Abstract
   
     Edgar Allan Poe, the father of American horror stories, is a famous American short story writer and literary critic. Most of his short stories deal with death and horror, and thus have a kind of Gothic flavor. The Black Cat, one of his representative works, is permeated with horrifying atmosphere. The thesis tries to dissect its Gothic characteristics from the three perspectives—the settings, the symbolic meaning of the black cat and the characterization of "I".

Key words: The Black Cat, Gothic, settings, characterization

摘要

埃德加·爱伦·坡， 美国恐怖小说之父，是一位著名的短篇小说家和文学评论家。他的大多数短篇小说都涉及到死亡与恐怖，并因此具有哥特式风味。 《黑猫》是坡的代表作之一，充满了恐怖气息。本文将从三个方面—小说的环境，黑猫自身的象征意义以及“我”的个性塑造来详细分析《黑猫》的哥特式特征。

关键词：《黑猫》，哥特，环境，个性

1. Introduction
     Edgar Allan Poe(1809—1849) is an American poet, novelist, as well as a critic. In his short life of forty years, he wrote forty poems and seventy short stories. Although Poe's literary output is small, it is immensely interesting and influential as a literary inheritance. He is one of the first to establish the dark tradition in American literature and he invented one of the world's five most popular literary genres—the detective fiction. He is also considered the father of short stories. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. His writing influenced a variety of writers, including William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Hart Crane, Stephen King, and T. S. Eliot. He is also considered one of the first modern literary theorists of America.
    Running through the American history, Poe is undoubtedly one of the most controversial and most misunderstood literary figures. Even though he made brilliant achievements, he was treated coldly in the United States in his time. Therefore, for a long time after his death, Poe didn't get recognition he deserved. However, with time passing by, his talents in literature have been gradually rediscovered and appreciated.