The Murders in the Rue Morgue

“[H]e ceased to bestir himself in the world or to care for the retrieval of his fortunes.”

Poe creates Dupin as a character who is a social outsider. The cerebral detective concerns himself with knowledge exclusively. He has little interest in companionship or financial gain but begrudgingly manages to tolerate these societal norms.

“I felt that the society of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price.”

The emotional narrator is captivated by the “mental excitement” afforded by the company of Dupin. The narrator earnestly seeks this expert cognition for himself, signifying his desire to restore the split between heart and head.

“Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the world, we should have been regarded as madmen—although, perhaps, as madmen of a harmless nature.”

Dupin and his sidekick, the unnamed narrator, are now forged together into oneness. They both give themselves up entirely to their intellectual fervor and in so doing, establish a boundary between them and the rest of society. The narrator recognizes the eccentricities of their daily life and views himself, paired with Dupin, as an “other.”

“Most men, in respect to himself, wore windows in their bosoms.”

Dupin takes the superior role in having disdain for “most men.” Written as a turn of phrase for the adage that “eyes are windows to the soul,” it is precisely Dupin’s skill of observation that makes him superior. According to Dupin, most men allow their heart, or emotions, to be on display rather than their ability to think.

“Observing him in these moods, I often dwelt meditatively upon the old philosophy of the Bi-Part Soul, and amused myself with the fancy of a double Dupin—the creative and the resolvent.”

Poe clearly and explicitly signals duality as a theme in his text by his use of “Bi-Part” and “double.” The narrator, acting as a fledgling detective himself, notices an imbalance in Dupin’s psychological state: his “moods.” He imagines an ideal culmination of which Dupin utilizes his capacity for creativity to an equal extent as his proven ability for calculating the sum of mysteries.

“Tell me, for Heaven’s sake, I exclaimed, the method—if method there is—by which you have been enabled to fathom my soul in this matter.”

Framed by the Scientific Revolution (16th and 17th centuries) and the Industrial Revolution (1760 until about 1840), Poe uses the words “method” and “mode” multiple times throughout the story. The narrator’s shock comes when the powers of inquiry seemingly extend beyond the physical to the spiritual. Note also how this expression closely suggests the well-known line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”

“Upon the floor were found four Napoleons, an ear-ring of topaz, three large silver spoons, three smaller of metal d’Alger, and two bags, containing nearly four thousand francs in gold.”

The disarray found in the victims’ apartment serves as one of the key clues in the case. Whomever perpetrated the crime seems to have ignored the financial gain that was left in plain sight. This secures the deduction that money was not the motive.

“No one was spoken of as frequenting the house. It was not known if there were any living connexions of Madame L. and her daughter.”

Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter, Camille, are reclusive and virtually unknown. Both exist together as strangers living in close proximity to countless other Parisians. Poe’s portrayal captures a commonplace experience of isolation within cities where even the closest people to you are foreign.

“The shrill voice was that of a foreigner.”

To emphasize strangeness and unknowability, Poe employs repetition of this account as a device. Many witnesses cited a “foreigner” as the speaker. In fact, readers later find that even the less intelligent narrator easily comprehends that this detail is central to solving the crime. The use of “foreigner” speaks to the theme of Language as a Social Barrier.

“There was not an inch of any portion of the house which was not carefully searched.”

One of the primary tropes in the detective fiction genre is the ineptitude of an organized police force contrasted with the superlative investigative skills of the protagonist detective. In this story, Poe credits the police with prompt action and good intent but isolates their stunted ability to use the pieces of knowledge they have to form a rational supposition.

“There was something in his manner of emphasizing the word ‘peculiar,’ which caused me to shudder, without knowing why.”

The narrator’s reflective thought associates fear with the peculiar and sets a tone of anticipation, a central feature within mystery and horror genres. This technique is used sparingly but effectively in this story.

“They have fallen into the common error of confounding the unusual with the abstruse. But it is by these deviations from the plane of the ordinary, that reason feels its way, if at all, in its search for the true.”

Just as the word “præternatural” recurs throughout the text, so do the words “foreign,” “bizzarerie,” “extraordinary,” and “peculiar.” Poe’s theme of pondering the unnatural to gain insight to the otherwise mundane works within his development of independent characters like Chantilly, Dupin, the Ourang-Outang, the victims, etc. Dupin further illuminates why empirical analysis alone is insufficient in explaining the irrational.

“I look for the man here—in this room—every moment.”

Poe uses this dialogue to heighten the climax and cause his reader to be on alert. While doing so, Poe cleverly signifies a fraught sense of identity and the duality within it. To paraphrase, Dupin continually looks for the truth of himself in his surroundings.