C. Auguste Dupin is the main character in Edgar Allan Poe’s three detective works: The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, and The Purloined Letter. His were among the first fictional cases to be solved by an amateur detective using “ratiocination”, or deductive reasoning. His works inspired the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot.
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The first story in the trio, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, first published in 1841 in Graham Magazine, introduces C. Auguste Dupin, a Parisian amateur detective. All three stories are told through an unknown narrator who tells of how the brilliant Dupin solves cases that baffle the police.
In The Murders in the Rue Morgue, two women are brutally murdered. When an innocent man is arrested, Dupin steps in to solve the case. In the murder, the mother is viciously attacked with a sharp object and nearly decapitated. The daughter is strangled and her body stuffed into the chimney. Dupin solves the case using two main clues, the fact that many witnesses heard one of the suspects, though none could identify the language, and the fact that a hair was found at the scene that was not a human hair.
Dupin figures out that the murderer was not human, but an orangutan. By placing an advertisement for the missing animal, a sailor comes forth to claim him. It is explained that the orangutan escaped carrying the sailor’s shaving razor, climbed up to the fourth floor by way of a lightning rod, attacked the women in a confused frenzy, and attempted to hide the body of the daughter by stuffing it up the chimney. Once the facts are known, the innocent man is released and no one is charged with the crime.
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt
The second story featuring Dupin was published in 1842, in three installments. It was the first fictional murder mystery based on a true crime. It was based on the American murder case of Mary Cecilia Rogers, whose body was found floating in the Hudson river.
As in the true account, the fictional Marie Rogêt had disappeared once before, only to return a short time later. In the fictional story, Dupin figures out that the two events are related. Though the newspaper sensationalizes the story and claims there may be an entire gang involved, Dupin discovers only one person is to blame, the sailor who Marie ran away with the first time. He concludes that finding the boat her body was dumped from will lead to her killer, and thus solves a case which has baffled the police.
The Purloined Letter
The third story featuring Dupin, The Purloined Letter , was published in 1844. It is a clever tale about a stolen letter. This time the Prefect of the Police, named only G—, seeks Dupin’s help solving a case concerning a letter that has been taken from a woman’s sitting room by a visitor. He switched the letter with another one so he could use the first to blackmail her.
The suspect’s hotel is searched, but to no avail. A reward of 50,000 francs is offered for the return of the letter, which Dupin immediately claims. He tells the policeman that not having a clear understanding of the mind of the thief has led to his failure to find the letter. The officers had looked in every drawer and corner, but the thief, anticipating this, had outwitted them by keeping the letter in plain sight. He had simply disguised it by changing its outward appearance.
In these three tales, Poe uses many investigative techniques such as deductive reasoning and the following of a series of clues, now common elements in crime novels. Several of Poe’s other stories are not strictly detective stories, but contain elements of detection, such as the solving of a cipher or cryptic note on paper (The Gold Bug), surveillance The Man of the Crowd) , and a man tricked into confession (Thou Art the Man).
Sources:
World's Best Detective, Crime, and Murder Mystery Books.com, "1841 Edgar Allan Poe" (accessed January 31, 2011).
Readers may also enjoy the articles about mystery fiction: Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, From Cozy to Private Eye: The Five Main Categories of Mystery, and Writing the Mystery Short Story.
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