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Quote: "two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid granite" (Poe).

Analysis: In free masonry, 2 columns represent a passageway into an unknown area. It is one of the most well recognized signs of free masonry (Grand Lodge of Rhode Island). The 2 columns are in the story when describing a random cave at the bottom of the catacombs, where Fortunato would be chained up. This shows the gateway to an unknown area symbol.

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Quote: "My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them."

The narrator's initial affection for animals represents his lost innocence and humanity. Animals are symbolic of purity and love, reflecting the narrator's once gentle nature.

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"I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart."

The beat of a heart is the ultimate symbol of life which makes this situation ironic because all the killer can hear is the man beating heart (life) which is about to take away.

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Quote: ""A sign," he said, "a sign."

"It is this," I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the folds of my roquelaire" (Poe).

Analysis: In free masonry, construction devices are a symbol of free masonry, and are used to identify as a free mason. . In the story, the narrator was able to prove that he was a mason, and gain Fortunato's trust, because of the trowel.

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Quote: "We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again" (Poe).

Analysis: Arches symbolize a gateway. In the story, Fortunato and the narrator go down a passageway with a series of arches into a crypt deep underground, which symbolizes a descension into hell.

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Quote: "Pluto—this was the cat’s name—was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets."

Pluto, the black cat, is symbolic of fate and darkness. In Roman mythology, Pluto is the god of the underworld, a name that foreshadows the death, decay, and destruction of the story.

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Quote: "One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence."

This moment marks the beginning of the narrator's transformation. Alcohol symbolizes self-destruction.

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Quote: "He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication" (Poe).

Analysis: Eyes are important symbols, and are described as "pathways to the soul." Sometimes, they are a way to show if someone can divine truth from lie. By describing Fortunato's eyes as filmy, Poe is showing how Fortunato cannot see the clever story the narrator is using to eventually chain him up.

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Eyes usually symbolize sight, however, in this story, the old man's eye symbolizes weakness and fear. "Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my mind to take the life of the old man”.

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Quote: "When reason returned with the morning—when I had slept off the fumes of the night’s debauch—I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched."

The flight of his "original soul" suggests a loss of moral integrity, replaced by a fiendish, almost supernatural evil that controls his actions. This ties into the Gothic theme of inner turmoil and the blurred lines between sanity and madness.

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Quote: "I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal’s neck."

The image of the cat in the ruins symbolizes guilt and divine retribution. The burned house represents the destruction of the narrator's former life, while the cat, with a noose around its neck, symbolizes both his crime and the inescapable consequences of his actions.

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Quote: "it was now, I say, the image of a hideous—of a ghastly thing—of the GALLOWS!"

The gallows mark symbolizes death and punishment.

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Quote: "But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb!"

The "Arch-Fiend" refers to Satan, symbolizing ultimate evil. The cry from within the tomb, the cat's voice, symbolizes the resurrection of guilt and the inescapable nature of sin.

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Quote: "Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman."

The red mouth can be interpreted as a symbol of blood and violence, representing the narrator's crime. The cat becomes an embodiment of fate and retribution, having "seduced" the narrator into acts of murder and ensured his ultimate punishment. This symbolizes the inevitability of guilt resurfacing, no matter how deeply the narrator tries to bury it.

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Quote:"Putting on a mask of black silk" (Poe).

Analysis: This is a symbol of Free Masonry. By the narrator putting on this mask, it shows that he is a free mason. This can also be taken as a metaphor, to show the lie that he was performing.

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Quote: "I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand" (Poe).

Analysis: This gesticulation is a symbol of free masonry. This shows that Fortunato is a Free Mason, and because the narrator doesn't understand it, he could be a higher level of Free mason.

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Quote:"I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat" (Poe).

Analysis: Each level of the wall shows a different sin, and putting the last block up and trapping the mason inside shows how the narrator turns his back on masonry.

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Quote: "at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman—a howl—a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation."

Analysis: The shift of a baby's cry to a shriek symbolizes the loss of purity of innocence from being murdered and entombed.

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The heart is also a powerful symbol of guilt because it represents something that can never be silenced, much like the narrator's conscience. His futile attempts to "kill" the old man’s life do not free him from the torment of his own mind.

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People with physical blindness are able to SEE better