26 pages • 52 minutes read
Edgar Allan PoeThe Purloined Letter
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1844A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Intertwined Truth and Lies
A central theme in “The Purloined Letter” is that of deception versus truth, but the story suggests that these are not easily separable. Openness can be a means of deception, as in the minister’s theft and hiding of the letter, both of which occur in plain sight. Meanwhile, deception or duplicity can at times work to reveal the truth, as in Dupin’s recovery of the letter.
Virtually every character engages in deception. The queen is deceiving the king, and this deception makes her extremely vulnerable to blackmail. Minister D—— perceives this deception when he catches the queen attempting to hide the letter she is reading. He then seizes the opportunity to further his own political interests by stealing the letter from the queen. However, because his power over the queen depends on the letter remaining a secret, he replaces it with a letter he happens to have that is of similar appearance. In other words, while he is openly stealing the letter from the queen, he is aiding her in her own deception by replacing it with a similar letter (and therefore not provoking questions about why someone would want to steal the letter). The minister continues this form of open deception by “hiding” the letter in plain sight when he realizes that the police are searching for it.
The prefect and the narrator both deceive by means of omission. When the prefect explains the crime to Dupin and the narrator, he explicitly states that the matter is of the utmost secrecy, implying that he should not be telling them about it at all (nor, for that matter, should the narrator be relating it). However, he divulges almost all the details of the case, except for the name of the victim (which can be easily inferred) and the amount of the reward offered. The narrator omits the description of the letter and its contents, but this is again a case of hiding in plain sight; given the cultural mores of the time and the context in which Poe describes the letter (in the queen’s bedchamber), the almost inescapable implication is that the letter references a love affair. That said, given the story’s events, one might wonder whether this is intentional misdirection; the layers of truth and untruth create a context in which it is hard to say which is which, even (or especially) when the answer seems obvious.
Perhaps the most duplicitous character in the story is the amateur detective, C. Auguste Dupin, who uses deception to uncover the truth. Dupin’s methods are strikingly similar to those of Minister D——, yet Dupin relies far more heavily on concealment than openness. He deceives the minister by appearing to call on him “by accident” and proceeds to feign eye weakness to don green glasses and survey the room. Upon revisiting the minister under the guise of retrieving his snuffbox (another deception) and thanks to the “madman” outside whom he hired to create a distraction, he secretly steals the letter and replaces it with his copy. Whereas the Minister D—— uses deception to commit the crime, Dupin uses deception to uncover the truth.
Perception and Reality
Throughout “The Purloined Letter,” the theme of perception and its relationship to reality is prevalent. Sergio L. P. Bellei explores this theme extensively in his article, “‘The Purloined Letter:’ A Theory of Perception,” where he distinguishes between a world of presentation and a world of representation. He states that, “Whereas the world of presentation […] always implies the identification or mutual absorption of subject and object, the world of representation implies their separation” (Bellei, Sergio L. P. “‘The Purloined Letter:’ A Theory of Perception.” Poe Studies (1971-1985), Vol. 9, No. 2, December 1976, pp. 40-42). In the story, he argues, the meaning or value of the letter only exists in symbolic contexts depending on the perception of the subject—as a destructive scandal for the queen, as blackmail material to the minister, as the means of revenge for Dupin, etc.
However, the chief mistake most of the story’s characters make is assuming that their own perspective is universal and objective—i.e., that what they consider important or true will strike others in the same way. For example, the queen recognizes the significance of the letter as something that must be kept secret, but she does not account for the minister’s keen perception of the letter as an instrument of power. Once enlisted to help solve the crime, the prefect is unsuccessful due to his limited perception and inability to identify with the criminal. He attempts to find the letter by merely searching the places in which he believes one would hide it, unable to see the letter in the context of the minister’s reality.
Dupin, however, can perceive reality as the minister does—as both a poet and a mathematician. By taking into account the minister’s motives in stealing the letter, awareness of the police’s likely response, and overall psychology, Dupin ascertains the following: that the minister would have needed to keep the letter close by (for the threat of blackmail to succeed); that the minister would have anticipated where the police would search and chosen a more “obvious” hiding place; and that the minister, who has “methodical habits” would not allow an ordinary letter to become dingy unless he were trying to disguise it. If the story does not go so far as to suggest that truth is entirely a matter of subjective perception, it does demonstrate that accounting for subjectivity is vital to discovering the truth.
The Nature and Exercise of Power
The entire motivation for the crime in “The Purloined Letter” is power, and it is a theme that the narrative explores in various ways. It is explicitly stated that to possess the letter is to possess power, and each character who possesses the letter uses that power in unique ways.
When Minister D—— steals the letter from the queen, he is attempting to use the letter for political power by blackmailing the queen. However, as the narrator and later Dupin both comment, the success of this blackmail depends entirely on the “robber’s knowledge of the loser’s knowledge of the robber” (9). Hence, the queen must see the minister take the letter in order for him to gain power. Moreover, it is possession of the letter, not the employment of the contents, which bestows power to the possessor. Thus, if the minister divulges the contents of the letter, he would lose his power. The situation suggests that power depends on a complex interplay of knowledge and ignorance; the queen must understand what the minister has done, but it needs to remain a secret to the general public. At the end of the story, Dupin predicts that the power and knowledge dynamics will shift, as the minister—not realizing he no longer has the letter—will act as if he does and expose himself to “political destruction.”
Monsieur G——, the prefect, does in fact divulge the contents of the letter to the narrator and Dupin, but he is not using the letter for political power but rather financial power. He mentions multiple times the generous monetary reward being offered for recovery of the letter, though he does not divulge the amount. When Dupin hands him the letter in the middle of the story, Monsieur G—— can utilize the letter for financial gain. The contents of the letter are therefore even less relevant to the prefect than they are to the minister. He has no relationship to either the robber or the person who was robbed, and his desired goal in wielding power—securing the reward—is likewise detached from the details of the crime.
C. Auguste Dupin uses power to more personal ends. Once he determines the exact location of the letter within the minister’s residence, he does not recover it immediately. Rather, he takes the time to create a facsimile of it bearing the following words:
—— Un dessein si funeste,
S’il n’es digne d’Atrée, est digne de Thyeste (16).
Translated, this phrase reads: “So baleful a plan, if unworthy of Atreus, is worthy of Thyestes.” It comes from Atrée et Thyeste (1707), a tragic play by French poet and tragedian Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon. The allusion and the play both refer to the Greek mythological feud between brothers Atreus and Thyestes. While there is no explanation of how it relates to Dupin and Minister D——, it does prove that Dupin wields his power partly for revenge. It also introduces a new twist to the relationship between power and knowledge, as Dupin hopes the minister will catch the allusion and realize who has made the switch. Recognizing that Dupin did so would not change the minister’s material circumstances, but it would presumably twist the knife in a way Dupin finds satisfying.
Related Titles
By Edgar Allan Poe
