Murder Of The American Detective

Auguste Dupin himself, and Minister D— embody through the establishment of familial history, domestic interdependency, and an overt investment in intellectual and aristocratic decadence. What remains predominantly relevant about the use of such an archetype in Poe’s Dupin series, however, is the ease with which bachelorhood is accepted within the narrative of the text. The homoeroticism that stems from relationships between the varying bachelors in Poe’s stories is presented without the overt invalidation of the relationships’ deviation from normative sexuality. Regardless, the figure of the bachelor, as Sedgwick states in “The Beast in the Closet,” is a “nineteenth-century persona” who occupies a “pivotal class position between the respectable bourgeoisie and bohemia,” bohemia being a “semiporous, liminal space for vocational sorting and social rising and falling” (“The Beast in the Closet” 314). While the Dupin series certainly does not dwell long on Dupin’s origins within bachelorhood, his past is briefly mentioned at the beginning of “The Murders in the Rue

The numerous similarities and differences were profound between the stories “Invitation to a Murder” and “The Dying Detective”. A commonality is the fact that both stories were foul-play mysteries. In “Invitation to a Murder”, the reader was led to believe that the murder of Gregory Abbot would be a physical assault as there were a variety of murder weapons resting the center table. Among those weapons was a long- bladed kitchen knife, an iron pipe, a thin strand of wire with wooden grips on each end, an amber bottle with skull and crossbones, and a revolver. Additionally, this led the reader to believe that these items would somehow be used by Eleanor Madeline Abbot to murder her husband. Moreover, Mrs. Abbot did not inform the men that the

“The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1841 is considered to be the first true detective story ever written, and the influence for works such as Sherlock Holmes. The narrator and his friend C. Auguste Dupin, after finding out about an intriguing murder, find themselves trying to free an innocent man and find the real beast behind the murders in the rue morgue. Through Poe’s use of symbolism and vivid imagery, the theme of the story is revealed as the struggle between the analytical, emotional, and imaginative. The Murders in the Rue Morgue presents a recurring theme of the battle between the analytical, emotional, and imaginative. In the beginning of the story, Poe describes a chess battle in great detail,

After reading and watching both the book and the 1932 film ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue.’ It is evident that the film went mostly it’s own way, taking only small bits from Poe’s actual story, discarding many important details.

As Edgar’s Time at The Literary Messenger came to a close, Poe began to publishing more works like Tales of the Grotesque Arabesque and then would continue to work in the presidential election (Padgett 57,63). Edgar would soon become “Struck by illness” (Tilton 58); this illness was caused simply by Poe’s over use of alcohol. Edgar Allen Poe would soon being a new job at Graham’s Magazine (Tilton 60). Throughout Poe’s time at Graham’s Magazine he spent time with the most influential writers and publishers of his life, Clinton Bradshaw and Howard Pinckney (Tilton 60). With such amazing inspiration Poe’s audience would respond more to what he was publishing. With the publication of “The Murders in Rue Morgue,” the first modern detective story, Poe would create a new level of fame for himself (Tilton 61). The year 1841 would be the one of the last periods of time when Poe is truly happy.

The law enforcers are confused because they cannot identify how the criminal escaped. They declare the murders unsolvable; however, C. Auguste Dupin, a man who loves mysteries, steps into the scene to attempt to untangle the puzzle. While he is looking for clues to solve the mystery, the spectators and citizens provide insight into the story as well, setting the context and atmosphere that Poe wishes to narrate the story with. At last, after Dupin find clues that lead to a possible victim, including a fingerprint and a window that could be opened and closed from the outside, he deduces that the murderer was an orangutan. After the orangutan is convicted, the story slows down quickly, leading to the selling of the orangutan by the sailor who owned him and the increasing of the confidence that Dupin has in himself. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” is a strange short story because of its irregularity in characters. Not only does Poe make an orangutan the murderer in the story, he describes the peculiar attributes and characteristics that the policemen and the townspeople possess. Through the peculiar characters that he establishes in the short story, Poe gives an example of the American Dream. Dupin was a man who had fallen into poverty and destitution; however, by taking on the mystery and working diligently to solve a case that had been deemed as unsolvable, Dupin shows that redemption can be achieved through determination and confidence.

Many people enjoy the detective and crime shows, but what they may not realize is that Edgar Allan Poe was the one to pioneer this genre. For the short stories, poems, and a few books he wrote, Edgar Allan Poe is a recognized American writer. He lived in the era of westward expansion, slavery laws beginning to become an issue, and most influential to Poe, Tuberculosis(TB) was a major issue. There was not yet a cure for people with TB, in fact, there wouldn’t be a known cure for another 100 years after his life. He lost many people during his life; his father left before Poe was 3 years old, his mother died from TB when Poe was three. He moved into a foster home, but stories tell that his foster father did not like him so he struggled to find the support he needed both as a child and as a broke college student. Although many myths state that Poe was a drunkard and incapable of love, he was married. His outsiderness in his foster home likely influenced his writing, as well as his irregularity and uniqueness, and his horrid memories of how TB had taken some of his closes family. Poe’s unique literary techniques enhance his macabre writing style.

Poe's detective fiction or mystery fiction can best be felt in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes is one of the best knows detectives in the history of literature. His fame can be spotted in the books that have been written and the movies that have been produced about Holmes. Poe's works were able to influence the author of the Sherlock Holmes series, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in which he based the character of Sherlock Holmes off of one of Poe's characters whose name was Dupin who was used in the mystery story The Murders in the Rue Morgue. The similarities between the two characters are quite grand. “Both are solitary men who prefer to live quietly in either isolation or in the company of one close companion.”(“Nineteenth Century Influenced Poe”). Both men also tend to shift to the bottom of their mysteries without a large amount of clues that other detective writers appear to have in their stories. The impact that Poe has had on authors and stories cannot be matched. His stories have provided a model for future authors to use, in the hope of growing the notoriety of mystery fiction or the horror genre.

Poe’s story, “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” influenced Doyle’s writing in “The Speckled Band.” In Poe’s story, C. Auguste Dupin is a private detective that seeks cases that interest him and often solves cases for free. Dupin and Holmes both have common character attributes. “He did not speak much German because he was surrounded by other English boys, but he discovered the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe, such as “The Gold Bug” and “The Murder in the Rue Morgue,” which later exerted a great influence on his detective fiction”(Diniejko). Furthermore, Doyle felt that “The Speckled Band,” was one of his top favorite stories.

The second paragraph on the second page seems to say that Poe, like many other romantic inspired writers at the time, sees that the power of “unusual reasoning” and analytical reasoning to be two entirely different abilities (Poe). Poe even chooses to change his description of Dupin’s reasoning ability from “special” to “unusual,” signifying an uncanny ability that Dupin has that the unnamed narrator has never experienced before(Poe 2). But at the end of the paragraph Poe shows the harshness of Dupin’s gift. Though Poe continues to use visual imagery such as, “His eyes looked empty and far away,” his choice of descriptive terms begins to intensify (Poe 2). “Two Dupins” suggests that Dupin himself has two sides to him, the “special reasoning” side and the “unusual reasoning” side (Poe 2).

In Edgar Allan Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue”, he juxtaposes C. Auguste Dupin’s analytical powers of logic and reason with the likes of other great detectives such as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. As a matter of fact, to him, the gruesome death and despair of this story are like a delicious confection, and he displays his enjoyment by writing grim stories such as this one. Indeed, his character Dupin adopts his skills in order to discover the person, or animal, culpable for the atrocious murders. The detective employs his cognizant mind to scrutinize the remnants of the murder in order to excoriate every last detail, from the origin of the gray tresses on the hearth, to possible motives of the killer. Dupin deduces that, because

In the story, Poe demonstrates deception with each of his three main characters: Dupin, the detective; G, the Parisian police; and D, the minister.

Edgar Allan Poe is a much known author. He is known for writing dark and mysterious stories and poems. “His imaginative storytelling led to literary innovations, earning him the nickname "Father of the Detective Story" (Edgar Allan Poe Biography.com). When writing stories he wanted the readers to have that one emotion or feeling when reading his writing. Poe has very many stories he is known for two of those short stories being; “The Oval Portrait” and “The Cask of Amontillado”.

As the United States became a flourishing nation in the 1800’s, American entertainment such as poetry and short stories began to unfold by up-and-coming writers. Among these artists of text, Edgar Allan Poe is without a doubt an incredibly prominent figure when discussing American literature. A celebrity after his critically acclaimed poem, “The Raven,” he was one of the earliest American authors to craft and perfect the short story. Furthermore, Poe is credited to contribute much to the horror and science-fiction genres, as well as being the inventor of the detective-fiction genre, as his novel The Murders in the Rue Morgue in 1841, predates the most famous character of the genre, Sherlock Holmes, in 1887 (Genesis: 1841). Under a constant struggle to make ends meet, he was among the first American authors to make a living strictly off his pieces of literature, which was not exactly a successful money-making career path (Graves). Which made matters even worse, several of his closest family members, relatives, and relationships all fell to tuberculosis, the final of which he attempted to take care of by himself, even though he was essentially penniless up to his mysterious death in 1849 (Hossick). With great success, however, it is important to analyze how this legendary writer came to be.

One day, Sherlock Holmes received a letter from Colonel Greg that he was invited to solve a murder. Then he went to Laurie Street with Watson to see the scene of the crime. They found a corpse without traumas in a deserted empty house and "RACHE" was written on the wall with blood. In addition, there were two different footprints on the ground. It seemed that the event was in a blurred state. However, after a detailed investigation and careful reasoning, Holmes finally found the murderer. Sherlock Holmes is one of the most famous characters in all detective novels. Although The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe is often regarded as a symbol of the detective fiction, which has made detective novels popular in the world was The Complete Sherlock Holmes. With the