“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” 877In the story, Dupin and the narrator investigate
the mysterious double murder of Madame and
Mademoiselle L’Espanaye, which occurred in an
upstairs room locked from the inside. The Parisian
police have arrested Adolphe Le Bon for the crime;
however, after reading in the newspaper the known
facts of the crime, Dupin is skeptical of the ability
of the police to investigate the crime scene compe-
tently. With his astute powers of observation and
analysis and to the chagrin of G—, the embarrassed
prefect of police, Dupin figures out that the crime
was committed by an escaped orangutan.
Derrick Spradlin
IndIvIduaL and SocIety in “The Murders
in the Rue Morgue”
The protagonist of “The Murders in the Rue
Morgue,” Edgar Allan Poe’s detective extraordinaire
C. Auguste Dupin, maintains a seemingly contra-
dictory relationship with society, one of simultane-
ous distance and intimacy. The text emphasizes his
isolation from Parisian society, an isolation that
stems from his poverty, despite his descent from an
“illustrious family.” By the time of the story, though,
isolation had become sought after, for he “had been
reduced to such poverty that the energy of his
character succumbed beneath it, and he ceased to
bestir himself in the world.” Dupin does, however,
maintain several personal relationships. He knows
the prefect of police well enough to gain access to
the Rue Morgue crime scene, and he owes a favor to
Adolphe Le Bon, who has been arrested for perpe-
trating the murders.
Dupin’s disconnection from his fellow man
undoubtedly changes when he meets the story’s
nameless narrator in a library. Their shared interest
in “the same very rare and very remarkable volume,”
the narrator states, “brought us into closer com-
munion. We saw each other again and again.” The
narrator further explains: “I felt that the society
of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond
price,” and for this reason he has Dupin move into
the mansion he rents “in a retired and desolate por-
tion of the Faubourg St. Germain.” There, the new
friends revel in self-imposed estrangement from
the world. “Our seclusion was perfect,” the narrator
states. “We admitted no visitors. Indeed the locality
of our retirement had been carefully kept a secret
from my own former associates; and it had been
many years since Dupin had ceased to know or be
known in Paris. We existed within ourselves alone.”
Thus, while Dupin shuns society at large, he is not
afraid of people.
The narrator offers insight into the relationship
between Dupin and society through the introduc-
tory paragraphs, which discuss the “mental features
discoursed of as the analytical,” or, as the narrator
also phrases it, “that moral activity which disen-
tangles.” He opens with this discussion because
Dupin manifests the analytical abilities he details.
To illustrate analysis, the narrator contrasts the
playing of chess with that of draughts (checkers).
Draughts, he concludes, demands greater analyti-
cal abilities than chess because in chess, the moves
of different pieces and the endless combinations
of moves by different pieces favor the player who
avoids “oversight,” but not necessarily the one who
has greater powers of analysis; in draughts, the
moves of the game pieces are simple enough that
victory comes only through “some strong exertion
of the intellect.” Without any advantages to be
had through the composition of the game itself,
the analytical player gains advantage by accurately
reading his opponent and anticipating his moves.
He “throws himself into the spirit of his opponent,
identifies himself therewith, and not unfrequently
sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometimes
indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may
seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.”
That is, analysis, and mastery of draughts, hinges
upon correctly gauging human behavior.
These faculties of analysis, according to the
narrator, “are always to their possessor, when inor-
dinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoy-
ment.” These lines characterize Dupin, who, like
the analyst figure of the introductory paragraphs,
“glories” and “derives pleasure” from the exercise of
his abilities. For an analyst such as Dupin, society
and the individuals who constitute it become part
of a game, and Dupin investigates the Rue Morgue
murders, in part, to “afford us [Dupin and the nar-
rator] amusement.”
In treating his investigation as an amusement,
Dupin maintains a critical distance from the crime