Discussion Topic
Key Elements and Details of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
Summary:
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a pioneering detective story set in Paris, focusing on C. Auguste Dupin's analytical prowess. The narrative begins as an essay on analytical thinking before transitioning into the investigation of a locked-room double murder. The murders are peculiar due to the lack of motive, the locked room, and the grotesque nature of the crimes, with no apparent means of entry or exit. Dupin's deduction reveals the involvement of an orangutan, showcasing his exceptional reasoning skills.
What details does Poe describe in "The Murders of the Rue Morgue?"
Poe gave "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" an unusual form. He begins the piece as an essay and then offers the story of the murders as an example of what he has discussed in his essay.
The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in the light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" begins with the following sentence:
THE MENTAL FEATURES discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis.
So it is the analytical powers of the mind that Poe, through his anonymous narrator, discusses in detail before telling about how he came to meet and share "a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long deserted through superstitions into which we did not inquire," with C. Auguste Dupin and then finally describing how they both became involved in the murders of two women in...
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the Rue Morgue in Paris. The narrator spends a great deal of time discussing the games of draughts (checkers) and chess, making the controversial assertion that checkers is a far more difficult game than chess. He then goes on to discuss how superior analytical powers can be used in the game of whist. He subsequently introduces C. Auguste Dupin as a supreme example of a possessor of great analytical powers. He still says nothing about the murders but gives several examples of Dupin's powers.
At such times I could not help remarking and admiring (although from his rich ideality I had been prepared to expect it) a peculiar analytic ability in Dupin. He seemed, too, to take an eager delight in its exercise—if not exactly in its display—and did not hesitate to confess the pleasure thus derived.
Dupin's most impressive display of his analytical powers before the murder investigation occurs when he amazes the narrator by telling him precisely what the narrator has been thinking, for at least the past fifteen minutes, as the two men are taking their evening walk. Both men have been silent until Dupin says:
“He is a very little fellow, that's true, and would do better for the Théâtre des Variétés.”
“There can be no doubt of that,” I replied unwittingly, and not at first observing (so much had I been absorbed in reflection) the extraordinary manner in which the speaker had chimed in with my meditations.
Finally, the narrator offers the whole story of the investigation of the murders of two women in a locked room as just further example of Dupin's phenomenal analytical powers. Dupin was a direct forerunner of Sherlock Holmes, and Dupin's powers can perhaps be better understood as being about the same as those of his more famous follower. Poe was a far greater genius than Arthur Conan Doyle. Poe experimented with what he called "tales of ratiocination" and then grew bored with them and went on to entirely different projects. Doyle, on the other hand, wrote four Sherlock Holmes novels and fifty-six Sherlock Holmes short stories, and they made him rich and famous.
It should be noted how "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" proceeds from a dispassionate discussion of the subject of so-called analytical powers to a fantastic scene, described by the sailor, in which an orangutan is attempting to shave the face of a terrified old lady with a straightedge razor. The contrast between the essay and the description of screaming women covered with their own blood is what makes the climax so effective.
What are the key elements of the story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"?
You have a lot of questions about the story. Usually it's best to ask one question at a time, but I shall try and get you started here with a few ideas about some of your questions.
The setting of the story is Paris, "in the summer of 1940," and, more specifically, much of the story centres around one room in a house "in the street called the Rue Morgue." In this room, an old lady is brutally murdered in suspicious and perplexing circumstances. The door to the room is locked from the inside, and all of the windows also appear to be firmly shut and locked from the inside.
The main character in the story is a man called August Dupin, who acts as the detective in the story. Part of his characterization is that he is depicted as possessing a "busy mind" and "an unusual reasoning power." He is also described as having a manner which could be "cold and distant." August Dupin is essentially the precursor to Arthur Conan Doyle's character of Sherlock Holmes. Although Dupin is the main character in the story, the story is narrated from the point of view of Dupin's anonymous friend and assistant, who is a precursor to Conan Doyle's Dr. Watson.
The plot of the story follows a now familiar detective genre plot. We begin with a mystery, namely how the woman in the aforementioned room is murdered. We then receive various clues from eye-witnesses and from Dupin's skills of deduction. Some of these clues are red herrings, or false clues to lead us away from the real answer. At the end of the story we then discover this real answer, and all of the questions we had previously are answered or resolved.
What is peculiar about the murders in Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"?
The murders were peculiar because circumstantial evidence at the scene of the murders offered no clues as to how the murders had been committed.
For example, Madame L'Espanaye and Mademoiselle Camille L'Espanaye lived very private lives; by all indications, they admitted no close acquaintances into their lives. How then, could they have been murdered in such horrific ways? Additionally, both the neighbors and the police had to force their way into the house with a crowbar. Once inside, their rush to the fourth floor led to the discovery of an apartment that was locked from the inside. Meanwhile, witnesses claimed to have heard two voices at the time of the murders. One was reportedly that of a Frenchman, and the other of a foreigner speaking an indecipherable language of some sort, perhaps Italian, German, Russian, or even Spanish (from the viewpoint of the witnesses).
To make matters more peculiar, the immediate evidence at the crime scene offered no clues as to how the apartment had been breached. The shutters at the front of the house were always closed, and those in the back were closed at the time of the murders. There were no secret passageways the murderer could have escaped through even as the police breached the house. Additionally, the chimneys were too narrow to admit complete passage for a human body; Mademoiselle L'Espanaye's body, was after all, only stuffed partway up the chimney. Also, a trap-door on the roof had been securely nailed shut for many years.
Meanwhile, there were two bags containing nearly four thousand francs in gold left intact at the crime scene; therefore, a robbery motive could not be ascribed to the murderer. So, what was peculiar about the murders was the fact that circumstantial evidence at the crime scene appeared to offer no clues regarding the possible motives for the murders nor evidence for how the apartment had been breached.
It was only later, with Dupin's estimation that the tufts of hair he found clutched between Madame L'Espanaye's fingers were not of human origin, that the investigators began to make headway in their analysis.
The murders were peculiar because of the grotesqueness of them. The older woman was found outside, head nearly severed completely off, and body horribly beaten. The younger woman was found strangled to death and shoved up a chimney. She was so far up it that it took a few men to free her body implying that whomever killed the women had considerable strength. The weirdest part was the fact these murders were committed when the house was locked up from the inside.