The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe

I liked this story, even though is was sort of twisted; it was interesting. The narrator starts out as a well-tempered nice young man with a kind heart, and by the end of the story he's a conniving murderer who has all but completely lost his mind. Sure, you could blame one or both of the two cats for the poor mans demise, or you could blame the alcohol, but the fact is that the man was consumed with rage. He says, "The fury of a demon instantly possessed me." This goes against what the Transcendentalists believed. They thought that people were pure of heart, so where do murderous actions come from? Transcendentalists thought that society could skew a persons perspective and quiet their inner God/conscience, but no one was telling the narrator to kill his cat or his wife. The urge to kill came from within himself, and he didn't seem to feel much remorse for the awful things he did. No, rather than feeling remorse, he just wanted to make sure he covered his tracks and didn't get caught. He actually seemed to feel worse about killing the first cat than he did his own wife. The narrator was worried about his immortal soul, he feels he is "even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God." A Transcendentalist would not have thought anyone could ever be so removed from God, because God was supposed to be a part of the individual - you can't be apart from something that is intangible and inside of you.
Poe uses a bit of irony in The Black Cat. After the main character buried an axe in the brain of his beloved wife, decided to mortar her body up in a false chimney in the basement of their house. After his task is finished he takes great pride in his job well done, "I looked around triumphantly, and said to myself -- 'Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain'". This is almost a direct hit on what Emerson says in Self Reliance, "A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work." Poe took one of the Transcendental ideals and twisted it into something sick and horrifying. He kind of throws it in their faces that their beliefs are too idealistic.