50 pages • 1 hour read
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
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Themes
The Power of Rationality
Arguably, the driving theme of any detective story is the glorification of the intellect. Through the capacity to reason, homo sapiens demonstrate their superiority over all other species. In “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” Poe distills the embodiment of cognitive virtuosity into his detective, C. Auguste Dupin. This preoccupation with the brain, the supposed “separate organ” (3), and its scope is meticulously laid out in the preface. The flow of the preface seems to be interrupted when Poe interjects the subject of phrenology, the science of categorizing anatomical skull and brain structure by a corresponding intelligence. Poe builds upon the idea of being able to quantify one’s intelligence, although he makes sure the reader knows that the narrator disbelieves the basis of phrenology. In essence, the preface encourages metacognition and invites the reader to measure the quality of thought. From start to finish, Poe unveils a comparison/contrast between Dupin and the Ourang-Outang as symbols of extreme cognition: rationality and irrationality. It is not the characters’ anatomical differences, but rather their choices and behavior that prove the efficacy of their mind.
In a practical sense, for the murders in Paris to be solved, Dupin, the investigator, must become the clever hunter who outsmarts his guilty Ourang-Outang prey. As such, the two characters are cognitive foils. In fact, the beast in “darkness” is completely oblivious to his situation. This powerful unknown ape is elevated to the point of admiration in Dupin’s mind not only because of its ability, but also because of its unknowability. When proposing a possible criminal timeline, Dupin tells the narrator: “I wish to impress upon your understanding the very extraordinary—the almost præternatural character of that agility which could have accomplished it” (24). Later, he terms the creature’s “prodigious power” as a “vigor most marvellous” (26). At several points, he reacts in wonder at the Ourang-Outang’s incredible feats of physical strength, not unlike the way that the narrator reacts to Dupin’s incredible feats of thought. By the end of the story, the detective remarks to the sailor, “Upon my word, I almost envy you the possession of him; a remarkably fine, and no doubt a very valuable animal” (30). Taken together, power is the supreme commodity for Dupin. Extending to animals, that power is found in brute force. Extending to humans, that power is located in mental acuity.
During the mid-19th century, phrenology intersected with criminology. Increased crime, especially in cities, stimulated the need to quickly identify, deter, and reform those responsible. Notably, the American ideology at this time was that criminals were irrational because they acted against their own best interests.
Readers see this principle borne out through the narrator’s exclamation that “A madman has done this deed—some raving maniac, escaped from a neighboring Maison de Sante” (27), or mental hospital. Poe subverts this idea. He finds reason within the apparent senselessness. The sailor reveals his murderous Ourang-Outang achieved a measure of self-awareness when it stared into the looking glass. He further shows it possessed a moral understanding: “Conscious of having deserved punishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its bloody deeds” (34). Despite the fact that the violent acts committed against the L’Espanayes were executed by an animal, they nevertheless suggest a logic. The Ourang-Outang’s choices were not random but predicated upon its isolation and maltreatment. In sum, Poe articulates potentiality in society’s exercise of reason. His two characters, both a species of primate, are equally capable of thinking rationally. The disparity of their thinking lies in their nature: “[T]he difference in the extent of the information obtained, lies […] in the quality of the observation” (2). The bifurcation between man and beast may not be genetically predetermined. Societal circumstance, intention, and opportunity can render even the dimmest among the living capable of cultivating this impressive skill.
Social Isolation Through Transience
“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” broadcasts the prevalence of psychological isolation in a cosmopolitan world. Resting on the brink of modernity, Poe espies a portent of things to come—a continuously shifting milieu of people for whom there is no safe social or psychological home. In this detective story, social isolation is created through both transience and language. The first words that the narrator utters are: “Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of 18–” (3). From this, readers learn that the narrator is an immigrant to Paris when he makes the acquaintance of C. Auguste Dupin. He further shows his hemorrhaging loneliness when he states about Dupin, “I felt that the society of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price” (3). Poe does not give his readers the precise origins of his detective hero, but rather sketches him as a man profoundly displaced. He was “reduced to such poverty that the energy of his character succumbed beneath it” and he “ceased to bestir himself in the world” (3). Both detective agents, the seeds of what will define iconic detective mastery, are recluses, presumably misfits in their cultural environment. One might assume it is their isolation that accomplishes their genius, but equally possible is a tragic view, one that sees their investigative accomplishments rising in response to their social isolation.
Poe displays isolation through more than just his protagonists. The title of his fiction centers on two female murder victims, Madame and Mademoiselle L’Espanaye, who also live explicitly unto themselves:
Many other persons, neighbors, gave evidence to the same effect. No one was spoken of as frequenting the house. It was not known whether there were any living connexions of Madame L. and her daughter. The shutters of the front windows were seldom opened. Those in the rear were always closed (10).
Inferences about the women’s habits stay open-ended in the narrative. Readers are led to believe the L’Espanayes, who were financially well-off, simply valued their privacy. The witnesses interviewed after their murder mark the ladies’ time of residence in Rue Morgue between three and six years, cementing their fairly recent translocation, but also insinuating that enough time had elapsed for their neighbors to have formed a more communal bond. Poe seems to suggest that because of their prolonged social distance and their foreign backgrounds, the women became more vulnerable to predation. Had neighbors been more involved, more curious, or more attentive, then the violence against them may not have happened.
Even the Ourang-Outang itself is translocated before it is caged. Isolation then, which seems advantageous at first, backfires. For the narrative’s purposes, isolation is a caution, and transience precedes it. Home and fraternity occur only with prolonged intimate exposure and communal acceptance.
Language as a Social Barrier
Launched first from its title, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” Poe quickly spotlights the leading role that language plays in gathering meaning and ultimately establishing identity. His narrative mingles English, French, and Latin in swift bursts of disorientation, just enough to remind the reader that the words to follow may not be as naturally understood or easily recalled as they may expect. He replicates this effect within the plot itself. French citizens, witnesses to the murder in question, are interrogated by the police on the basis of language. What words did they hear uttered at the crime scene? What language was spoken and by whom? The formal investigation, lacking identifiable material clues, pivots to extracting data from dialect and tone. The evidence gathering fails miserably.
Isidore Muset claims to hear a Frenchman and a Spanish speaker (10.) Henri Duval was “convinced by the intonation that the speaker was an Italian” (11). Odenheimer, who needed an interpreter, claimed the shrill voice he heard was from a Frenchman. William Bird distinguished the voices as a Frenchman and a German, even though he “does not understand German” (12). Alfonzo Garcia, a Spanish native, is certain that one voice is French and the other one English based on the “intonation” (12). Alberto Montani, an Italian, asserts hearing a French voice and a Russian one, although he “[n]ever conversed with a native of Russia” (13). The common thread from these various accounts is that there are two voices at the scene and that one of them is French. Given that the victims and all but one witness are native French speakers, the collection of testimony regarding the second speaker, the killer, is of no consequence. Because there was no agreement among the witnesses, no foundation was laid to begin identifying the murderer. Dupin relates his consternation saying that the language of the unidentified guilty party was so strange that “even, denizens of the five great divisions of Europe could recognise nothing familiar!” (19). The language barrier featured in the text does not merely operate as a twist in the detective murder plot. It also exposes the confusion created between speaker and interlocutor, author and reader, citizen and foreign when they lack a universal basis of understanding.
Strikingly, Poe depicts a suspicious community for which any indistinguishable sound suggests foreign-origin and, therefore, menace. Dupin remarks, “[T]he peculiarity is—not that they disagreed—but that […] each one spoke of [the shrill voice] as that of a foreigner” (19). The common French language “commingled with the fiendish jabberings of the brute” (34). Since the Rue Morgue witnesses register the Ourang-Outang’s voice as a human outsider rather than the grunting of a wild animal, Poe critiques a mistrustful, fractured society that has yet to seek to empathize and effectively listen to the voice of the Other.
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By Edgar Allan Poe
