A common use for Storyboard That is to help students create a plot diagram of the events from a story. Not only is this a great way to teach the parts of the plot, but it reinforces major events and helps students develop greater understanding of literary structures.

Students can create a storyboard capturing the narrative arc in a work with a six-cell storyboard containing the major parts of the plot diagram. For each cell, have students create a scene that follows the story in sequence using: Exposition, Conflict, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution.

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Example “The Black Cat” Plot Diagram

Exposition

The narrator is telling his story as a condemned man, flashing back to the beginning. He was a peculiar boy, particularly fond of animals. He married young and his wife made sure they had many animals, especially one particularly large black cat named Pluto. The narrator confesses that he is an alcoholic, and this made him violent towards everyone – his wife and his pets, but he was able to keep himself from abusing Pluto.

Conflict

One night, in a drunken stupor, the narrator thinks Pluto is avoiding him, so he seizes him and cuts out one of his eyes. He is ashamed in the present of his deed, but back then, his shame only lasted a short while. Pluto, of course, avoided the narrator and the narrator began to be irritated by this.

Rising Action

The narrator becomes so angry at Pluto’s avoidance that one day, he decides to hang him from a tree. Later that night, the narrator’s entire house burns down. The following day, the narrator visits the ruins of the house and finds on the one standing wall an image of a cat with a rope around its neck. The narrator explains it away, but is nonetheless shaken. He begins to search for a new cat, and finds a large black one with a white splotch on its chest at one of the taverns he frequents.

Climax

The cat follows the narrator home. The cat loves the narrator, and because of his guilt from past deeds, the narrator begins to loathe the cat. The cat is also missing an eye, like Pluto. The more the narrator avoids the cat, the more he follows him. The spot on his chest begins to resemble a gallows, frightening the narrator. One day, on the way to the cellar, the cat trips the narrator on the stairs and he raises an axe to kill him; he is stopped by his wife, and in a rage, he kills her with the axe instead.

Falling Action

The narrator walls his wife up within the wall of the cellar. The cat seems to have fled, and the narrator sleeps peacefully for the first time in a long time. Three or four days pass, and the police finally come to search the premises. The narrator, however, is unbothered because he knows they’ll never find his wife.

Resolution

As the police are about to leave the cellar and the premises for good, the narrator takes his cane and raps on the cellar wall to boast about the construction of the house. At that moment, a wailing and screaming comes from behind the plaster. The police open the wall and find the narrator’s wife, along with the black and white cat, whom the narrator had accidentally walled up with her body.

Themes, symbols, and motifs come alive when you use a storyboard. In this activity, students will identify themes and symbols from the story, and support their choices with details from the text.

“The Black Cat” Themes to Look For and Discuss

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Guilt and Judgment

The narrator is plagued with guilt over his actions against his wife, his pets, and eventually Pluto. He himself knows that he is an alcoholic and out of control, but he cannot get hold of his misery, nor overcome his depression. Eventually, he knows that he will be judged for his actions, deep down inside, and acknowledges that he commits these acts of violence to seal his eternal damnation in Hell once and for all.

The Effects of Alcoholism

The effects of the narrator’s battle with alcoholism include not only violence, but a loss of himself. He knows he is undergoing a personality change, and looking back, he can see the clouded thinking and judgment that led him to make rash and terrible decisions against Pluto, his wife, and the black and white cat. He finds himself unable to control his emotions, and unable to climb out of his despair, falling back into the cycle that ultimately leads to his own death.

Domestic Violence

The story brings light to the cycle of domestic violence that often accompanies a disease like alcoholism. Unable to deal with his own feelings of unhappiness, the narrator takes his rage out on his wife and his pets. This is not uncommon for people who abuse alcohol and have issues with their temper. The families are often the routine victims of the alcoholic’s blackouts and paranoia. For whatever reason, the wife stays with the narrator, and this decision highlights of the most dangerous consequences of domestic violence: her murder at the hands of her husband.

“The Black Cat” Motifs & Symbols to Look For and Discuss

The Apparition

The apparition, or burned image, of Pluto hanging from a noose that is burned into the plaster of the wall of the house frightens the narrator. While he knows that there must be some sort of logical explanation for it, he also realizes that there is reason to be fearful of the chain of events that have occurred since he killed the cat: the fire in which he loses everything, and now the image of this cat and his terrible deed are imprinted on the wall of his home.

The Black and White Cat

At first, the black and white cat seems like a chance to make up for what he did to Pluto. However, as soon as he gets him home and sees that he, too, is missing an eye, the narrator is again riddled with guilt and becomes fearful. He sees himself as undeserving of the cat’s affection, and begins to view him as a threat. Indeed, the white patch on the cat’s chest begins to resemble a gallows, which the narrator knows he deserves. The cat ultimately brings justice and judgment to the narrator by helping the police discover her body.

The Cellar

The cellar is a place where the plaster is soft, and allows the narrator to quickly wall up his wife’s body without worrying about her being discovered. He is so satisfied with himself for coming up with the idea to hide her there that he sleeps in relative peace for days. Coupled with the absence of the black and white cat, the narrator is almost gleeful as he walks around the cellar with the police, knowing they’ll never find her. He sees the cellar as a place of peace and tranquility compared to what he’s been battling in his own mind for many years.

Another great way to engage your students is through the creation of storyboards that use vocabulary from “The Black Cat”. Here is a list of a few vocabulary words commonly taught with the story, and an example of a visual vocabulary board.

"The Black Cat" Vocabulary

• baroques
• phantasm
• docility
• sagacious
• tinctured
• vex
• conflagration
• bas-relief
• pertinacity
• premises
• felicity
• allayed
• anomalous
• rubbish
• consigned