Perverseness in the "The Black Cat"

In Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat" the reader is told that the narrator appears to be a happily married man, who has always been exceedingly kind and gentle. He attributes his downfall to "the spirit of perverseness." This downfall is depicted in several heinous acts, such as when he curses at his wife and eventually "offered her personal violence." In a drunken stupor he took a pen knife from his jacket pocket and intentionally cut out one of Pluto's, a cat, eyes from the socket. …