The “Five Lectures on Psycho-analysis” by Sigmund Freud, explains concepts of wishful impulse and hysteria which are illustrated in the short story, “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe. Freud explains wishful impulse as unconscious desires that a person has which can explode outward if repression fails and hysteria which causes people to have an irrational fixation on traumatic events. These Freudian concepts can be seen by the narrator of “The Black Cat” due to the irrational actions taken by the narrator such as killing his cat Pluto and his wife, as well as the decline of his mental state as the story progresses, progress displays Freudian concepts more clearly.

In this research paper I go over James Baldwin illustrates suffering as the main theme in “Sonny’s Blues”. He describes Harlem as a trap which is nearly impossible to escape due to the hardships endured by the African American community of Harlem in the 1950s due to the lack of opportunities, racism, and trauma its resident’s experience. Due to these roadblocks, the only way people can escape is through education, drugs, or music. The Harlem Renaissance had a prominent effect on the African American culture as it gave life to the community with the expression of artistic gifts helping the community flourish. The author talks about the importance of music by creating an escape from the suffering faced by African Americans in Harlem. In Sonny’s Blues, the narrator’s brother Sonny uses his artistic gift of playing the piano and jazz to sublimate his drug addiction and discovers an outlet for the hardships he faces.

This is a meme that I made and believe depicts the moment the narrator hung his cat Pluto but in a humorous way. For the image I choose a one-eyed black cat looking very startled and shocked towards something which I believe would have been Pluto’s face when the narrator first came to tie him up. And for the caption, I wrote: “The face your cat makes when you tell him you’re going to start putting him on a leash” which is a funny way to say that you’re going to put a rope around his neck which is kind of what the narrator did but I depicted it in a comedic way.