The Murders In The Rue Morgue By Edgar Allan Poe

What is analytical thinking? Analytical thinking is a skill or in which an individual has the ability to examine and break down facts and thoughts into both their weaknesses and strengths. It includes thinking in thoughtful, being clever with giving judgments, in order to solve problems, analyze data, and to use information. In the short story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” by Edgar Allan Poe, the author begins the story by comparing the analytical mind to the game of chess. Throughout the story, it is best understood that analytical ability wins over ingenuity because cleverness often becomes too unrealistic or over-imaginative which makes it hard to solve complex problems but analytical thinking provides you with the easier solution to
the problem even to the most complicated problem. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” starts with proportion to help the reader follow the reading through the use of analytical thinking like that of a chess player. The chess player has to wait and examine each move of the opponent player, while the card player more relies on their memory perception. There is a higher chance for a player to win the chess if the player has more analytical skills than his opponents. In addition, a player may improve their analytical skills just by keep playing chess because that is how much analytical skills involved in a game of chess. The story also states that “The analytical power should not be confounded with simple ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man often remarkably incapable of analysis….Between ingenuity and the analytic ability there exists a difference far greater, indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but of a character very strictly analogous. It will found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.” This quotes simple means that while analytical thinking always comes with cleverness, analytical thinking needs a lot more than cleverness because the clever person is incapable of analysis often. There is a big difference between cleverness and analytic ability, cleverness is always over imaginative and unrealistic but analytical ability solves both complex and complicated problems by making decisions by given the available information. Then, Poe introduces Dupin as a narrator and as a friend of Dupin, and explain his abilities and how he uses his abilities in detail. As the “Extraordinary Murders” begins, we as a reader may even try to solve the case with the help of testimonies given.
The narrator says that “Dupin seemed singularly interested in the progress of this affair---at least so I judged from his manner, for he made no comments.” In this statement, we can say that Dupin is already on the task of using his abilities but not on top the case. Yet, when there was a “announcement that Le Bon had been imprisoned, that he asked” his friend’s opinion regarding to the murders because the evening paper showed that the police have no way of solving the crime, but arrested Le Bon simply because he was the last individual to see the murdered alive although “nothing appeared to criminate him”. Dupin’s “peculiar analytical ability” begins to kick in as he begins to see that investigators and policies are no use in solving this crime. Dupin plans to examine the crime scene with him and they do get permission to examine. After examining, Dupin tells the narrator that he saw something strange and odd. He says that because the case is complex, it is actually easy to solve. Then Dupin explains fully systematically and in details of his analysis of the murders, the means of entrance and exit, and the ability that it would take to complete what had been done. One of this statements is that “replaced the nail and regarded it attentively. A person passing out through this window might have reclosed it, and the spring would have caught---but the nail
could not have been replaced. The conclusion was plain, and again narrowed in the field of my investigations. The assassins must have escaped through the other window.” Duplin makes a good thoughtful judgment, he uses the given information given to find another clue/information. Again, this is something the investigators or police was not able to figure out because they rely on their ingenuity more than analytical skills. One of my favorite part of the story is when Dupin says “The Ourang-Outang may have escaped from him.
He may have traced it to the chamber; but, under the agitating circumstances which ensued, he could never have re-captured it...I could not pretend to make them intelligible to the understanding of another. We will call them guesses then, speak of them as such. If the Frenchman in question is indeed, as I suppose, innocent of this atrocity, this advertisement which I left last night, upon your return home, at the office of ‘Le Monde,’ a paper devoted to the shipping interest...will bring him to our residence.” As a reader, I have hoped that Dupin is right and I trusted him. He made an excellent prediction with a use of his analytical skills and was very clever by making the announcement. We can see that his predictions are correct and we can also see that he uses emotions as his reasoning of
analysis. In conclusion, in the story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, the author Allan Poe gives us the theme throughout the story that cleverness itself is not enough to solve complex problems. Yet, the analytical mind always comes with cleverness, analytical thinking is way more than that. The clever person often forgets to apply, analyze the gathered information and analytical mind is able to reflect the observation, communication, and reasoning, as a guide to a action or belief. Dupin and investigator/police are both analytical and lever in a way but Dupin is capable of using his imagination to think outside given assumptions. Duplin’s observation, in a story, is not compatible because he uses emotions as evidence as for his reasoning rather than using his empathy which police and investigators lacked.