Poe stories
Poe's character Dupin has many similarities to Doyle's Holmes. The well-read frenchman, like Holmes, is a genius of analysis, doesn't like to reveal his suspicions until they have been confirmed, finds clues which other investigators tend to overlook, and describes his thought process to the story's narrator.
A good point of comparison comes from the introduction of Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" through a metaphor of games. Chess, Poe's narrator asserts, may seem like it requires much more analysis than a simple game of checkers, due to the array of pieces and the complications of their movements. But it is the simplicity in the game of checkers, the limited movements, in which knowing one's opponent and possessing more than just an acumen, but analytic skills, can bring forward a winner (196). In checkers, because there are fewer moves to make, all of them are displayed, and knowing what the opponent plans to do and outsmarting them is how to truly win. Holmes and Dupin would both be good at checkers because of their ability to look beyond the facts of the moves and into the minds of their opponents, synthesizing a copy of their game plan from observations of their actions. For solving mysteries, these observations can reveal the details of what happened and how and why that a straightforward approach could miss.
Doyle's Watson and Poe's narrator and most police mentioned by either writer fall into the other category outlined by Poe; those men of ingenuity who seem to be intelligent, but lack the deeper level of analysis possessed by Holmes and Dupin that makes them so entertaining to follow. The fault of these men is that they follow the ordinary, and are often stuck in a way of thinking which is too procedural. For example, when Watson saw Baker and Mrs. Douglas discoursing and they seemed happy, he immediately jumped to the conclusion that they were having an affair and conspired together to kill Mr. Douglas, a logical but false conclusion based on the evidence. In "The Purloined Letter", the prefect of the French police thoroughly searches every nook and secret hiding place which could exist for where the letter was stashed, overlooking it as it hid in plain sight. A certain way of thinking ingrained into these characters, because of past experience with the seemingly "ordinary", that prevented them from thinking in a different way.
One insight to be gleaned from these detective stories is to look outside of the ordinary, and serves as a caution to students, or anyone writing, not to get caught in similar traps of procedure.
A good point of comparison comes from the introduction of Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" through a metaphor of games. Chess, Poe's narrator asserts, may seem like it requires much more analysis than a simple game of checkers, due to the array of pieces and the complications of their movements. But it is the simplicity in the game of checkers, the limited movements, in which knowing one's opponent and possessing more than just an acumen, but analytic skills, can bring forward a winner (196). In checkers, because there are fewer moves to make, all of them are displayed, and knowing what the opponent plans to do and outsmarting them is how to truly win. Holmes and Dupin would both be good at checkers because of their ability to look beyond the facts of the moves and into the minds of their opponents, synthesizing a copy of their game plan from observations of their actions. For solving mysteries, these observations can reveal the details of what happened and how and why that a straightforward approach could miss.
Doyle's Watson and Poe's narrator and most police mentioned by either writer fall into the other category outlined by Poe; those men of ingenuity who seem to be intelligent, but lack the deeper level of analysis possessed by Holmes and Dupin that makes them so entertaining to follow. The fault of these men is that they follow the ordinary, and are often stuck in a way of thinking which is too procedural. For example, when Watson saw Baker and Mrs. Douglas discoursing and they seemed happy, he immediately jumped to the conclusion that they were having an affair and conspired together to kill Mr. Douglas, a logical but false conclusion based on the evidence. In "The Purloined Letter", the prefect of the French police thoroughly searches every nook and secret hiding place which could exist for where the letter was stashed, overlooking it as it hid in plain sight. A certain way of thinking ingrained into these characters, because of past experience with the seemingly "ordinary", that prevented them from thinking in a different way.
One insight to be gleaned from these detective stories is to look outside of the ordinary, and serves as a caution to students, or anyone writing, not to get caught in similar traps of procedure.
I kind of agree with what you had to say about the similarities between Holmes and Dupin; they are very alike. And sure, thinking outside the box is a good thing to do when we're writing and just thinking in general. Good post.
ReplyDeleteI am in full agreement with your statements about how Dupin and Holmes are very similar people who both have the same analytical thinking. I do think though that Holmes treats the police with a little more respect at least in Valley of Fear while Dupin is just leading and leading the police on until he can break the news that he has the letter. I also agree with the idea you presented of thinking outside the box in mystery stories because they are not supposed to be pure cut and dry stories.
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