THE BLACK CAT
849
we observed, in analyzing that tale, this denizen of the milky South–
ern Seas,
in
addition to its scarlet teeth and claws, symbolic of
castration, had the head of a
cat.
Another indirect proof-evidently accompanied by unconscious
memories of suckling and its oral-erotic gratifications--that this theme
is linked with the white-breasted cat, is testified by the place where
it is discovered; a tavern, where one
drinks,
and where it is perched
on a barrel of gin or rum. Here, clearly confessed, we have the links
that bound Poe's dipsomania to the unconscious memories of, and
pinings for, the time when he sucked at his mother's breast.
Pluto's owner is at first overjoyed to discover this re-embodi–
ment of his victim and caresses the cat, which shows every sign of
delight. At once, he offers to purchase it from the landlord who,
however, "made no claim to it-knew nothing of it-had never seen
it before." So, too, phantoms behave, suddenly emerging from the
shadows where they lurk.
Thus, restored to her son, the mother who fed him at her breast,
resumes her plea. She proclaims, at once, that she suckled him as a
babe, as proved by the milk-stain splotching her chest, and adds that
she loved him passionately as a babe and, never, in those days, thrust
him away. But whereas Pluto, the first cat-which doubtless repre–
sents the mother in the child's anal-sadistic and phallic
_~:
..;e-finally
flees from its owner and so rouses his rage, the second and white–
chested cat doubtless represents the mother at the child's oral stage
and, as we shall see, will be an inseparable companion and remain
glued to his side like a loving shade.
The cat then elects to accompany its new owner home, where it
is soon domesticated and becomes "a great favorite" with his wife.
Nevertheless, its new master confesses,
"I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the
reverse of what I had anticipated; but ... its evident fondness for my–
self rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of
disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided
the creature . . . I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise
violently
ill
use it; but gradually-very graduaIly-I came to look
upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its
odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence."
The secret of this horror, in which hate combines with disgust,
