Perverseness in the "The Black Cat"

In Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat" the reader is told that the narrator appears to be a happily married man, who has always been exceedingly kind and gentle. He attributes his downfall to "the spirit of perverseness." This downfall is depicted in several heinous acts, such as when he curses at his wife and eventually "offered her personal violence." In a drunken stupor he took a pen knife from his jacket pocket and intentionally …

…the perverse" Poe allows the reader to realize that the narrator, in confessing his guilt after having successfully committing and getting away with a crime, has acted perversely in confessing. There was no reason for him to confess, other of course, than confessing was that which he should not do. Although Poe does not make any explicit claims to a connection between perversity and the conscience, I think it is strongly implied here as well.