An Analysis Of Poe's Dupin And The Power Of Detection

Edgar Allan Poe’s fictional detective C. Auguste Dupin is a complex character and one who often walks the line between lawful and criminal investigative practices. However shadowy and manipulative, Dupin’s prowess to frame a narrative and skills of detection are unmatched. In the article “Poe’s Dupin and the Power of Detection” Peter Thoms examines the narrative formula of detective fiction that Poe develops in the stories of Dupin and its connection to the audience. Thoms presents evidence of a criminal side exposing Dupin as a duplicitous character capable of acts that can be perceived as unbecoming, responsible for all manner of transgressions. Further Thoms explores Dupin as a reader and writer, answering if Poe’s detective fiction
That blurring of line between good and bad is apparent in Poe’s “Thou Art the Man.” In the tale the narrator in order to extract a confession from Mr. Goodfellow, “procures a stiff piece of whalebone, thrust it down the throat of the corpse [of the murdered Mr. Shuttleworthy], and deposited the latter in an old wine box… [so as soon as the lid was removed] the top would fly off and the body fly up” (Poe 224). He notes that after Mr. Goodfellow’s record “…was finally exhausted, he arose, staggered backwards from the table, and fell — dead” (Poe 224). Not only has the narrator transgressed upon the corpse by means of desecration but in the act of crudely acquiring a confession, killed the very man who committed the crime. There is also the manner in which he has horrified the other guest who rushed “for the doors and windows… and many of the most robust men in the room fainted outright through sheer horror” (Poe 223). It would seem that the narrator bears some if not all the responsibility of Mr. Goodfellow’s death and the psychological collateral damage of the guests brought on by the vulgar scene. Thoms is correct in his statement as it can be seen in works with and without Dupin that the clear waters that should separate intentions of good and evil are in fact quite
This in itself is a transgressive act toward his fictional audience and readers. Thoms points out that in this way Poe reveals that the “detective actually seems fond of manufacturing the very anxiety he is supposed to soothe” (143). It creates an air of victimization and Thoms in one example again turns to the sailor’s interrogation in “The Murders of the Rue Morgue.” After luring the sailor into his home and making him comfortable Dupin then stuns him by producing a gun and explains his “true intention of extracting information about the murders” (144). The sailor is so shocked he starts “trembling violently, and with the countenance of death itself” (Poe 177). Outside of Dupin the manufacturing of anxiety for the purpose of shock is also present in Poe’s “The Gold-Bug” where both Jupiter and the narrator are led to believe that the gold bug has made Mr. Legrand ill. Legrand keeps them in suspense until the end when it turns out he was just engrossed in solving the location of buried treasure. However the building of this tension is exciting and was most likely the effect Poe was