Compare perversity in "The Black Cat," "The Imp of the Perverse," and "The Cask of Amontillado."

"The Imp of the Perverse" is evidently intended as a scientific explanation
by Poe of the innate human tendency to do the wrong thingto perform some action simply because
we know it is improper, dangerous, or destructive. In Poe's description it sounds much like a
manifestation of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). The other two stories to which you refer,
"" and "," show the horrifying results of this obsessive urge which Poe
analyzes in technical-sounding language in "The Imp of the Perverse."

In "The Black Cat," the narrator abuses and then murders Pluto not because
he hates him, but, as he tells us himself, precisely because the cat has loved him and done him
no harm. He describes himself in tears as he is slipping the noose round the cat's neck,
committing this cold-blooded act of sadism against his own will, as it were. In part, the
narrator attributes his cruelty to substance abuse, admitting that he is an alcoholic and
claiming that in...