What is the single effect in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat?"

Thes single effect is captured by the ugly
conceptualization of death. The story of "The Black Cat” dwelt on crime and violence to
reveal the principle of karma in relation to death. It revealed death as a punishment
for the morbid thoughts of man that results to wrong doings and decisions, bringing him
bad fate.

The story utilizes the “black cat” as a symbolism
of the devil—being the cause of death. In the Bible, it is him who is the reason why God
took away immortality from Adam and Eve. The devil is also the one who persuades people
to commit sin, and according to Romans, chapter six, verse twenty three: “The wages of
sin is death.” This Bible verse is carried out by the narrator in the denouement of the
story, after the police found the corpse at the cellar, he says, “Upon its
head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose
craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the
hangman.”

The symbolism of the black cat being
the devil is further reinforced by the imagery used to describe it, such as “solitary
eye” and “hideous beast”; these descriptions are usually associated to the devil; and
the phrases: “seduced me to murder” and “consigned me to the hangman” are commonly
associated to the works of the devil.

The cat is the root
cause of his madness and misfortune, and his future painful death—being a hangman as he
anticipates it to be the punishment for the crime. Again, this emphasizes that death in
itself is associated with bad act…something that in itself calls for retribution and
punishment.

The notion that the cat symbolizes the devil is
also supported by several statements about it. At the beginning of the story the
narrator relates, “…my wife…made frequent allusion to the ancient popular
notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise.” it is palpable
that witches are commonly conceived to be evil and practitioners of dark magic, which
are believed to be of the devil.

The black cat also
symbolizes the negative aspect of death that causes fear and terror to man. Death in
itself is associated with bad act…something that in itself calls for retribution and
punishment is reiterated. The narrator, being guilty of committing a crime against Pluto
now fears its consequence. Upon noticing that the new cat seems to be a ghost or the
reincarnation of Pluto, the narrator expressed his
terror:

…I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself
of the monster had I dared - it was now, I say, the image of a hideous - of a ghastly
thing - of the GALLOWS ! - oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime - of
Agony and of Death !

The cat also causes fear and anxiety
in the thoughts of the narrator, this is obvious as he relates how he was frightened by
the cat, “I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot
breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight - an incarnate Night-Mare that I
had no power to shake off - incumbent
eternally.”

The narrator ends up a culprit due
to the murder of his wife, out of capricious violence and madness towards the black cat;
and the cat being blamed by the narrator for seducing him to do the crime, thus bringing
him to his fate, manifested the concept of death in the story. The whole idea of death
bounces back to argument that death in itself is associated with bad act…something that
in itself calls for retribution and punishment.