indifference of the course of actions undertaken by the narrator to the moral repercussions of his act of butchering his wife and then having been amoral enough to only concentrate on the destruction of the evidences of his heinous crime.

On the other hand, the fiction penned by Franz Kafka under the nomenclature of the Metamorphosis, amply demonstrates this apparent blending of the categories of literary fantasy and stern realism. According to Kim (2016), the narrative of Gregor Samsa turning into an enlarged cockroach could be considered to be associated directly with that of the fantasy based imaginative representation of certain aspects of reality by Kafka, through the utilisation of the method which could be better delineated as making plot reflective of the contemporary realities.

Corngold (2018) has specified the demarcation of fantasy and realism to be extremely bleak in the fiction authored by Kafka so as to outline an overlapping existence of both these two categories throughout the narrative plot structure. The strength of the ideation of Kafka in terms of blending the apparent fantasy with that of the mundane realism could be identified in the narrative of the fiction in the manner of extremely realistic portrayal of the details of the conditions in which Gregor finds himself in after his transformation into a cockroach which also entails the existential aspects of having a human consciousness and mind though his physique had metamorphosed. One particular example has been highlighted by Mete (2017) as the problems which Gregor encounters such as not being able to keep the bed covers in context of the six legs which he finds himself with in the shape of a cockroach and has to wave constantly as such as well as his troubles of having to manoeuvre himself with the changed disposition of his physical structure. Such realistic portrayals of transformational crisis of human beings thus could be emphasised as to have been initiated through an apparently fantasy based metamorphosis from human to an animal, both at the surface levels as well as the allegorical levels of the narrative of this fiction.

The behaviour of Gregor, according to Dreher (2016), has been depicted by Kafka to be the epitome of the process of metamorphosis and transformation from the perspective of Magical Realism. Rhodes and Westwood (2016) have identified that the notion of Magical Realism differs from the absolute Fantasy in the fundamental form of it which denotes that it is necessary to depict even the most bizarre and fantasy laden portrayals of the characters of any fictional plot through the prism of the realistic and modern consciousness which could be authenticated through general factual descriptions associated with the human society.

Price (2018) has delineated that the depiction of the retention of the human psychological consciousness within the physicality of the animalistic existence regarding the character of Gregor has been another indication by Kafka to the duality of character of the human existence where the primeval basic instincts could represent the exterior of the human consciousness while the undercurrent of human sentiments and emotions could be palpable at the higher cerebral levels. The application of magic realism has been profound in this perspective since the convincing behaviour of Gregor, after becoming the insect, has also represented the process of metamorphosis from human to insect since with the associated conflict of internal consciousness. This could be discerned through the preference of Gregor to hide within the dark places and in his repulsion for the general edible sustenance which humans prefer and his inclination for unclean food such as inedible cheese. Kafka has attempted to utilise the perceptions of the readership to make them identify with the actualities of the narrative so as to generate greater psychological acceptance on part of the readers.

Reyaz and Tripathi (2019) have deduced that it has been specifically significant for Kafka to portray the metamorphosed experience of Gregor in the most realistic of manners since the fundamental basis of the fiction has been premised on the theme of a person getting metamorphosed into an insect within the span of a night which outlines the most grotesque of fantasies and this could be considered to be a prime contributor to the possibility of the readership becoming non-interested into the plot of the fiction given the overtly incredulous nature of the plot.

Ultimately, it could be understood that the narrative design of the structure of the fiction of Metamorphosis has been oriented towards shedding light on the instability of human emotions and the subsequent clash of the spontaneous and the objective human psychology. The fantasised imagery of the rotten apple getting hurled towards Gregor and the subsequent demise of him being precipitated by the antipathy of his father towards him could be considered to be the transcending of the boundaries between the elements of abject fantasy and undeniable reality.

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Reference List

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