The Black Cat

The spirit of perverseness describes crimes that are done because people feel like it even though they know it is wrong, as opposed to doing it because we are weak or afraid. The man cuts out his cat's eye, swings an ax at his wife's head to kill her, and kills his cat. The surprise ending is that the cat is sitting on the head of the corpse that he buried in the wall. I have partiality to the quote, " .. this is a very well-constructed house. I may say an excellently well-constructed house... these walls are solidly put together", because it leads to the constitutes of the wall breaking and exposing the truth. That exposes the man to the police, and revealing the cat and his wife.