The Black Cat

Poe describes an event with his cat. First he talks about aquiring the cat and how much happinies it brought him and how it was one of his bestfriends to the point of following him around town forcing Poe to make him stay sometimes. During the course of this, Poe's alchoholism is growing more and more making him more and more insane. He became more irratible which began to make the cat exprience the growing temper.
One night poe stumbled home drunk and upon finding the cat avoiding him he grabbed it violently and was responded with a bite by the cat. Being drunk, the pain in his hand made him grow very angry as if "the fury of a demon" has possessed him. So he took his pen-knife and stabbed the cats eye out. Upon waking up in the morning he found himself in turmoil about the incident, beggining to drink again. This started throwing thoughts all around his head of explanation for why the act he had committed was ok, saying that all beings do something specifically because they know they aren't supposed to do it.
With this new thought in process he took the cat and hung it from a noose explaining to himself that he hung it "because" it was he knew he was committing a sin that would jeapordize his placement in the after life if it turned out it was real. A fire occured that day aswell burning down his house leaving him to think of a cause and effect situation.
The loss of the cat still got to him, so he got a new one, and tried not to maltreat it like he had done the other one. As time went on though, he began to "utterly loath" the cat. Always wanting to strike it when it got on his nerves he kept himself from doing so because of the guilt from killing his last cat. It started to scare him like it was a ghost of his last cat.
Going down into the basement oneday, accompanied by his wife, the cat followed them down the stairs tripping up Poe. Poe in rage grabbed an axe and tried to strike the cat and instead was halted by his wife, which led to him burrying the axe into her brain. Upon this he pondered how to get rid of the body. He put the body inside the wall of his celler and then began to look for the cat to end its life.
Not being able to find it he went to sleep and thought about how the deeds he had commited only slightly bothered him and he was still waiting for the police to arrive if they ever would. Eventually they did, and searched the house, and were unable to find anything which poe took pride in. Afterwards he began to hear the cry of the beast that had caused all of this, and while searching the cellar, realized he had walled up the cat in the tomb as well.
The events in this story show that Poe was well aware of the evil acts he was commiting and felt that he even somewhat enjoyed them, showing that he was definatly not a believer of trancendentalism.