15 POINTS! Refer to Explorations in Literature for a complete version of this story.

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

A.) “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 fiber of my frame.“

B.)“The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness.”

C.) “With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase..”

D.) “...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.”

The answer is D.) "...I knew that in so doing I was comitting a sin...even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God."

Explanation:

hi there!

one thousand and one nights, also called the arabian nights is a collection of middle eastern tales compiled in arabic during the islamic golden age, dated from the 8th to the 14th century. this collection was compiled of largely middle eastern and indian stories with an uncertain date and autorship whose tales such as aladdin, ali baba and sinbad the sailor -these ones were the most popular ones, the ones that have almost become part of western folklore.

as in much medieval european literature, the stories contained in this collection are set within a frame story. its scene is central asia, as known as "the islands or peninsulae of india and china", where king shahryar kills his wife after discovering her infidelities and as well as any other who betrayed him.   then, loathing all womankind, he marries and kills his new wife each day until no more candidates could have been found. his vizier had two daughters, scheherezade and dunyazad. the elder one -scheherezade- having devised a scheme to save herself and the others insisted that her father needed to give her in marriage to the king. each evening, she used to tell a story leaving it incomplete and promising to finish it the following night. the stories kept the king very interested, so eager to hear evey ending of each story, that he puts off her execution from day to day and finally he decided to give up with his plan. these stories are contained within the collection of 1001 nights, the bulk of the text is in prose, although verse is usually used for songs and riddles to express better the heightened emotion of them.