The Murders in the Rue Morgue

The singular star in any detective fiction work is the investigator who cracks the mysterious code to solve the impossible case. Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin is the common ancestor for all such detective offspring who would come into being through the imagination of authors after 1841. He is hyper alert, confident, eccentric, meticulous, condescending, and egocentric. With his piercing gaze, the conundrums of life now gain the possibility of and hope for solution. When the narrator first introduces readers to Dupin, he is framed as a charming comrade, one from whom intimacy can be gained: “We existed within ourselves alone” (4). This period is short-lived, however, as the bulk of the narrative converges not upon the satisfaction of human connection, but rather upon the satisfaction that Dupin creates in himself and his audience when his cognitive powers of combining clues solve the murders.

C. Auguste Dupin typifies the heights of human mental capacity, referred to at different times as “diseased intelligence” (1), “præternatural,” or preternatural, meaning beyond what is natural (4), and “madness” (5). His seemingly supernatural ability to gather meaning from the mundane rests on naturalist and empiricist philosophies that reject all forms of subjectivity, intuition, and emotion in favor of the cause-and-effect principles of objects interacting in the real world. Since this skill is not spiritually endowed, it is accessible to the common man and can be developed with effort. Being privy to intricate hidden processes is attainable to all through focus and keen perception. In the preface, readers are instructed that “the difference in the extent of the information obtained, lies not so much in the validity of the inference as in the quality of the observation” (2). Poe’s “proposition” in the first few pages urges his readers to view the narrative through this metaphorical lens (3). In both content and style, the preface sounds like Dupin himself offering a treatise on critical thinking best practices. As such, Poe captures the scientific aspirations of his day: a world in which all humanity attunes their senses to the degree that nothing escapes detection, reason is always supported by evidence, and truth reigns supreme. These ideals are continuously at the forefront of understanding the character C. Auguste Dupin.

Poe invites readers to observe the spectacle of investigative achievement through this cleverly named character. The detective’s first name is only an initial: “C.” producing the same sound as “see.” “Auguste” has an identical pronunciation to the word “august,” bringing to mind the connotations of brilliance and grandeur. Finally, “Dupin,” when broken into the parts “du” and “pin,” translates into “from the pine” or essentially from the natural world. Assembled in its entirety, Poe chooses a name for his protagonist that operates as a directive to his reader and to the narrative’s cast: See the grand brilliance of the naturalist.

Madame L’Espanaye is the story’s primary murder victim. Frequently described as “old,” she is a former landlady presumed by the laundress to be a fortune-teller. She lives with her adult daughter, Camille, with whom she appears to have an amicable relationship. She reportedly has no other relatives in the area. With the exception of one neighbor, Henri Duval, who claims to have spoken with her many times, she lives an “exceedingly retired life” (10) as a recluse on a “lonely” “bye-street” (11). She and her daughter have been seen entering and exiting her fourth story apartment only a handful of times over six years. Figuring Madame in this way sets her apart as an outsider. Historically, fortune-tellers are notoriously foreign, transient, and untrustworthy.

As with most of his characters in this narrative, Poe supplies few background details upon which to understand Madame or Mademoiselle L’Espanaye. Their ambiguous identities heighten the intrigue of the case because of the lack of probable suspects. This opens the investigation to more possibilities. Three days before her brutal murder by the Ourang-Outang, Madame L’Espanaye withdrew 4,000 gold francs from her bank account for an unknown reason. At that time, bank clerk Adolphe Le Bon accompanied her to her apartment. While her stash of money—and Le Bon’s proximity to the money—at first appear to be central to the case, Poe uses these plot elements as misdirection. He communicates that where profit is concerned, folks are especially susceptible to sleight of hand. The witnesses as well as the police force do not clearly see the woman, but rather her money.

An isolated footnote to the witness testimony during the investigation comes from a physician, Dr. Paul Dumas, who states, “No woman could have inflicted the blows with any weapon” (13). This passing observation, while not provable, is believable in its context and secures the innocence and powerlessness of the female victims in the minds of the investigators.

Mademoiselle Camille L’Espanaye is the secondary murder victim and is primarily known for her role in relation to her mother. She lives a life of ease as a daughter in the same apartment. As far as readers can tell, no known conflicts exist either internally or externally. There are only two instances of Camille’s independent action in the text. The first is when she receives one of the two bags of money from the bank clerk, Adolphe Le Bon, through the doorway. The second occurs when the sailor gives his account of the evening’s events. Nothing else is revealed about Camille in her living state. Poe instead brings attention to her condition when deceased. The violent detail inflicted upon her is repeated several times over the course of investigation, chiefly:

[The] corpse of the daughter, head downward, was dragged therefrom; it having been thus forced up the narrow aperture for a considerable distance. The body was quite warm. Upon examining it, many excoriations were perceived, no doubt occasioned by the violence with which it had been thrust up and disengaged. Upon the face were many severe scratches, and, upon the throat, dark bruises, and deep indentations of fingernails, as if the deceased had been throttled to death (9).

Whether money or violence, Camille is passive and is the receiver of action. Because Poe figures this victim as a woman without male protection, readers can assume he is evoking the damsel in distress trope to elicit pity for this woman in her prime as well as disgust for her grotesque death. Situating her as the victim, Poe removes ageism as a factor in the slayings. Unlike her mother, Camille is voiceless in her death, fainting in terror. Both women are by all accounts weak and vulnerable, showing no signs of defending themselves against their attacker.

After many fruitless days of police investigation, Dupin’s powers of perception and deduction lead him to suspect that the murders were carried out by something not human and that the creature in question had a human counterpart. Dupin lures an unnamed and previously unencountered sailor to his door, effectively baiting him with an ad in the paper falsely advertising his Ourang-Outang’s capture.

The narrator describes the sailor the way one might describe a caveman: stout, muscular, and sunburnt with hair covering over half of his face (30). Adding to the sub-human image, the sailor wields an “oaken cudgel” and “bowed awkwardly” to suggest a lower evolutionary state. He noticeably lacks the normal social graces requisite at the time. Dupin’s trepidation is seen just prior to their meeting when he furnishes two pistols on the table. This detail supplies readers with the only hint of emotion from the detective thus far, which situates the sailor, at least temporarily, in the dominant role. The sailor is the only character who holds the truth. Despite Dupin’s anxiety, the sailor is surprisingly cooperative. He agrees to all the terms suggested by him and offers reward money for his efforts in the Ourang-Outang’s capture. Rather than accepting the sailor’s financial offer which would reveal his deception, Dupin coerces the sailor’s confession. The sailor is called to account for all the events leading up to and including those occurring on the night of the murder. Besides Dupin and the narrator, the sailor is the only other character in the story who has direct dialogue.

The sailor’s testimony brings about the narrative’s resolution. It is the cognitively validating treasure that Dupin was seeking. Significantly, Dupin induced the sailor’s honest account by his appeal to morality saying, “you are innocent of the atrocities in the Rue Morgue” and “you are bound by every principle of honor to confess all you know” (31). The tone embedded in the sailor’s testimony is that of moral consciousness where the sailor grapples with the right course of action at each turn, even his decision to confess. At heart, the sailor symbolizes an intermediary: a world traveler navigating the waters between beast and human as well as between the guilty and the guiltless.

The existence of the Ourang-Outang (an alternative spelling of orangutan) remains obscured from the reader during the majority of Poe’s narrative. Discovering that a beast, not a human, has ferociously killed Madame and Mademoiselle L’Espanaye is the revelation of this crime story. Poe drops no textual clues foreshadowing an animal presence in the city during the time of the murders. The sailor, also introduced at the story’s conclusion, is the only character with first-hand knowledge of the Ourang-Outang; therefore, his testimony is the only means by which readers can grasp the creature’s identity.

The sailor’s confession to Dupin informs that the animal was captured in Borneo by the sailor and his friend. Upon his friend’s death, the sailor, by default, acquires possession of the uncontrollable animal. Unable to manage its power any other way, the sailor keeps the beast caged, hidden, and whipped to bring about its submission. Receiving such ill treatment, the Ourang-Outang eventually breaks loose within the sailor’s empty apartment and amuses itself by imitating a man shaving. The animal’s brute strength is its defining feature. Its similarities to and differences from the human species evoke a comparison. Readers are stimulated to contrast the abounding mental capacity of Dupin with the uncontainable physical strength of the creature.

When the sailor returns and happens upon his animal’s dangerous situation, he readies his whip. The Ourang-Outang’s glimpse of the whip triggers its flight into the dark street. From this point onward, the reader is provided with all the evidence to explain each facet of the crime as well as reason to believe that the animal is only partially to blame. The sailor himself vouches for the Ourang-Outang’s good intentions stating: “The screams and struggles of the old lady […] had the effect of changing the probably pacific purposes of the Ourang-Outang into those of wrath” (34). By story’s end, the Ourang-Outang has been caught and sold to the local zoo. In retrospect, the animal’s appearance in Paris, seemingly out of nowhere, and its violent actions, seemingly unprovoked, are logical. Given the animal’s capacity for rationalization, albeit minimal, each of its actions could have been predicted with an attention to each event preceding. The beast effectively illustrates Dupin’s opposite: action without thought. For the narrative, the Ourang-Outang demonstrates in naturalist fashion that answers that seem unobtainable, and events that seem impossible, can be forecast with ample circumspection.