![]() ![]() It took the crowd some time to break into the heavily locked gates and doors and, after hurrying up to the first landing, they all heard two voices. ![]() Not long after this, there is an announcement in the paper of two "extraordinary murders." One night at three A.M., "eight or ten" neighbors were all aroused from sleep by a "succession of terrific shrieks" from the fourth floor of the apartments of Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter, Mademoiselle Camille. Dupin explains how through the logic of their previous conversation 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. Dupin answers without the narrator's ever having asked anything. Strolling along the street one night, the narrator is thinking about a certain actor, and suddenly M. The narrator then gives us an example of M. In later detective fiction, this convention is repeated the brilliant detective and his sidekick will often share the same living abode. Auguste Dupin when they were looking for a rare volume in a library shortly, therefore, they became friends and shared an old house together. Here is where ingenuity becomes the most important aspect in solving a crime. And also too, the superlative detective must be able to make the proper inferences from the things he observes. Dupin never uses, even though the police constantly rely on one to help them solve crimes. The most casual movement or expression can often reveal more than the magnifying glass which M. In the opening section of the story, Poe offers some of the views expressed above about the need of the detective to be observant (more than the ordinary person), and, furthermore, he must know what to observe. ![]() The title of the story is straightforward - that is, the murders take place in the street (the Rue) of the Morgue. 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 a beast.Ĭonsequently, we then have the superiority of the intuitive and brilliant detective, measured against the police as he infers possibilities and probabilities and observes the scene from the inferences due to the single-mindedness and limited viewpoint of the police. For example, the problem in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" that has the police so stumped is simply how can a nonrational, 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 which were committed there. Second, the more apparently difficult the case 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 door was locked from within, and all the windows were securely locked. That is, the police determine or surmise that there was no possible egress from the room of the murdered women. First, the truth is what remains after the impossible has been determined - no matter how improbable that truth may seem. Two aphorisms concerning detective fiction today are also presented for the first time in this story of Poe's. We have noted above that all of the clues should be present but, nevertheless, the appeal of detective fiction lies in the unexpected solution, which becomes logical only in retrospect. Dupin is drawn into the case because of an obligation to the accused (3) the detective uses some sort of unexpected means to produce the solution. Frequently in detective fiction, the amateur detective is drawn into the case because a friend or acquaintance has been falsely accused, as is Le Bon (Adolphe de Bon), who "once rendered me a service for which I am not ungrateful." Thus, M. (In this particular story, with there being no way for the murderer to escape, the police are completely baffled.) (2) motive, access, and other surface evidence points to an innocent person. In later detective fiction, this idea is expanded (though essentially retained) and is used when the author sets the scene of the murder in a closed environment - that is, on a train, where the murderer is included among the passengers on an island, where the murderer must logically still be there or on an estate, where the murderer has to be among the people in the house. Among these basic features are three central ideas: (1) the murder occurs in a locked room from which there is no apparent egress. ![]() Because it was Poe's first tale of ratiocination, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" introduces more basic features of detective fiction than any of Poe's other short stories. ![]()
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