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The Black Cat is told in the point of view of a man who is in prison on death row. We later find out he is in prison because he murdered his wife. The conflict in the story is the narrator's drinking problem which causes him to become violent towards his pets and wife. He cuts out the eye of his cat Pluto and then hangs it from a tree in his garden. That same night his house catches on fire, but he, his wife, and a servant all escape without any harm. They lose everything else. When they move into a new house another cat appears and seems to be very similar to Pluto, it is black and missing an eye. It also has a mark that looks like a gallows on its chest, what Pluto was killed by. This cat also constantly irritates the narrator. The narrator tries to murder the cat with an axe, but when his wife attempts to stop him he kills her. He isn't sad or regretful about killing his wife and is happy he made the cat run away. The cat later reappears and his wife's body is discovered. The narrator blames the cat for exposing him to the police.