Poe's Stories brief biography of edgar allan poe
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Short Story By Flannery OConnor
| and puts the reader on hold, waiting for the owner of this analytical mind to be introduced. Take chess and draughts. The chess player’s skill lies in the attention he gives the board, and because the movements of the pieces and the possible layout of the game are so numerous and changing, it is often the player that concentrates best that is victorious. Draughts on the other hand is won by the more inventive move, all pieces being equal and the possible moves not evident before the player. He wins by identifying himself with the opposite player and often can tell what moves are about to be made. The superiority of a kind of emotional, sensitive, observational kind of intelligence is described here. The narrator is claiming that even in two games that are restricted to squares and pieces, the merely attentive player will only succeed to a certain extent. Sensitive observation of human behavior will become important as the story progresses. This is similar to whist. Whist is known for being a superior game for an analytical brain. Even the best chess player in the land may find that his talents at chess are only helpful when playing chess, but a good whist player will find that the skills that allow him to succeed at whist, allow him to solve many of life’s problems. The superior whist player, the analyst, is able to not only retain information and play by the book but infer hundreds of things from other places, the opponent himself, the exterior conditions, anything. It is this ability to observe beyond the game and be creative that defines the perfect player. He has an intuition for all the physical and emotional changes of the opposite player and therefore is able to tell what is a trick and what is genuine. After the headline punch of the title The Murders in the Rue Morgue, the narrator’s very long-winded description of the logic of games and the analytic mind is a strange twist. He skillfully explains the differences between terms of intelligence, showing how creativity triumphs over methodical thinking and concentration. By using games to show these intricate mental differences, Poe distances us from the traditional content of the Gothic murder story. Being ingenious is not the same as being an analyst. An analyst can always be ingenious but an ingenue will sometimes not have the faculty for analysis. The two share a similar character, but creativity shows itself differently in each, as mere fancy or true imagination. In this story, Poe exaggerates this quality of analysis, making it seem like the most sought-after quality of intelligence, higher even than the flair of an ingenue. This is one of the ways that Poe begins to play with our expectations. Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com ©2017 LitCharts LLC www.LitCharts.com Page 34 The narrator of "Rue-Morgue" tells us that this discussion will be relevant to the story to follow and now introduces us to Auguste Dupin, his friend, with whom he is spending time in Paris, a man of high class and family but who has lost a lot of his fortune in a series of events. Books are now his highest luxury. This is a love he shares with the narrator and their first meeting was at a library where they bonded over a special volume. The narrator is surprised at how well read Dupin is, and judges that his company during his stay in Paris will be very valuable. So the pair live together, and the romantic but “grotesque” house that they can afford with their combined fortunes seems to suit their mood. Dupin is a fascinating specimen of a character and the narrator treats him with great curiosity and respect. Dupin is amass of contradictions, very intelligent and educated but with strange Download 0.58 Mb. Share with your friends:
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