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... is and the more out of the ordinary the case is, the more easily, ironically, the case can be solved by the key detective. The problem in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" that has the police so stumped is simply how can a non rational, inhuman being break through the bounds of law, custom, and civilized order and commit such a gruesome and horrible atrocity on two well protected women. The police cannot bring themselves to conclude that a human could possibly do this. The house is built in such a way as to protect it from the very acts committed there. The murders can only be solved logically when a person is able to place his human mind into conformity with a non-human mind and with the irrational acts of the "Ourang-Outang." In the opening sequence of the story, Poe offers some of the views expressed about the need of the detective to be observant, more so than the ordinary person.
Furthermore, he must know exactly what to observe. The most casual movement or expression can often reveal more than the magnifying glass which M. Dupin never uses, even though the police constantly rely on one to help them solve crimes. The superlative detective must also be able to make the proper inferences from the things he observes. Here is why ingenuity becomes the most important aspect of solving a crime. The narrator first met Monsieur C.
Auguste Dupin when they were looking for a rare volume in the library. Shortly thereafter, they become friends and share an old house together. In later detective fiction, this convention is repeated; the brilliant detective and his sidekick will often share the same living abode. (Barbour 69) The narrator then gives us an example of M. Dupin's brilliant analytical ability in which they are strolling along the street one night and M. Dupin answers a question the narrator had been asking in his own mind. M.
Dupin explains how through the logic of their previous conversations and by observing certain actions in his friend's movements, he was able to deduce at what point his friend had come to a certain conclusion. Not long after this, the announcement is made in the newspaper of the murders, outlining the bare facts of how the two women were found and in what state their bodies were in. The old woman was found in the courtyard with many shattered bones, probably by some kind of club, while her daughter was found stuffed up a chimney feet first. It would have taken superhuman strength to do put her there because of the violent tugs it took from more than one person to remove her.
The old woman had just withdrew 4, 000 francs in gold from her bank, but the gold was found in the middle of the room. Two voices had been heard, one of a Frenchman, another of an unknown accent by citizens of various and nationalities, but noted to be distinctively shriller and higher. Because an acquaintance of M. Dupin is accused of the murders, he receives permission to investigate the crime scene, a setting which is extremely intriguing since the newspapers have reported that it would be a crime impossible to solve because there was no way for a murderer to escape the locked, enclosed apartment. M. Dupin then begins his method of ratiocination, maintaining that the solution of the mystery is in direct ratio to its apparent insolubility, according to police.
He points out to the narrator that although the police believed the windows secured, they were in fact, not. One of the nail heads was broken, enabling the window to be opened without obvious detection because of the appearance that it was not broken. M. Dupin notes that no human being could kill with such ferocity and brutality, as human beings do not possess such strength. Therefore, his intuitive and analytical mind must now conceive of a murderer who has astounding agility, superhuman strength, and a brutal and inhuman ferocity. In addition, he must explain a murder without motive.
These clues alone should allow the careful reader to venture an educated guess as to the nature of the perpetrator of the crime. Most readers however, like the narrator, need more clues. We then read that M. Dupin has compared the tuft of hair found in one of the victims hands as not being human and that the hand print found at the scene is in direct proportion to an "Ourang-Outang. " Furthermore, he has advised the owner through a newspaper ad to claim his lost animal.
Once arrived, the sailor admits to witnessing the commission of the crime, being powerless to stop it. You cannot read the collected tales of Poe without being aware that you are in the hands of a most peculiar writer, perhaps disturbed and obsessed. He touched on an underside of madness and the criminal mind that readers were squeamish to acknowledge. Poe's preoccupation with death was itself perfectly orthodox in a period when death was an everyday family event, in a way that is difficult for us for whom death is a resented intrusion to remember.
If we accept Poe's invitation to play detective, and commence to read him with an eye for submerged meaning, it is not long before we sense that there are meanings to be found through his repeated use of certain narrative patterns, repetition of certain words and phrases, and use in his detective stories of certain scenes and properties. (Wilbur 52 - 53) Poe's tales are intriguing enough to hypnotize the reader to finish the tale in a single sitting, so that the tale can be taken in as a whole, like a lyric poem or painting, as opposed to a novel that one puts down and picks up repeatedly. Bibliography: Barbour, Brian M. Modern Critical Interpretations: The Tales of Poe. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
Clean, John. "Irresistible Impulses: Edgar Allan Poe and the Insanity Defense. " American Literature 63 (Dec. 1991) 623 - 640. Edmunson, Mark. "American Gothic. " Civilization. 3. 3 (May/June 1996): 48 - 56. Freeland, Natalia. "One of an Infinite Series of Mistakes: Mystery, Influence, and Edgar Allan Poe. " ATQ 10. 2 (June 1996): 123 - 140. May, Charles E. Edgar Allan Poe: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne-Simon & Schuster, 1991.
People, Scott. Edgar Allan Poe Revisited. Ed. Nancy A. Walker. New York: Twayne-Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1998.
Wilbur, Richard. Modern Critical Views: Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Harold Bloom.
New York: Chelsea House, 1985.
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Research essay sample on Edgar Allan Poe Tales Of Ratiocination
