Dupin becomes the "individual as the creature of history" (187) and the orangutan represents the "terror of a history secularized and devoid of design" (187). This pot was to usher in a new genre of plots that looked at the universe in a new way. The detective story, as a result, "responds to a new era of world history" (187). The crimes against the women can also be seen as symbols from Poe's own past as he lived through the deaths of the women he loved the most. Tragedy, of course, must make its way into Poe's fiction but the grisly murders of thee two women could easily be representations of the death of Poe's mother and cousin.
Society was all the inspiration Poe needed. Terrance Whalen maintains that Poe's tales "arose from within the specific conditions of capitalist development which were then emerging in antebellum America" (Whalen 386). Poe's circumstances allowed him to write directly from his experiences with urban life, Whalen claims. This urban life was in an upheaval as "industrialization paralleled the rise of information as a dominant form of meaning" (389). "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" attempts to outwit the crisis of overproduction in the literary market by imagining the reverse situation -- a social crisis caused by a scarcity of information" (410). This technique is perfectly presented in the story. The narrator gives us most of the information we need to have the tale make sense. However, significant details are purposefully left out to make the reader conjure up some sort of explanation. The readers attempt to solve the mystery before the detective does. Poe's society was one of change. Society was changing, growing, and information...
However, we should also not forget in crediting him with the invention of the detective story. Poe was born with the uncanny ability to sense things unseen and to put into words the things that frighten and entertain us. If his stories were simply gruesome, they would have fallen by the wayside and been forgotten. As it is, Poe is more popular than ever and this is not because he was a rich or popular man while he was alive. Rather, he had his finger on the pulse of all this macabre. Dudley Hutcherson writes that Poe experienced a type of fame at home and abroad that no other American writer has since. "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a story of "marvelous skill: it was the first of its kind and to this day it remains a model, not only unsurpassed, but unapproachable" (Hutcherson 226). Poe's emphasis on
analysis is became a model for many detective stories because this style is one that works for both writer and reader. It is a form of
entertainment that takes segments of reality, gruesome or not, and weaves them into a story that must be figured out. The genius of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" lay in the mind of its creator, a man who understands that art represents life.
Works Cited
Jordan, Cynthia. "Poe's Re-Vision: The Recovery of the Second Story."
American Literature.
59.1. 1987. JSTOR Resource Database. http://www.jstor.org Information Retrieved
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Hutcherson, Dudley. "Poe's Reputation in England and America, 1850-1909." American
Literature. 14.3. 1942.
Frank, Lawrence. "The Murders in the Rue Morgue': Edgar Allan Poe's Evolutionary Reverie."
Nineteenth-Century Literature. 50.2. 1995. http://www.jstor.org Information Retrieved
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Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." The Complete Tales of Mystery and
Imagination. Minneapolis: Amaranth Press. 1984.
Whalen, Terence. "Edgar Allan Poe and the Horrid Laws of
Political Economy."
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