Mackenzie E.

Chapman
ENGL 10600-R48
Brittany Biesiada
9/4/2014
The Murders in the Rue Morgue, written by Edgar Allen Poe, is a short detective story.
Poes writing is naturally dark, mysterious, and eventful which shows that this story fits his
writing style perfectly. The short story starts off with an un-named narrator who is relaying his
theory about how ingenious men can be analytic, using analysis rather than swayed opinions, and
the calculating man is always imaginative. Most people would think a calculating man would be
more analytic and pristine while the ingenious man would be creative and imaginative, but Poe
thinks differently. This narrator seems set apart, without a biased opinion, throughout the story.
In the story, a murder occurs and the characters in the story are trying to figure out who
committed the crime. C. Auguste Dupin investigates this murder and seems to always be onestep ahead of the policemen. He sees certain things that others cannot sees. Duplin thinks out-ofthe-box, rather than accusing the last person that had contact with the murdered woman. He
shows the police evidence through the window, which only opens from the inside that had a rod
sticking in it. This meant that the person who killed the woman could have escaped out the
window. He finally accuses a monkey, specifically an Orang-Outang, for the crime. This makes
the reader take a step back, and look strangely at the outcome. Having a monkey be the final
solution to a murder is not something people would automatically think of when they think of a
murder. Poe must have been trying to end his story with a comic relief, making the situation
seem as a joke. He held his readers throughout the entire story with deep description and

lingering thoughts, but begins to make them question the ending. In my opinion, Poe exaggerated
the ending too much and made it seem unrealistic.