Poe stories
1. "At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a trumpery filigree card-rack of pasteboard, that hung dangling by a dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just beneath the middle of the mantlepiece. In this rack, which had three of four compartments, were five or six visiting cards and a solitary letter. This last was must soiled and crumpled. It was torn nearly in two, across the middle- as if a design, in the first instance, to tear it entirely up as worthless, had been altered, or stayed, in the second. It had a large black seal, bearing the D---- cipher very conspicuously, and was addressed, in a diminutive female hand, to D----, the minister, himself. It was thrust carelessly, and eve, as it seemed, contemptuously, into one of the uppermost divisions of the rack... No sooner had I glanced at this letter than I concluded it to be that of which I was in search" (The Purloined Letter, 377).
This paragraph stuck out to me as one with some of the most adept and intuitive problem-solving from Dupin of both stories. I think that this passage was distinctive, in my opinion at least, because of Dupin's ability to pay attention to the "palpably self-evident"(376) details that the policemen briskly passed by. Dupin often mentions the danger in only looking in the most well-hidden and subtle locations, which he uses the helpful analogy of the game with the map to explain, and he proves his theory to be true by finding the letter in plain sight where everyone else just looked it over during their mission to tear apart the entire house in their search for the "hidden" letter. For this reason, I find Dupin's deductions in this passage extremely impressive given how quickly every other person was to look right through what he saw.
2. "It was a minute anatomical and generally descriptive account of the large fulvous Ourang-Outang of the East Indian Islands. The gigantic stature, the prodigious strength and activity, the wild ferocity, and the imitative propensities of these mammalia are sufficiently well known to all. I understood the full horrors of the murder at once"(The Murders in the Rue Morgue, 221).
As many times as I reread this passage, I can still never figure out how they were able to come to the conclusion that the Ourang-Outang committed the murders. This passage confused me so much as I was reading the story, because while they may know that Ourang-Outangs can be very violent creatures, how could they possibly have known that there was an Ourang-Outang loose in the very town where this murder occurred? I just didn't see any obvious correlation between the violence of the animal and the murder (until the entire situation is explained), and I wish that Poe had explained their thought process a little bit more in this moment instead of diving straight into the details of how the Ourang-Outang committed the murder.
3. "Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities - that theory to which the most glorious objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of illustration"(The Murderers in the Rue Morgue, 219).
I find this statement very interesting and thought-provoking although I still am confused by its meaning. I understand that it is talking about coincidences and how they are obstacles for certain thinkers who only consider definite truths. I keep trying to understand it further, but I am just very confused by the phrasing, especially in the second part of the statement.
This paragraph stuck out to me as one with some of the most adept and intuitive problem-solving from Dupin of both stories. I think that this passage was distinctive, in my opinion at least, because of Dupin's ability to pay attention to the "palpably self-evident"(376) details that the policemen briskly passed by. Dupin often mentions the danger in only looking in the most well-hidden and subtle locations, which he uses the helpful analogy of the game with the map to explain, and he proves his theory to be true by finding the letter in plain sight where everyone else just looked it over during their mission to tear apart the entire house in their search for the "hidden" letter. For this reason, I find Dupin's deductions in this passage extremely impressive given how quickly every other person was to look right through what he saw.
2. "It was a minute anatomical and generally descriptive account of the large fulvous Ourang-Outang of the East Indian Islands. The gigantic stature, the prodigious strength and activity, the wild ferocity, and the imitative propensities of these mammalia are sufficiently well known to all. I understood the full horrors of the murder at once"(The Murders in the Rue Morgue, 221).
As many times as I reread this passage, I can still never figure out how they were able to come to the conclusion that the Ourang-Outang committed the murders. This passage confused me so much as I was reading the story, because while they may know that Ourang-Outangs can be very violent creatures, how could they possibly have known that there was an Ourang-Outang loose in the very town where this murder occurred? I just didn't see any obvious correlation between the violence of the animal and the murder (until the entire situation is explained), and I wish that Poe had explained their thought process a little bit more in this moment instead of diving straight into the details of how the Ourang-Outang committed the murder.
3. "Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities - that theory to which the most glorious objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of illustration"(The Murderers in the Rue Morgue, 219).
I find this statement very interesting and thought-provoking although I still am confused by its meaning. I understand that it is talking about coincidences and how they are obstacles for certain thinkers who only consider definite truths. I keep trying to understand it further, but I am just very confused by the phrasing, especially in the second part of the statement.
I completely agree with your thoughts; I also feel that Dupin's conclusions are extremely far-fetched. I thought that Holmes was too much of a genius, but at least he was given reasonable clues. Dupin was barely given much evidence and discovered the whole story on his own. Also, the third passage confuses me too. I understand the part about coincidences and probability, but I'm not sure how it is being related to the class thinkers.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is impressive how Dupin is able to find the letter by looking at the obvious spots instead of the minute details, and that part of the story really made me rethink about the importance of obvious things being not so obvious after all. As for guessing the animal, I don't think they knew there was an animal loose in the town--that came after they concluded that it was the Ourang-Outang , which was guessed from evidence like the strength, and the size of the finger marks on the neck, etc. However, I do agree it's a bit unreasonable in that he was able to so quickly eliminate all but one choice of an animal as the culprit.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that Poe did not really explain the train of thought as to how Dupin equated an Ourang-Outang to a grisly murderer. In the Sherlock Holmes novel, Doyle utilizes a stream-of-consciousness narration, enabling the reader to follow each individual thought of Watson and Holmes. As a result, the conclusions made by Watson and Holmes is more sensical to the reader. In contrast, Dupin's train of thought is not clearly explicated. Therefore, his inferences seem disjointed and lacking evidence.
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