The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe that is widely regarded as one of the first detective stories in literature. Set in 19th-century Paris, the narrative revolves around a nameless young narrator who befriends the enigmatic C. Auguste Dupin. As they form a bond while living together in a secluded mansion, they become embroiled in a gruesome double murder that has left the local police baffled. The chilling crime scene reveals two brutally murdered women, locked inside a room that seemed impenetrable from the inside. Through logical reasoning and keen analytical skills, Dupin meticulously investigates the murders, emphasizing the failures of the authorities in their observations and deductions. The story culminates in a revelation involving an escaped orangutan, showcasing Dupin's extraordinary talent for ratiocination. Poe's work not only entertains but also sets a precedent for the detective genre, illustrating the importance of careful observation and reasoning in solving mysteries.
On this Page
The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe
First published: 1841
Type of plot: Mystery and detective
Time of work: The 1830's
Locale: Paris
Principal Characters:
The narrator , a man of some means, Dupin's companionC. Auguste Dupin , an impoverished aristocrat, a mysterious but gifted analytical thinkerLe Bon , a French sailor recently returned from Borneo
The Story
This tale of ratiocination opens with a long discussion of the differences between the truly analytical mind and the mind that is possessed of great powers of calculation. What this long expository section sets up is the notion that persons possessed of this keen analytical faculty are different from other human beings. The story is narrated from the first-person point of view by a nameless young man who is residing in Paris during the spring and summer of an unnamed year sometime during the 1830's. He has come to Paris, it is implied, to make some discoveries about the world and about himself. During the course of his visit, he encounters in a bookshop Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin. About Dupin very little information is provided; the reader is given to understand, however, that Dupin is an individual who has fallen on hard times and who chooses to live a more or less shadowy existence. The narrator, fascinated by the general character and demeanor of Dupin, proposes that they spend much of their time together, and, because he has some financial independence, he and Dupin rent apartments together in an old deserted mansion in the Fauborg St. Germain section of Paris.
Together, the two of them develop a lifestyle that involves remaining indoors shuttered away from society during the day and venturing out to stroll the streets and boulevards of Paris only after dark. In the course of these nocturnal wanderings, the narrator describes a situation in which, while the two of them are walking along, each apparently alone in his thoughts, Dupin speaks aloud to the narrator a sentence that could only have been a response to something the narrator was thinking. Amazed at this apparent intrusion on his mind, the narrator asks for an explanation. Dupin then offers a step-by-step recounting of how he came to deduce what it was that the narrator was thinking about as the two of them walked along.
Having thus established the mysterious yet brilliantly analytical powers of Dupin, the narrator then moves on to describe the discovery not long afterward of an item in one of the local newspapers detailing grisly murders occurring on the fourth floor of a house in the Rue Morgue. Persons in the neighborhood heard screams issuing from the house, mounted the stairs, and attempted to enter the apartments; the door was locked, however, and though they could hear a terrible furor within, they were unable to gain entry by any means. When the door to the apartment was finally broken open, the would-be rescuers were confronted by a chaotic scene: furniture was broken, clothes strewn about, and a blood-smeared razor lay on a chair. Nearly four thousand gold francs were in bags in plain sight, but the windows to the apartment were all closed and nowhere was there a sign of life. On further investigation, the horrified persons discovered the body of a young woman, the daughter of the owner of the apartment, stuffed up the chimney of a fireplace. It took four or five persons to remove it from the flue into which it had been forced. Subsequent examination of the scene revealed the body of the woman's mother, the owner of the house, in the rear courtyard four stories below the apartment. The corpse was horribly battered and her head had nearly been severed from the body.
These are the essential circumstances with which the narrator acquaints the reader: a room locked from inside; two murders; and the police baffled. Dupin suggests that he and his companion pay a visit to the scene of the crime. When they do, Dupin makes a very careful investigation and discovers matters that the police have overlooked. He also offers brief lectures on the general failure of authorities to observe carefully the scene of a crime and to apply powers of reasoning to such a scene in order to make some deductions about what happened there. Too often, Dupin asserts, the police see but they do not observe.
On completion of his visit to the Rue Morgue, Dupin places an advertisement in a local newspaper, and he and the narrator return to their apartments. Dupin tells the narrator that they should prepare themselves for a visitor who might be dangerous to them. They therefore make pistols ready, and as they await the anticipated visit, Dupin launches into a long explanation of the means by which he arrived at his conclusions about what happened in the Rue Morgue. This detailed explanation of Dupin's analysis of the physical details of the crime scene and of the observations he made there provides concrete illustration of the differences between the reasoning powers of ordinary mortals and those of persons gifted in analysis, such as Dupin.
When the explanation is complete, and the narrator, and thus the reader, knows what Dupin knows, a sailor named Le Bon appears at the door in answer to the advertisement Dupin placed in a local paper. The sailor is the owner of an "Ourang-Outang," an animal Dupin has deduced to be the murderer. When Dupin informs him that he knows what happened in the Rue Morgue, the sailor's initial fright gives way to resignation. Dupin is not interested in turning the sailor over to the police but rather in verifying his solution to the murders. The sailor offers additional explanations, all of which coincide exactly with the deductions offered by Dupin. The story ends with Dupin visiting the prefect of police and explaining what happened in the Rue Morgue, an explanation that exonerates Le Bon and marks the case as closed.
Bibliography
Burluck, Michael L. Grim Phantasms: Fear in Poe's Short Fiction. New York: Garland, 1993.
Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998.
Hutchisson, James M. Poe. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005.
Irwin, John T. The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytical Detective Story. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Kennedy, J. Gerald. A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
May, Charles E. Edgar Allan Poe: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1991.
Peeples, Scott. Edgar Allan Poe Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1998.
Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe, A to Z. New York: Facts On File, 2001.
Whalen, Terence. Edgar Allan Poe and the Masses: The Political Economy of Literature in Antebellum America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999.