Edgar Allan Poe wrote five short stories that are very popular. “The Black Cat,” “The Barrel of Amontillado,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Raven,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” are the stories I found similar. Poe's stories were written between 1839 and 1846. They are all similar in such a way that they involve madmen. These men think they are sane, but end up doing horrible things. Poe's writing style is very dark. We can consider what he is writing gothic. “The Black Cat” is one of Poe's most gruesome stories. It's one of the darkest stories I've written. The narrator opens the story by saying that he is of sound mind. It's the night before he dies. The story is about the narrator's past and how he knew so many people who loved him. He also talks about his love for animals. He marries his wife young and convinces her to love and own pets. “We had birds, a goldfish, a beautiful dog, rabbits, a little monkey and a cat” (Poe). His wife was superstitious about the black cat, Pluto, but never worried about it too much. The narrator began to become irritable and moody. He became an alcoholic and began abusing his wife and animals. As his alcoholism worsened, he didn't treat Pluto so well. After coming home drunk one night, he physically injured Pluto. The cat bit his hand, then he took out a penknife and cut off one of Pluto's eye sockets. He goes to bed and feels a little remorse the next morning. Pluto began to slowly recover, but when the narrator began to drink more, one morning he decided to hang Pluto from a tree. That night his house burned down, but he believed the two situations were unrelated. The neighbors see the footprint of the cat with a rope around its neck on the wall and... in the middle of the paper......angels, but then it gets dark and talks about the raven, about December, and midnight, which is all about on the darkness. All of these stories can be considered a Gothic writing style. As you read the stories, you can tell that Poe preferred darker stories. All four of these stories end with a man going mad. You are able to understand the stories separately, however, looking at them collectively gives us a better understanding of the stories. Poe is comfortable with his dark writing skills. It's easy for him to make up a distorted story. His stories have endings you wouldn't expect. “The Black Cat” really makes us understand Poe's life because he uses alcoholism as an illness in the story. For much of his life Poe suffered from alcoholism. The five stories are similar because the men claim to be sane, but end up going crazy.