Poe's Stories brief biography of edgar allan poe
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Short Story By Flannery OConnor
| understand deeper mysteries, because it is itself mysterious. Now for the final flourish, Dupin knows that the actor Chantilly recently got a review, in which the reviewer discusses his change of name from shoemaker to actor along with a Latin phrase that means He has ruined the sound with the first letter. Dupin knows that this refers to the change of Urion to Orion, and also knows that if the narrator of "Rue-Morgue" was to think about Orion, which he did by looking up to it, his mind would have taken him this route, to Chantilly’s stature. This is one of the only instances in the story that we are given a glimpse into the narrator’s mind. Unlike many other Poe stories, this narrator seems to exist only to relay the story of Dupin. But as we know Dupin’s intelligence to be the kind that perceives and observes character, he illuminates the narrator’s intelligence here, which we can see is also quite developed. Remember all this was just an example of Dupin’s skill. Now we skip to the evening in question, when they are absorbed by a report in the paper of two extraordinary murders of a mother and daughter at a house on the Rue Morgue. After some awful shrieking heard in the property, police and neighbors broke in and as they ascended the stairs to the fourth floor, heard some roughly spoken phrases and found complete disorder in the apartment, lengths of human hair lying bloody on the floor, two bags of money and some jewels on the floor. The mother was nowhere to be seen and the daughter was found lodged in the chimney by extreme force. A little later, the old woman’s body was found outside, with her throat cut so violently that her head was detached. The way the narrator has introduced us to Dupin sets us up fora iistory about analysis and riddles. He has lulled us into a slow, methodical rhythm with his explanations of chess and whist. But now the real gore of the story is revealed. This is not just a murder but an unspeakably nightmarish one, with evidence that suggests the kind of evil antagonist to more than rival Dupin’s wit. In the next day’s paper, the testimonies of various witnesses are described some agree, such as that the old woman sometimes gave fortunes fora living, and that the pair had quite a bit of money saved, and that they kept very much to themselves and were hardly seen out. But most of the witnesses say slightly different things about the voices that were heard as they were approaching the scene. A policeman describes the shrieks as coming probably from two people, one rough, one much more shrill, and thought the former could have been French. Others believe they hear an Italian voice, others assume a foreign tongue, are unable to translate. The narrator draws attention to the disparities in the long list of testimonies. Nobody can decide on what happened or even what language was being spoken, leaving the suspects very much elusive. The description of the women is more stable between the testimonies and paints a picture of a quiet pair. Their isolation as well as the lack of other relatives and friends to care about them begs the question of what motivated the murders. Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com ©2017 LitCharts LLC www.LitCharts.com Page 36 The testimonies paint a picture of the house as being very difficult to get access to. The young woman’s chamber was locked from the inside, and the windows locked too. Everybody is confused, including the police. There does not seem to be a single piece of evidence of the murderer. The followup article reports another search, but no further evidence found, and one man called Le Bon arrested but without much reason. Dupin seems very interested in the process of the investigation and asks the narrator for his thoughts, but the narrator can add nothing. Download 0.58 Mb. Share with your friends:
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