The Murders in the Rue Morgue

Edgar Allan Poe’s detective literature may lead the reader to conclude that the author celebrated scientific pursuit above all else. However, the Dupin “tales of ratiocination” constitute an anomaly compared with many of his other famous works. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” clearly imposes the dominance of objectivity over subjectivity, which is a startling artistic departure from Poe’s Romantic works of poetry and Gothic horror. As a pioneer of the investigative genre, Poe personally stood at odds with his fictive hero’s mission toward ultimate rationality. Spotlighting this apparent contradiction between art and artist, readers discover another thematic device that Poe employs in this narrative: duality.

Owing to René Descartes, the French philosopher who defended the primacy of reason in the sciences, Poe figures his main character as the man who embodies the maxim “I think, therefore I am.” Dupin appears to think exceptionally; consequently, he is regarded as exceptional. The preface defines in a deconstructive way what it means to think. It offers two capacities: the analytic and the ingenious, or the rational and the creative. Further, it informs the reader that thinking with these capacities is not mutually inclusive. A person may possess one in the absence of the other and in differing measures.