In most stories, the reader relies on a narrator to convey all the information needed to understand the events that occur in the story being told. In the case of Edgar Allan Poe's “The Black Cat,” the narrator presents a story from his past as he believes it happened to him. It's a shame, however, that the narrator comes across as completely unreliable. Not only does he constantly repeat notions about his sanity, but he often displays extreme and irrational emotions and presents his story in a pseudo-logical manner that manifests in his rambling narration and inexplicable actions. The narrator begins his story by stating, “mad am I not”(1). In telling his story, he is attempting to find, “…a calmer, more logical, and much less excitable intellect than mine, which he will perceive, in circumstances that I describe with amazement, nothing more than a normal succession of very natural causes and effects.”(1). He wants the reader to tell him that he is not, in fact, crazy. Throughout the story, the narrator never takes blame for any of the atrocities he commits, but instead places the blame on alcohol. He claims to say that because of his drinking, his own spirit would leave his body and it would simply take over his body. The narrator also states several times that large quantities of alcohol were drunk before telling the reader about some other horrible thing he had done. A drunk is not capable of being reliable enough to tell a story accurately. However, it is unclear whether the narrator's personality was not already disturbed to begin with. At the beginning of the story the narrator says that from a young age he had always been tender and compassionate. He loved animals, so his parents provided him with... half a paper... after he had tricked me into killing, and whose informing voice had handed me over to the executioner. I had walled the monster up in the tomb."(32). The narrator is himself responsible for his capture and subsequent order of execution. The reason why the narrator was forced to convey his story was so that others could read, evaluate, and I agree with him that his actions were those of a man of perfectly sound mind, caught in a storm of unfortunate coincidences. In writing the account of his crimes, he wishes the reader to ease his conscience after careful contemplation his tale, it is Unfortunately no one would be able to tell him what he hopes to hear as it is clearly the opposite. He must instead face what he has done as he heads to the gallows. Works Cited Poe, Edgar A. “The Black Cat discovering literature". 3rd edition.