"The Black Cat" and "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe are very appealing short stories which both deal with the theme of death. This theme is conveyed by techniques such as characterisation and word choice. The "Black Cat" is about a psychotic animal lover who acquires and befriends a stray black cat until a moment of madness occurs where he cuts out its eye and hangs it. Later, the man finds another cat like the one he killed and decides to keep it until once again becoming increasingly loathful of the animal. When tripped in his cellar by the cat he swings for it with an axe only for his wife to stop him but she quickly suffers the consequences. He decides to wall up his wife, whom he killed with an axe, and when the police come round to investigate her disappearance he gets caught as they hear a wailing in the walls. The cat had been trapped with the wife. "The Cask of Amontillado" is a short story of revenge with a powerful man named "Montresor" vowing to kill the town jester Fortunato who insulted him. Montresor entices Fortunato to his wine vaults on the night of the Mardi Gras, where he makes the joker try some different, but equally strong, wine. When Fortunato was extremely drunk he tied him up against a wall and covered his place with bricks, leaving him to die drunk with no oxygen.
A piece of characterisation which Poe uses to tackle the theme of death is when the insane narrator in "The Black Cat" pounces for the animal, after a few drinks, clutching a pen-knife and tears one of its eyes out with the weapon. This incident happens moments before he hangs the unfortunate creature. .
"I took from my waistcoat pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat and deliberately cut.
one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.".
This shows how deranged in the head this character is because the cat was his best friend leading up to the incident; "my favourite pet and playmate" and out of all reason he attacks then hangs the cat.