We are Equal

Menglu Cai

Blog #3

Option 3

9/25/2013

Intro to Fiction 045

When I read The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe, I feel sick and uncomfortable. Especially, when you first start the story, the narrator seems to be very nice and caring for the animal. Then, he changes to be very cold-blooded and senseless. The narrator begins to torture his cat only because it gets frightened, and bites him a little bit. He says “ I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.”  This is a great contrast from the story’s beginning. The image of the narrator suddenly changes to a evil mind and bloodless series killer. This makes me feel sick, and it also reminds me of the news I read.

A Chinese woman had killed thousands of cats, and also had been free from law punish. Over ten years, she would adopt a kitten and tortured it to death. She also video tapes all her crime and posted on web. That is how the people found out. One of the kittens adopted by her chocked to death, stuffed into the bad and threw out of the window. When the people gathered together to criticized her, and called the police. Unfortunately, In China, they don’t have law for this. The police only told her not to do this.

I believe no people are born to be evil, but they can turn to be. The black cat was written in 1992, and the real thing happened in 2012. Over a decade, this heinous act still exists. Sadly more, there are no law regulations. In the story, the narrator can hang the cat in the garden. In real life, the women who had killed thousands of cats can still be free from any punishment except for moral or ethical criticism. Do you feel lamentable? I do. I feel angry. For century, people are talking about equal rights. But there are some people out there kill the animal, and free from punishment. Is it because they are just animal, so that they are in a lower hierarchy than we are? I think we are equal. I see my dog as a family member, not a pet. I believe many people do too. We have the equal rights. Just as Jean-Jacques Rousseau puts: “It appears, in fact, that if I am bound to do no injury to my fellow-creatures, this is less because they are rational than because they are sentient beings: and this quality, being common both to men and beasts, ought to entitle the latter at least to the privilege of not being wantonly ill-treated by the former.” Thus, the governments should have law for this to protect all the lovely creatures from being harmed by any psychopathic person. Because we are equal.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Black Cat”.  American Gothic Tales. Ed. Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Plume, 1996. 349-357. Print.  

Li Mao. “The Case of the Kitten Killer”.  Global Times. May 21, 2012.

< http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/712385/The-case-of-the-kitten-killer.aspx>