Read this excerpt from Paragraph two of Poe's "The Black Cat" and answer the question.

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

Which phrases from this excerpt support the narrator's distrust of human beings? Select all that apply.

A "unselfish and self-sacrificing"
B "love of a brute"
C "directly to the heart"
D "frequent occasion"
E "paltry friendship"
F "gossamer fidelity"

As we can see the question is basically asking for evidence that supports why the author has a distrust of human beings (Basically saying that the author cant trust humans, and can't rely on them for almost anything.)

So with that being said, we need to find text evidence that shows a negative perspective coming from the author. So we can go and cross off answer options (A: "unselfish and self-sacrificing") (D: "frequent occasion") and (C: "directly to the heart") bc two of those are positive opinions on humans, and one isn't close to being negative nor positive opinions towards humans.

Now let's take a look at "B"

"Love of a Brute"

Basically saying that somebody is showing love-(affection, caring for) a wild animal-(a violent human).

We can use context clues to find out if this is negative or positive

Before "Love of a Brute," it says "There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing" using this we can see that it means "For a person to love a wild animal type of person-( a violent human) is unselfish on their part, because of how abysmal-(horrible) that brute-(violent human) is.

Now let's look at E: "paltry friendship"

This is basically saying that a human shows inconsequential-(Little importance towards something) feelings towards friendship with someone else.

Lastly, we can look at F: "gossamer fidelity"

This means like a thin-(In this sentence it would mean "having little") loyalty-(being trust worthy, and faithful) towards someone.

With all this being said all answers that would apply to answering the

question would be "B "love of a brute", E "paltry friendship", and F "gossamer fidelity".

Hoodmemes~