Question

Which quotation from "The Black Cat" best supports the inference that the narrator feels he deserves to be punished for his cruelty?

“…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.”

“I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame.“

“...I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin…even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.”

“Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy.”

Answer 1

The quotation from The Black Cat that best supports the inference that the narrator feels he deserves to be punished for his cruelty is the third one: “...I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin…even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.”

Step-by-step explanation:

By reading these lines we can understand how the speaker in conscious about the wrong he has done. He knew what he was doing and knew that was wrong and did it anyways. He knew it was a sin, and a big one. So big that it was "beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God". This means that he knew he deserved a punishment from God that, even with His infinite mercy, wouldn't be able to forgive what he had done.