What happens if our home is no longer safe? What would happen if the people we love were no longer trustworthy and became violent? How can we escape such madness when every exit from the house seems blocked? Edgar Allen Poe taps into some of our deepest fears, using the genre of horror. In his short story “The Black Cat,” Poe addresses the real and frightening consequences of addiction, mental illness, and domestic abuse. The horrific effect these have on the family slowly unfolds as Poe reveals the protagonist's mind. As the narrator, in this case the protagonist, slowly slides into madness with the help of his drink, his wife silently transforms in the background, from a passive victim of abuse, to a defender of the defenseless and weak. Poe creates suspense throughout the story, revealing some facts and hiding others. He deliberately leaves out these details, forcing us to place the relationship between the wife and the narrator in our minds. In this way, we insert our personal details, to relate to the wife, and also to the narrator, on an intimate level. We all want a happy and safe home life. Poe takes that basic human need for safety and security and drops it into the hands of a madman. Poe allows the narrator to invite us directly into his twisted mind. Suspense increases when we fear that home may be an unsafe place. The narrator then takes us along his path of drunkenness, violence and madness, dragging his poor wife and his beloved pets behind him. The narration is in first person, as told by the narrator. We never hear directly from the wife, so we have to use our imaginations to recognize or sympathize with her character. Not much is revealed about the wife's history or appearance, but we... halfway through the paper... the narrator then "buried the ax in [his wife's] brain" our deepest fear came true (23) . The walls of the house, which normally represent happiness, are reversed and become disturbing. Repeated abuse breaks the wife, albeit silently, and each time she loses a part of herself. Each cycle of abuse takes the wife further and further into the cellar, until one day there is nothing left of her. Down she goes, until she is annihilated physically, emotionally and spiritually. Poe uses his wife's tragic death to point out that domestic abuse does not always have a happy ending. History speaks to us today, as powerfully as it spoke to people a hundred or more years ago. Alcoholism, mental illness, and domestic abuse lurk in the human condition, and Poe uses the four walls of our home to plant the seed of fear in our minds that no one is safe from such a fate...