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Essay about Edgar Allen Poes: "the Murders In The Rue Morgue"

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Edgar Allen Poe's: "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"

In Edgar Allen Poe's short story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", a classic detective story is played out in a seedy Paris suburb. The story begins as the narrator meets Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, a poor but well-read young man.
As they become close friends, they live together in seclusion, departing only briefly each evening to take introspective strolls along the dark Paris streets.
Soon both the reader and the narrator begin to see Dupin's intimate knowledge of the human mind, always an underlying element in Poe's prose. Dupin's extraordinary observances are made by retracing a "course" of human thought until an endpoint, …show more content…

Two literary devices that are evident are Poe's creative use of point of view and gothic setting.
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is told in the first person point of view, presumably Poe's view, acting as a narrator. This point of view provides for a more intimate relation of the sordid tale, stating, " I often dwelt meditatively upon the old philosophy of the Bi-Part Soul, and amused myself with the fancy of a double Dupin-the creative and the resolvent. (p. 4)"
Without this personal point of view, the reader would be oblivious to Dupin's separate personalities. This "up close and personal" view of Dupin is known because of the first person narration. Another point of view is also useful.
Monsieur Dupin solves the mystery and to do so, must take on an entirely new point of view, that of the criminal. Using this technique, Dupin delves into the mind of a careless Frenchman and his pet orangutan. Poe also incorporates a gothic setting into the story. The gothic setting is absolute. Located on the
Rue Morgue-"Death Street," the title foreshadows a catastrophe. The murder scene is a grotesque setting complete with hideously dismembered bodies and severed heads. The Paris suburb of Faubourg-St.Germain gives the mystery an aura of gloom and sets the stage for violence. The home of the pair is described as, "...a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of our common temper,

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