"The Black Cat" as "Aseic": AI Reading as AI Invention / EZE, 2026

AI

To analyze Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Black Cat" in aseic terms, we must apply the concept of aseity—the quality of being completely self-originated, self-sustaining, and independent of external causes. In theology and philosophy, an aseic being (typically God) lacks any external derivation or external moral accountability.

In "The Black Cat," Poe subverts this concept to explore the terrifying, self-contained nature of human evil and psychological decay. [1, 2, 3, 4]

The Aseic Nature of "Perverseness"

The core psychological driver in the story is what the narrator calls "perverseness." Poe frames this impulse as an aseic force within the human psyche. [1]

• Self-Originated: The narrator asserts that perverseness is a primitive impulse of the human heart. It does not react to external temptation. It generates itself spontaneously.
• Motiveless: The narrator harms Pluto and murders his wife precisely because he knows it is wrong. The evil acts have no external motive like money, revenge, or passion. They exist purely for their own sake.
• Independent of Law: This perverseness operates outside of external moral or physical laws. It is a sovereign, self-sustaining urge toward self-destruction. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

The Black Cat as an Aseic Symbol

The cat, Pluto, and his successor function as symbols of an absolute, uncaused reality that dominates the narrator's life.

• Indestructible Presence: Pluto’s spirit or likeness cannot be destroyed. After the fire, his image appears burned into the wall. The second cat appears mysteriously out of nowhere.
• Self-Sustaining Terror: The second cat thrives and tortures the narrator without any active malice. It simply exists, and its mere existence is enough to drive the narrator to madness.
• The Cosmic Cop: In the end, the cat remains alive inside the wall next to the corpse. It acts as an autonomous, unbothered force of retribution that brings about the narrator's downfall. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

The Narrator’s Failed Attempt at Aseity

The narrator desperately wants to achieve a state of aseity—total independence, control, and freedom from guilt.

• Illusion of Sovereignty: By abusing his pets and murdering his wife, he attempts to assert absolute mastery over his environment.
• The Wall of Isolation: After sealing his wife in the cellar wall, he feels a sense of absolute security. He sleeps soundly, believing he has successfully cut himself off from consequences.
• The Collapse: The narrator fails because human beings are fundamentally not aseic. He is dependent on alcohol, bound by guilt, and ultimately exposed by the self-contained, unyielding reality of the cat. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

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To deepen this analysis, let me know if you would like me to:

• Compare this to the psychological concepts in "The Tell-Tale Heart"
• Explore the theological background of the word "aseity"
• Analyze the role of alcohol as an external catalyst vs. internal perverseness

"The Black Cat": Asemics: An AI Reading / EZE, 2026

AI

Analyzing Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Black Cat" through the lens of asemic writing—text that has no specific semantic content or legible words—shifts the focus from what the story says to how its shapes, marks, and visual forms convey meaning.

Here is an analysis of how the story functions in asemic terms.

🏛️ The Architecture of the Scar

• The Gallows Mark: The white fur on the second cat alters its shape over time.
• Visual Evolution: It changes from an indefinite blur into a sharp, legible image of a gallows.
• Asemic Transition: This represents a shift from a meaningless smudge (purely asemic) to a terrifying, highly specific glyph (semantic).
• The Ultimate Symbol: The image communicates the narrator's guilt and future execution without using a single word. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

🖋️ The Pen as a Weapon of Violence

• The Gouged Eye: The narrator cuts Pluto’s eye out with a penknife.
• The Metaphor: The penknife is a literal tool of writing and ink-making.
• The Mark: The empty eye socket becomes a raw, bloody, hollow shape.
• The Meaning: This physical mutilation is an asemic act of defacement, symbolizing the narrator's inability to look at his own soul. [1, 2]

🧱 The Cryptic Wall

• The Bas-Relief Plaster: After the fire, a single wall remains standing.
• The Impression: The image of a gigantic cat with a rope around its neck is raised on the surface.
• The Natural Text: The image is formed by chemical reactions of lime, smoke, and heat.
• The Impact: This plaster outline acts as a massive, haunting hieroglyph that the crowd gathers to read, despite containing no actual language. [1, 2]

🗣️ The Sound That Becomes Visual

• The Walled-In Cry: The hidden cat emits a horrific, muffled scream from behind the bricks.
• The Texture of Noise: Poe describes it as a "wailing shriek" that is half-human and half-fiendish.
• The Translation: This sonic anomaly acts as an auditory version of an asemic squiggle.
• The Resolution: It tears through the structured, orderly wall of the narrator’s lies, mapping his internal madness onto physical space. [1, 2]

To deepen this exploration, I can help you visualize these concepts. Would you like me to:

• Create an abstract graphic representing the evolving gallows-mark?
• Draft a physical description of how a modern asemic artist would illustrate this story?
• Analyze the narrator's handwriting from a psychological perspective based on his descent into madness?

Toward Asemics: "The Post Card": An AI Reading / EZE, 2026

AI

An asemic reading of Jacques Derrida’s The Post-Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond views the text as a visual open-signifier where semantic legibility collapses into the raw materiality of the trace. Asemic writing is a wordless, open semantic form of writing that has no specific conceptual content, meaning it is readable through its visual forms and gestures rather than parsed for vocabulary. [1, 2]

Analyzing The Post-Card through an asemic lens reveals that the text operates not as a stable vessel of philosophical meaning, but as a graphic performance of deconstruction.

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1. The Postcard Image as an Asemic Matrix

The foundational anchor of the book is a real postcard Derrida found at the Bodleian Library, depicting an illustration of Plato standing behind a seated Socrates. [1, 2]

• The Reversal of Signs: In the image, Socrates holds the stylus (writing), while Plato points an index finger (dictating or reading). This upends the historical consensus that Socrates spoke and Plato wrote.
• The Gesture Over Meaning: Viewed asemically, the illustration strips both philosophers of their canonical texts. We do not see what they are writing; we only see the act and physical choreography of writing. The image functions as an asemic glyph—a representation of inscription that frustrates the reader's ability to extract an authorized message.

2. The "Envois" as Blank Spaces and Postcards

The first section of the book, "Envois" (Sendings), consists of a series of love letters written on the backs of these postcards. [1]

• The Materiality of the Inscription: Derrida explicitly foregrounds the physical limitations of the medium. The text is shaped by the borders of the cardboard, the presence of the stamp, and the address line.
• The Fifty-Two Blank Pages: Crucially, large blocks of text are explicitly cut or omitted, replaced by blank spaces and silent markers. In asemic art, the space around the scribble is as expressive as the line itself. These blank enclosures reject verbal communication, operating instead as a visual grid of "absolute drift," where meaning is endlessly deferred and never arrives.

3. The Graphic Performance of Différance

Asemic writing is the purest expression of Derrida's concept of the trace and différance (the concept that meaning is both inherently different and perpetually deferred). [1, 2, 3]

• The Unreadable Script: Because an asemic mark mimics the handwriting of a language without carrying its code, it forces the viewer to confront the physical shape of writing.
• The Open Horizon: Derrida’s epistolary style in The Post-Card mirrors this. The letters are addressed to an anonymous, shifting "you," making it impossible for an outside reader to ground the context. The text ceases to function as traditional literature and instead becomes a sprawling, abstract web of lines. It is an indexical gesture toward a communication that is always failing to deliver its parcel. [1, 2, 3]

4. Telecommunication and the Scattered Mark

Derrida obsesses over the vulnerabilities of the postal network: postcards can be intercepted, misread, lost, or destroyed. [1, 2, 3]

• Destinerrancy: This is Derrida's term for the inherent possibility that a letter will never reach its destination.
• The Asemic Mutation: When a letter is stripped of its sender, its receiver, and its definitive context, it is functionally rendered asemic. It transforms from a targeted semantic message into an aesthetic object floating through space. The text of The Post-Card mimics this destination failure, forcing the reader to abandon the search for a singular, coherent thesis. Instead, we are left to look at the writing rather than through it. [1, 2, 3]

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Summary Table: Semantic vs. Asemic Interpretations

Textual Element [1, 2, 3]	Traditional Semantic View	Asemic View
Socrates & Plato Picture	An inversion of the historical lineage of Western philosophy.	A graphic icon depicting the abstract, non-verbal performance of writing.
The "Envois" Letters	A philosophical romance and critique of psychoanalysis.	A visual grid of fragmented text blocks and expressive blank spaces.
Postal Metaphor	The structure of communication and institutional transfer.	The fragmentation and drift of signs when stripped of their semantic code.

If you are interested, we can explore this further. Would you like to:

• Look at how contemporary asemic artists use Derrida's theories to justify their work?
• Contrast this with Jacques Lacan’s view of "the letter" which Derrida heavily critiques in this very book?
• Map out a visual breakdown of how the "trace" functions as a graphic line? [1, 2]