Often in the history of literature, authors have chosen to rely on unreliable narrators to add a veil of mysticism and sympathy to their twisted plots. Numerous authors attempt to make the reader believe that the unreliable narrator is in desperate need of compassion and understanding; however, Poe uses unreliable narrators to distort the reality of the tale just enough to make the reader doubt everything within the story. This technique, employed by Poe in many of his works, adds a layer of mystery and uncertainty that is expected in his unique plots. No author knows more about “twisted plots” than the morbid and abnormal Edgar Allen Poe. In his story, “The Black Cat,” Poe uses an unreliable narrator to heighten the story by making the plot sprinkled with sporadic moments of truth in order to truly create a thin line between what is the truth and what is not. The story, written approximately 6 years before Poe's death, is one of the most notable examples of an unreliable narrator within Poe's collection. The reader, at the beginning of the story, is told by the narrator himself that he is considered an unreliable narrator, due to his supposed mental instability. For the wildest, yet most familiar narrative I am about to write, I neither expect nor solicit belief. I would be crazy indeed to expect this, in case my own senses reject their own evidence (). The unnamed narrator states that he doesn't expect anyone to believe the extraordinarily strange story he's about to tell; however, he proceeds to lay out the events as he saw them. As the story progresses, the reader discovers exactly why the narrator cannot be trusted: he is an alcoholic. The narrator begins to battle his inner demons in the… middle of paper… blindingly illuminated by the fact that his perceived reality was not the same as that of the actual reality. The unreliable narrator shows readers how out of touch with reality he has been by the end of the story; the narrator actually turns himself in for the murder of his wife simply because of his disdain for the black cat. Overwhelmingly, the truth has been lost in this unreliable narrator's world. It is a repeated theme in many of Poe's works that the consciousness of guilt is one of the most harmful things a person can possess. Often, in his stories, the main character dies due to his conscience of guilt and “The Black Cat” is no different. The narrator's distorted sense of reality was ultimately the reason for his disappearance. Poe seems to warn readers, throughout his many works, that it may or may not be a good thing to have a conscience of guilt..