Among these basic features are three central ideas: (1) the murder occurs in a locked room from which there is no apparent egress. 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. 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. THE MODERN LIBRARY NEW YORK The Murders in the Rue Morgue The Dupin Tales Edited and with an Introduction by Matthew Pearl Edgar Allan Poe Poe The Murders in the Rue Morgue is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in Graham’s Magazine in 1841. Rue Morgue is the world's premier Horror In Culture & Entertainment magazine since 1997. Tune in weekdays exclusively at Rue-Morgue.com for more rot ’n’ roll horror from TOMB’S JUKEBOX! 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 . 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. 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. Two aphorisms concerning detective fiction today are also presented for the first time in this story of Poe's. First, the truth is what remains after the impossible has been determined — no matter how improbable that truth may seem. The second Mystery Rummy game. In this one players investigate the murder from the Edgar Allan Poe story. The basic mechanics (evidence card melds, gavel cards, etc. He was an unusually interesting young man with a. The Murders in the Rue Morgue. What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling. This supposed adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe original story was released in 1971 and stars Jason Robards. Murders in the Rue Morgue is definitely not a straight. That is, the police determine or surmise that there was no possible egress from the room of the murdered women. The door was locked from within, and all the windows were securely locked. 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. For example, the problem in ? The police cannot bring themselves to conclude that a . 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. Consequently, 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. The title of the story is straightforward — that is, the murders take place in the street (the Rue) of the Morgue. 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 most casual movement or expression can often reveal more than the magnifying glass which M. Dupin never uses, even though the police constantly rely on one to help them solve crimes. And also too, the superlative detective must be able to make the proper inferences from the things he observes. Here is where ingenuity becomes the most important aspect in solving a crime. The narrator first met Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin when they were looking for a rare volume in a library; shortly, therefore, they became friends and shared an old house together. In later detective fiction, this convention is repeated; the brilliant detective and his sidekick will often share the same living abode. The narrator then gives us an example of M. Dupin's brilliant analytical ability. Strolling along the street one night, the narrator is thinking about a certain actor, and suddenly M. Dupin answers without the narrator's ever having asked anything. 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. Not long after this, there is an announcement in the paper of two . 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. Then there was silence. When the fourth story was reached, and they entered the apartment, they found it in wild disorder. Thus, we are given the bare facts of the murder. The body itself was found lying in the courtyard four flights down from the woman's apartment, and it is impossible to determine how the body got into the courtyard because the room was completely locked from within. Her daughter was choked to death, apparently, by the hands of an extremely powerful man, and she was stuffed up the chimney, head downward. It would have taken super- human strength to have put her there because it took such violents tugs to remove her. The newspaper recounts how the old woman had just withdrawn 4,0. The men who entered the apartment were all interviewed by the police, and all of the witnesses agree on one matter: There were two voices — one was the deep voice of a Frenchman and the other was a shriller, higher voice, but no one who heard that voice could identify the accent conclusively. The physician and the surgeon both agree that Mademoiselle Camille was . It is concluded that some kind of heavy club was used on her. Because an acquaintance of M. Dupin is accused of the murders, M. Dupin receives permission to investigate the environs, a setting which is extremely intriguing since the newspapers report that the crime seems impossible to solve because there could be no way for a murderer to escape from the locked, enclosed apartment. M. Dupin then begins his now- famous method of ratiocination. He maintains that one should not ask . He announces to his friend, the narrator, that he is waiting on confirmation of his solution; he expects a person to arrive momentarily to confirm his theory. M. Dupin then points out to the narrator some of the obvious things that the police have overlooked. Among the witnesses who heard the two voices were an Italian, an Englishman, a Spaniard, a Hollander, and a Frenchman. Each one thought that the shrill voice they all heard was the voice of a foreigner, but none agreed on the nationality; furthermore, the Englishman thought it belonged to a German, but he does not understand German, the Spaniard thought it to be English, but he does not understand English, the Italian believed it to be Russian, but he does not understand Russian, and so on in every case. No person can identify the nationality of the shrill voice. And whereas they all agree that the deep French voice uttered discernible words, such as mon Dieu (my God) and sacre and diable, the shrill voice uttered no discernible words — only sounds. As to the matter of egress from the room being impossible, the police reject the notion because of its impossibility. Dupin, however, says that he will show that . Using this logic, he discovers that the locked windows have a spring in them that, once pressed, can be opened. Furthermore, since the police abandoned further examination of the windows after they saw that they were nailed down, M. Dupin decided to examine the nails. He found a nail in one window to be broken off just at the shaft so that it only appeared to be nailed shut; the nail separated when the window was open. Thus someone could have entered by the open window and closed it upon leaving, thereby springing the spring closed and making it appear as though it were nailed shut since the two parts of the nail met again after the window was closed. When they observed the outside of the building, the police looked up at only one angle and decided that no one could possibly climb up the outside walls; M. Dupin, however, notices that if the shutters were open, a person or thing of great agility could conceivably hop from the lightning rod to the shutter of the window, thereby gaining ingress and egress to the apartment and still giving the appearance of its being impossible. Additionally in his investigations, M. Dupin notices that no human being could kill with such ferocity and brutality — no human being possesses such strength. Thus his intuitive and analytical mind now must conceive of a murderer who has astounding agility, superhuman strength, a brutal and inhuman ferocity, and, moreover, he must explain a murder (a butchery) without a motive — a grotesque . Most readers, however, are like the narrator and will need even further clues. He shows the narrator a . Even the narrator now recognizes that this is not human hair. Similarly, after drawing a diagram of the size and shape of the hand that killed Mademoiselle Camille, the narrator realizes that it was no human hand that killed the young woman. M. Dupin then explains to his friend, the narrator, that the handprint was identical in size to the paw of an Ourang- Outang. Furthermore, he has advertised for the owner to come and pick up his animal, saying that it was found in a wooded area far from the scene of the murders, so as not to arouse the owner's suspicion. Furthermore, he feels sure that the animal belongs to a sailor because at the foot of the lightning rod, he found a ribbon, knotted in a peculiar way which only Maltese sailors wear. When the sailor arrives for the Ourang- Outang, M. Dupin pulls out his pistol, quickly locks the door, and quietly asks the sailor to give him . The sailor then tells how he acquired an Ourang- Outang in Borneo and brought it back with the intent of selling it. One night, however, he came home late and found that the animal had escaped from the closet where he had kept it and was in the sailor's bedroom. Furthermore, the animal had a razor in its hand (it had apparently often watched the sailor shave). In fright, the sailor reached for his whip to drive the animal back into the closet, but it sprang through the open door and disappeared down a street. The sailor followed and watched it climb up the lightning rod to a lighted window, swing through the shutters and into an open bedroom. The sailor, accustomed to climbing ropes, climbed up, and since he could not swing, as did the Ourang- Outang, he was forced to watch as the animal, in frenzy, began slashing about with the razor. The screams were heard throughout the neighborhood. The sailor watched as the animal cut Madame L'Espanaye's throat and yanked out handfuls of her hair.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
December 2016
Categories |