In "The Black Cat," what or who is the conflict between? How does the conflict have an effect on the reader?

The conflict that occurs in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat" is between the unnamed narrator and his large black cat named Pluto. After the narrator becomes an alcoholic, he gets into an altercation with Pluto and gouges one of his eyes out with a pen-knife. This escalates later into the narrator hanging the cat because he cannot bear the guilt he feels when he looks at the creature. 

Again, the situation escalates when the narrator gets a new cat that seems to taunt him with reminders of the cruelty he displayed toward Pluto. Again, the narrator attempts to resolve his guilt by attacking the cat with an axe, which results in his wife's accidental murder. 

The impact that this conflict has on the story's audience obviously varies from reader to reader, but I'd say it is safe to assume that the unreliable narration and the violence that occurs within the story is deeply unnerving for anyone who reads it. It may also cause us to question ourselves and what lengths we are personally willing to go to to justify our own private guilt.