Poe's Stories brief biography of edgar allan poe
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Short Story By Flannery OConnor
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- Related Themes: Page Number 338Explanation and Analysis
| Related Themes: Page Number 328 Explanation and Analysis In this passage, Detective Dupin prepares to listen to the Prefect's description of a police case, one which the Prefect has been unable to solve. Dupin's first reaction is that the simplest explanation is the best--without ever having heard the case, Dupin's instinct is to seek simplicity, not a complex, elaborate explanation for the truth (essentially the concept of Occam's Razor--that the simplest explanation is the likeliest). As we'll soon see, Dupin's emphasis on simplicity is exactly right--the solution to the mystery of the purloined letter is so incredibly obvious that the Prefect couldn't conceive of it. The passage could be interpreted as Poe's criticism of the overemphasis on reason and science in his society. The Prefect, representing the ways of science and rationality, believes that every mystery has a solution, but also seems to think that complex mysteries must by necessity have complex solutions. Dupin takes a different approach to the truth, favoring a loose, intuitive style of detection (he guesses the solution to the mystery before he's even heard the mystery. In the end, it's Dupin's style (and, perhaps, Poe's similarly loose, intuitive creative style) that prevails. “All fools are poets this the Prefect feels and he is merely guilty of anon distributio medii in thence inferring that all poets are fools." Related Themes: Page Number 338 Explanation and Analysis In this passage, Detective Dupin quarrels with the Prefect over the solution to the mystery described in the story. The Prefect believes that the Minister--the man whom the Prefect suspects of blackmail--is a poet i.e., he is a creative, nontraditional thinker. The Prefect--a man of science and rationality--naturally dismisses the Minister, claiming that the Minister must also be a fool. Dupin cites an old rule of logic the fact that all fools are poets doesn't necessarily prove that all poets are fools (there could be some poets who aren't). Dupin himself claims to be a poet--i.e., he solves mysteries by using his intuition and imagination, not just his analysis of the facts. Dupin is being intentionally coy and esoteric here, but he's still making a serious point. Dupin suggests that logic and reason by themselves aren't enough to solve every mystery in the universe. While too much intuition and imagination (i.e., too much poetry) are toxic to solving a problem, a little poetry, mixed with a little rationality, form a powerful combination. Dupin himself embodies the mixture of poetry and rationality necessary to solve a difficult case. He's clearly an intelligent man (hence his citing of logical fallacies in the passage) but he's also eccentric enough to think outside the box and solve cases that baffle the Prefect himself. Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com ©2017 LitCharts LLC v.006 www.LitCharts.com Page 14 The Masque of the Red Death Quotes The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. Download 0.58 Mb. Share with your friends:
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