Cat Got Your Tongue? Expression and Confession in Poe's Gothic

Abstract: Since the nineteenth century, the freedom of expression has been associated not only with impersonal reason but also with personal creativity. Self-expression gives voice to one's identity and calls for ethical acknowledgment. As Michel Foucault argued, however, self-expression entails confession, exposing the speaker to surveillance. My essay revisits Edgar Allan Poe's confessional tales, especially "The Black Cat" (1843), to show how they dramatize a compulsive, rather than empowering, drive to public self-disclosure. In Poe's gothic, the perverse craving for acknowledgment motivates crimes and confessions alike.