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Holly Jackson Literature Concentration Revised Independent Paper May 24, 2012 Defining the Detective: Edgar Allan Poes Textual Approach to the Figure of the Detective in the Dupin Mysteries Fictional detectives tend to have common traits, such as intelligence, observation skills, and wit, to name a few. While many people have their own idea about what traits a fictional detective must have, experts on Edgar Allan Poe and detective fiction have noted that Poe essentially created a new genre, detective fiction, with his Dupin mysteries. John Charles, Candace Clark, and Joanna Morrison, librarians at the Scottsdale Public Library in Arizona, assert that Poe created standard elements of detective fiction such as the locked room mystery and the use of a brilliant, eccentric detective who solves the crime through careful reasoning and examination of devices, which are traits that have been noted before by scholars studying the Dupin mysteries and have been used by later writers. Despite common attributes like brilliant and eccentric, critics have not yet defined the skill set of a fictional detective and what accounts for his success in solving cases. Dupin is able to solve mysteries by establishing connections between published and unpublished texts, discovering and exposing facts in these texts that are necessary for solving the case. In fact, Dupin often reads between the lines, connecting both what is said and what is left unsaid about a case to determine who really committed a crime. In the Dupin mysteries, Poes fictional detective grows as a character by developing a system for conducting investigations that involves critically reading and analyzing both public and private texts, including conventional ones like newspapers and letters, and out-of-the-ordinary ones like bodies and locations, to ascertain who the criminal is in his cases. What is not often discussed with the Dupin mysteries is the fact that C. Auguste Dupin examines two different kinds of texts public, published texts and private, unpublished texts. The public and

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published texts include newspaper articles and books, which are easily available for Dupin to peruse and analyze, like in The Murders in the Rue Morgue and the Mystery of Marie Roget. On the other hand, more private, unpublished texts also have a part in Dupin working to solve his cases, such as a letter hidden in a study in The Purloined Letter and the bodies and homes that he analyzes in The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter. All three tales include both types of texts, but The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Mystery of Marie Roget focus more on public, published witness accounts and evidence, while The Purloined Letter focuses on a more private, unpublis hed, hidden text. These texts correlate with Dupins methods throughout the tales, showing the growth and development of Dupins abilities as a detective. The more public texts he utilizes in solving a case, the more he works in his own private space at his own home. Likewise, when Dupin predominantly goes out in public searching for clues, the texts he utilizes is private, like bodies, show an inverse relationship between his detecting and the types of texts used to solve a case. This relationship serves to show the development of the fictional detectives methods, as Dupin continually grows as a character by continuing to use texts in different spaces. This connection of texts and detecting abilities, especially in terms of defining fictional detectives and their skill sets, has not been completely explored, though some scholars have looked into the types of evidence that Dupin uses. Richard Kopley, an associate professor of English at Penn State Dubois and head of the Division of English for Penn States Commonwealth College, expresses that Monsieur Dupin employs a methodology involving close attention to relevant evidenceincluding evidence seemingly outside the casewith particular concern for the unusual (deviations from the plan of the ordinary [2:548; see also 1:549n, 3:736-37]) and the too-evident (the excessively obvious [3:989-90]), and a willingness to identify with anothers point of view. (2) In terms of the evidence, the too-evident would be things like the public texts that Dupin utilize s, particularly newspapers. The unusual would include things like bodies, particularly the dead bodies in

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The Murders in the Rue Morgue and the live body of Minister D, Dupins arch-nemesis, which all serve as texts that Dupin analyzes to help solve a case. Reading into the details on the bodies and the behaviors expressed by Minister D, Dupin references their physical traits and behaviors like he does the details printed in the newspapers and more publicly read texts. This reading of various physical things, living or dead bodies, and even places is something that New Historicists have noted, like Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt in Practicing New Historicism. They assert that The notion of culture as text has a further major attraction: i t vastly expands the range of objects available to be read and interpreted. Specifically, they mention art works as examples, but also alternative objects of attention like minor literary works and texts that are seen as lacking the aesthetic polish, the self-conscious use of rhetorical figures, the aura of distance from the everyday world (9). In the Dupin mysteries, the use of bodies and texts can be read from a New Historicist approach, viewing the bodies, locations, newspapers, reports, and all other things that Dupin reads as a notion of culture. These things, whether or not they contain printed words, are still able to be read by Dupin, becoming a part of his methods for solving cases, as these can be critically read and analyzed to provide clues to what happened in the case. The Murders in the Rue Morgue, the first of C. Auguste Dupins mysteries, involves not only printed texts that assist Dupin, like newspapers, but also other objects that can be read as texts, like the bodies of the victims, Madame and Mademoiselle LEspanaye. These bodies are both public and private with people able to view them in public, yet not see the body in its entirety. Ronald Thomas, President of the University of Puget Sound, argues that Not only does he [Dupin] read those mutilated bodies like texts, he reads them first quite literally in the form of a text: in the newspaper accounts of the murders that detail the physicians official examination of the corpses. Poes detective stories constantly reiterate this analogy between reading the text before us and the detective work Dupin performs in solving the

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mysteryAs if they were the rare volumes he sought in the librarythese bodies become for Dupin texts that contain a vital truth. (45) This connection between the text before us, the readers, and Dupins detective work is important to the tales, showing the relationship between public and private texts in public and private spheres, where public texts are often read in private spaces and private texts are seen from more public areas. Readers can see the details of murders and crimes in public texts, just like detectives, but detectives can also find private texts, like bodies, in public spheres and use them as well as they attempt to read people and determine what their motives are, what theyve done, or what happened to them if they have been injured or killed. The bodies of the LEspanayes in The Murders in the Rue Morgue serve as examples of the relationships between detectives and texts. Bodies in general are both public and private, seen by many in a public sphere, and read and judged by the public based on appearances, yet private in what is not shown to the public. Dupin utilizes the dead bodies of the LEspanayes as public texts, reading what is known and deciphering what is left unsaid, but he also reads the bodies as texts, and as objects instead of subjects, seeing the whole body and not just what is presented to the public, as he has a chance to go to the Rue Morgue house and see the crime scene and bodies. Dupin specifically says to the narrator: You saw the locks in question as well as myself. Their roots (a hideous sight!) were clotted with fragments of the flesh of the scalp -- sure tokens of the prodigious power which had been exerted in uprooting perhaps half a million of hairs at a time. The throat of the old lady was not merely cut, but the head absolutely severed from the body: the instrument was a mere razor. I wish you also to look at the brutal ferocity of these deeds. Of the bruises upon the body of Madame L'Espanaye I do not speak. (402) Here, Dupin is reading the bodies again as objects, determining what happened to them, and seeing what happened firsthand, which is more than the public would see in the papers and important for Dupins understanding of the case. Here, in the private home of the LEsapanayes, the bodies serve as both

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public and private texts: private in that Dupin is one of few to see the details of what happened and public in that the bodies are described for everyone to read about in newspapers. Exploring these texts leads Dupin to what detectives need to solve a case: the truth. As Ronald Thomas said, As if they were the rare volumes he sought in the librarythese bodi es become for Dupin texts that contain a vital truth (45). The bodies and the other texts utilized by Dupin are what really help him solve a case. In The Murders in the Rue Morgue, after reading the newspaper accounts of the LEspanaye murders, Dupin remarks that Truth is not always a wellThe depth lies in the valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where she is found (Poe 384). Here, Dupin uses nature imagery to express that the answer to the mystery might be in a more obvious place, like a mountain-top, but the real depth of information is something that may not be as easy to spot like in a valley. This observation connects his detecting methods with the various texts, with the mountain-tops representing truths and evidence that are more visible since they are higher up and people can simply look up versus the valleys representing the depth of the investigation the texts and evidence that are not as easily read or found, like if someone were looking in a valley where there are more shadows and crevices. These place references are something that can be seen in multiple places in the Dupin mysteries, as he reads into the spaces around him, both in public and private. This idea of place connecting to the texts and evidence is something else that Dupin reads into, contributing to his detecting methods and also having bearing on what constitutes public or private. The texts that Dupin uses the papers, letters, bodies are only a part of his detecting method. What adds to these texts in helping him solve a case is the location where he is examining them and how those locations contribute to the case as well. For example, in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, the narrator remarks that Dupin, meanwhile, [was] examining the whole neighborhood, as well as the house, with a minuteness of attention for which I could see no possible object (Poe 388). Here, Dupin is observing the house on Rue Morgue, looking for clues and reading it closely, much like he does the papers and the bodies when he goes inside. The home is a more private dwelling since it is not open for the public to

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access, though it becomes more public once the murders occur as people must go in and out of the house examining everything and moving the bodies. Dupin reflects that, The police have laid bare the floors, the ceiling, and the masonry of the walls, in every direction. No secret issues could have escaped their vigilance. But, not trusting to their eyes, I examined with my own. There were, then, no secret issues, indicating that although more people were in the house, it was still private to some degree, and only he, Dupin, could find certain clues as he looked over everything, reading the walls, floors, ceiling, and other parts of the house for clues (Poe 392). The location adds to the detectives methods as he works from both private abodes and public settings, but it also serves as a text of its own. Analyzing newspaper accounts again in the next tale, The Mystery of Marie Roget, Dupin this time attempts to solves the case of the presumed murder of Marie Roget, reading through what is published and taking pieces of each article to put together the truth of what happened with Rogets disappearance. This tale, more than The Murders in the Rue Morgue or The Purloined Letter, deals almost entirely with textual analysis. The narrator of the tale procured at the Prefecture, a full report of all the evidence elicited, and, at the various newspaper offices, a copy of every paper in which, from first to last, had been published any decisive information in regard to the Marie Roget case, which then accounted for the majority of sources that Dupin analyzed (Poe 463). Dupin spends the second half of The Mystery of Marie Roget critically analyzing each papers account of wha t happened, piecing together what really happened and what was true in the tale. LeRoy Lad Panek emphasizes that the late 19th century was the Golden Age of Journalism in America, a time where Edgar Allan Poe and his detective Dupin would have had access to multiple newspapers and multiple printed accounts of crimes (111). Panek, a professor of English at McDaniel College, explains that Turn of the century papers began to focus readers attention on crime both as an individual and aggregate phenomenon: m ajor papers covered individual cases of crime not only in their own cities, but from places elsewhere in the country as well as abroad (113). In The Mystery of Marie Roget, Dupin not only references multiple

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newspapers accounts of what supposedly happened to Marie Roget, he also judged each papers reliability by comparing them. For example, Dupin reflects that, 'With the public the arguments of L'Etoile have had weight; and that the journal itself is convinced of their importance would appear from the manner in which it commences one of its essays upon the subject -- "Several of the morning papers of the day," it says, "speak of the conclusive article in Monday's Etoile." To me, this article appears conclusive of little beyond the zeal of its inditer. We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation -- to make a point -- than to further the cause of truth. (423) Here, Dupin again points to the idea of discovering the truth that he indicated does not simply reside in a well in The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Instead of simply taking the newspapers at face value, he sorts through their accounts, looking beyond the sensation that they attempt to cause and their fascination with macabre events to read into what really happened, using the details as empirical evidence. Not only could Dupin easily obtain multiple newspapers, one of the most common reading sources in the nineteenth century, he could also sort through them, critically analyzing the contents of the stories relevant to his cases to aid him in solving exactly what happened. The case itself is based on a real murder that Poe read about and the newspaper accounts of what happened that are present in the tale are representative of actual newspaper accounts published about Mary Rogers, the girl whose case Poe wrote about in The Mystery of Marie Roget. William Kurtz Wimsatt, Jr., a professor of English at Yale, asserts that One of the topics most often discussed by critics of Poe has been his exceptional power of analysis or abstract reason, something that was true seventy years ago, yet has not completely been explored in terms of his definition of a detective (230). With this understanding, it makes sense that Poes detective Dupin also has exceptional powers of analysis, especially when it comes to various texts.

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The Purloined Letter offers a different consideration as Dupin works to find a missing letter, a more personal artifact and private text than the newspaper articles he has worked with in The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Mystery of Marie Roget. It is implied that the letter is connected to a royal figure when it is said that The document in question a letter, to be frank had been received by the personage robbed while alone in the royal boudoir (Poe 604). This is an interesting consideration because the letter being found in a royal bedroom implies, at the least, some sort of a secret, but what exactly was written in the contents of the letter is never revealed. In terms of Dupins detecting, however, the significance of the letter is that unlike his previous cases, in The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Mystery of Marie Roget, the letter is not a public text; it is not published for a more widespread audience or even for Dupin himself. While the letter in The Purloined Letter is a part of a plot to make it more public and widely known, Dupin prevents this by switching the real letter with one that he has written. In the first two Dupin mysteries, public texts were referenced while Dupin was mostly at home in his private quarters, showing an interesting relationship between the detective, where he works, and what texts he utilizes in solving a case. Instead of being in public with the public texts, he works with them in private. Here, in The Purloined Letter, readers see a different approach from Dupin: a detective actually going out into the public to find a private text that has been disguised. What makes this text more special and requires a variance from the detectives more usual approach is something worth considering in terms of the use of texts by a detective. Lawrence Frank believes that It is possibleto argue that the detective story , not unlike the novel, appeared at a moment of social and intellectual crisis that it both recognized and defined (30). Frank, an English professor at the University of Oklahoma, raises an interesting point here in terms of understanding a potential reason for Dupins deviation from his usual detecting methods. While the murders of the LEspanayes and Marie Roget are important to Dupin in his need to solve them, they were simply murders, albeit ones with abnormal details. In The Purloined Letter, Dupin is dealing with a royal letter, potentially indicating a scandal, which would deal with a social

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and intellectual crisis. If the letter was shared and Dupin could not have prevented it, it would have caused quite a social stir and could have had a larger impact depending on what it says, making the case a more public crime since there are public implications though the letter itself is private. Another private text consideration in The Purloined Letter, besides the letter, is Dupins reading of his foe, Minister D. Like the way Dupin reads the dead bodies in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Dupin reads into his opponents behaviors, analyzing where he could have hidden the letter in his home. A key example of this is when Dupin is explaining to the narrator why the Prefect could not find the letter: I knew him [Minister D], however, as both mathematician and poet I knew him as a courtier, too, and as a bold intriguant. Such a man, I considered, could not fall to be aware of the ordinary policial modes of action. He could not have failed to anticipate --and events have proved that he did not fail to anticipate --the waylayings to which he was subjected. He must have foreseen, I reflected, the secret investigations of his premises. His frequent absences from home at night, which were hailed by the Prefect as certain aids to his success, I regarded only as ruses. (Poe 613) Here, Dupin reads into his opponents behaviors and used those readings to help solve the case looking for the letter in ordinary places instead of nooks and crannies because Minister D expected the police and investigators to search for the private letter in a more private space and not the more noticeable, out-in-the-open space on his desk where Dupin discovers the letter. Reading into both Minister Ds body and his house, the location of the letter, shows the mix of public and private texts that Dupin utilizes in his detecting methods in the tale. This is different from the Rue Morgue bodies because Minister D is still living, making him a subject instead of an object and also more public because he cant be examined as closely. This adds to why Dupin must go into Minister Ds private home to find what he has hidden, showing that perhaps a detective must work in a more private space to find what is not in public and a more public space to find what they cannot see in private.

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Each of the tales offers their own look into Dupins word and methods, but looking at them together as a series of Dupin stories also adds to readers understanding of what is occurring in the texts as far as Dupins character growth. Patrick Ffrench, a professor and head of the Department of French Language and Literature at Kings College in London, argues that the Dupin mysteries are a trilogy and that they are Meant to be understood together, for if Dupin solves the Rue Morgue mystery by recognizing that the solution to such an extraordinary murder must lie in an extraordinary meanshe finds the Purloined Letter through the opposite ruse: the recognition that the mystery is too plain for the police to solve, that the letter is not hidden, but disguised as itself, in its everyday use. (228) More than simply being extraordinary or plain, these detecting methods show a shift from private detection through public texts (newspapers) to a more public detection looking through private details, searching for extraordinary occurrences and missing information to a detective going out into the public to find a private text that has been hidden and disguised. While each of the texts provides interesting insights into the skill set of a fictional detective on their own, considering them more like a single entity, a trilogy, allows readers to really see the detecting that Dupin has done. Throughout the entire trilogy, Dupin grows as a character and begins to develop his own system for conducting investigations. While his first two cases involved a lot of newspaper reading, his third case involves a completely different set of texts and scenario. As he grows as a character, his skills grow as a detective, taking him away from his own home and into other areas as he searches for clues to solve his case. Despite this change from the first two stories, he is still working with various texts, analyzing them and critically reading into the situation whether the texts are actually written texts or a different kind of text, like the bodies of the LEspanayes and Minister D or the locations Dupin is in, working to solve the case. The different types of texts and settings in the Dupin mysteries allows readers to observe some of the behaviors put into place to aid in defining the role and methods of a fictional detective. With the

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amount of various texts and places containing texts mentioned throughout all three tales, newspapers, letters, and crime reports to bodies (both living and dead) and various locations, to where they are housed, like in libraries, public areas, and private homes, it is obvious that reading various texts and having some amount of skill as a critical reader is crucial to being a detective. From the obscure library that Dupin first meets his narrator in, the locations that he reads into, the various newspapers that he references, and even his reading of bodies to all of the other newspapers and secondhand accounts, Dupin spends a lot of time with texts, poring over them to find the necessary details, or lack of details in a certain area, to help him solve the case. Peter Brooks, a professor at Princeton whose main bodies of research include narrative and narrative theory, as well as French and English nineteenth- and twentiethcentury novels, argues that The social need to identify, to police, and to classifymade the detective story the most characteristic invention of nineteenth-century literature (26). This argument that the social need to identify is what makes the character of a detective more prominent can be seen with Dupin in his reading habits, in the way that he analyzes the newspapers, bodies, and other accounts of a case to find out the identity of a criminal. The analytical nature of solving a crime via text also requires a fictional detective to be logical because they must be able to sort through the information theyve read to determine whats reliable and what is correct. Having sound judgment when analyzing texts makes it easier for a fictional detective to solve a case. Michael Holquist, a professor of Comparative Literature Emeritus at Yale University emphasizes that The detective, the instrument of pure logic, [is] able to triumph because h e alone in a world of credulous men, holds to the scholastic principle of adequatio rei et intellectus, the adequation of mind to things, the belief that the mind, given enough time, can understand everything (141). Essentially, Dupin, as a detective, represents a more logical figure of the story compared to other characters, like the journalists whose news stories he reads and the police investigators, as he searches for details to help him unravel mysteries. This adequation of mind to things connects D upin to the texts that he reads, the physical things that his mind is analyzing. In the Dupin mysteries, this can

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especially be seen in The Mystery of Marie Roget where Dupin sorts through multiple newspapers, judging their reliability and usefulness and then solving the case from the information that he has deemed useful and reliable that he has read from the texts, whether facts and stories from the newspapers, evidence from bodies, or clues at the locations of the crimes that require a closer reading than other inspectors have done. The idea of a fictional detective being a logical, analytical reader has also led to some interesting remarks on what drives the detective. Andrea Goulet, an associate professor of Romance Languages and Undergraduate Chair of Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, claims that the detective genre is a bloodless fiction (50), which leads to her argument that detective fiction converts blood-lust to book-lust, which also exposes the blood-lust in book-lust (51). Blood-lust is converted to book-lust as Dupin and his readers read the texts to see the blood more than they ever see actual bodies. While Dupin does have the opportunity to see the bodies in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, he relies on newspaper articles as well to show him what others accounts of the scene were to get a fuller view of what happened, showing that he must have both public and private texts to more completely see what has happened in a case. Readers can see the murders through their descriptions in the text, learning what happened right along with the detective. They follow along with Dupin, seeing the texts and his thought process as he works to solve the case, which leads to them possibly obtaining more texts, like the rest of the Dupin mysteries, and continuing this book-lust that Goulet discusses. This book-lust is evident with Dupin, who continues reading with voracity, especially in his second case, The Mystery of Marie Roget, which almost solely relies on newspaper ac counts. This book-lust, combined with an analytical and logical of a fictional detective, leads to more successful detecting methods. Along with being able to read texts (including people and places), a detective can also be seen as calculating likelihoods to solve a case as he judges what the likelihoods of certain outcomes are based on what he interprets as he reads various texts. Some examples of this are whether or not Marie Roget

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was attacked by a gang or single person, something that the papers mention as a possibility, or where Minister D hid the letter, which is something the other investigators could not figure out. Richard Kopley examines Dupins methods, expressing that by Using a mixture of common sense, scientific information, a broad (and close) reading of newspapers, and identification with others thinking, Dupin works to solve the mystery. With this knowledge and approximation of knowledge, he calculates likelihoods (16). In The Murders in the Rue Morgue, the way Dupin calculates likel ihoods can be seen from the very beginning of the tale where he begins his discussion of analytical discourse before going into an actual case. After reflecting on a chess match, Dupin says, The analytical power should not be confounded with simple ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis, showing that being able to analyze situations, and in Dupins case, being able to analyze texts to solve a case, shows ingenuity and analytic al power (Poe 376). The Mystery of Marie Roget and The Purloined Letter also show signs of this as Dupin sorts through news stories, choosing the most relevant information for his methods in Marie Roget, while in his private space at home, and also works to calculate where Minister D hid the stolen letter in The Purloined Letter, actually being in public, analyzing the Ministers behaviors to determine possibilities for where he hid the letter. This calculation would not work in solving a case in the stories without the detective sorting through texts, utilizing the information as he formulates his calculations for the likelihoods of what happened, like what exactly happened in the room at Rue Morgue where an orangutan attacked the two women or what really happened to Marie Roget when she disappeared or even where the letter was hidden by Minister D. All of these things the settings, the personality traits, the plot-solving texts point to the detective being a skilled critical analyst whose passion for reading makes him more successful with solving the cases he has taken on. Dupins ability to read into various texts, whether they are printed, people, or places, aids him in building his methods for solving cases throughout the three Dupin mysteries. While some may question his methods, as he often reads to solve the case instead of simply

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going out into the field to conduct an investigation, moments like his discovery of the stolen letter in The Purloined Letter show his genius. In this tale, Dupin asks, Do you not see he [Minister D] has taken it for granted that all men proceed to conceal a letterin some out-of-the-way hole or corner? And do you not see that such recherchs nooks for concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions, and would be adopted only be ordinary intellects? (Poe 610). Here, Dupin displays his intelligence, though he is bragging about it, as he determines that Minister D is more of his intellectual match than the other criminals he investigated in previous cases and, therefore, it would take more thought to figure out where he hid the letter, which ended up being in a rather obvious place. Like in The Purloined Letter, where Dupin found the letter through analyzing the situation, he solves the murders of Marie Roget, as well as Madame and Mademoiselle LEspanaye by analyzing the texts describing the murders, witness statements, and investigations. Many other people read those same newspaper articles, but it is Dupin, with his excellent observation and analytical skills, who was able to determine what really happened through the printed stories, the public reports of what happened. Likewise, it is Dupin, the detective, who is able to figure out what happened to the letter, though to prevent others from reading it. Combined with the locations of where Dupin solves the crime, whether he is out in public analyzing the private details of a body or place, or trying to find a private letter, or in private reading through newspapers and secondhand public accounts of crimes to piece together the truth of what happened and calculating the likelihood of each possible occurrence, Dupins ability to critically analyze a text help him to decipher what happened in the case, which is key to the Dupin mysteries. Through the first two Dupin mysteries, C. Auguste Dupin relied predominantly upon public texts, while he was in his own private space. This contrasts with going out into the public to conduct his investigation with the public texts. Instead of working with public texts in a public setting or private texts in a private setting, Dupin tends to work with the public texts in private and private texts in a more public setting, like the bodies of people in a room with other people where other investigators have

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been. While he does go out into public during the LEspanaye murders to see the bodies in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, the bodies, arguably public since they are being inspected by multiple people, are also in a private space since it is normally a place where only the person who resides there would be. While some may consider the bodies to be private due to the fact that not every part can be seen, this does not detract from the fact that there is an inverse relationship of sorts between a text and where the text is analyzed. As the tales progress, Dupin eventually ends up in the public sphere, searching for a more private text a noticeable change from the first two tales, and he analyzes Minister D, his rival, and Minster Ds home to find the letter, going where others have already searched to find the hidden letter. This shows the development of the detective throughout the tales, highlighting a transition in detecting methods that allows the detective to easily work with both public and private texts, newspapers and letters, places and bodies, utilizing his logical, analytical, and observational skills to solve a case. In the 168 years since the last Dupin mystery tale was published, many authors, like Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, have taken the model that Poe presented of a fictional detective and made it their own, yet the original idea of a fictional detective as a man able to sift through public and private materials and texts to determine the missing details and culprit of a case because of his excellent critical reading and analysis skills has remained. While scholars have analyzed Poes analytical skills and some of the traits of his detective Dupin, there has yet to be a comprehensive definition of what really makes Dupin a successful fictional detective what defines him. Analyzing the three Dupin mysteries, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget, and The Purloined Letter shows Dupins analytical and critical reading skills as he references both public /published and private/unpublished documents, which he uses to create his own method of detection. These all help him catch thieves and killers, proving his success as a detective and revealing a text-based method of solving mysteries that is different from simply going out into the public to search for clues like other investigators it involves him reading into everything, including the dead bodies and crime locations,

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showing his growth as a character to utilize both public and private, conventional and unconventional texts to solve a case.

Jackson 17 Works Cited Charles, John, Candace Clark, and Joanna Morrison. The Mystery Readers Advisory: The Librarians Clues to Murder and Mayhem. Chicago: ALA, 2002. Print. Frank, Lawrence. Victorian Detective Fiction and the Nature of Evidence. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003. Print. ffrench, Patrick. Open Letter to Detectives and Psychoanalysts: Analysis and Reading. The Art of Detective Fiction. Eds. Warren Chernaik, Martin Swales, and Robert Vilain. New York: St. Martins, 2000. Print. 222-232. Gallagher, Catherine and Stephen Greenblatt. Practicing New Historicism. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2001. Print. Goulet, Andrea. Curiositys Killer Instinct: Bibliophilia and the Myth of the Rational Detective. Yale French Studies 108 (2005): 48-59. JSTOR. Web. 10 October 2011. Holquist, Michael. Whodunit and Other Questions: Metaphysical Detective Stories in Post-War Fiction. New Literary History 3 (1971): 135-156. JSTOR. Web. 10 October 2011. Kopley, Richard. Edgar Allan Poe and the Dupin Mysteries. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. Print. Panek, LeRoy Lad. The Origins of the American Detective Story. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006. Print. Poe, Edgar Allan. The Murders in the Rue Morgue. 1841. Edgar Allan Poe Complete and Unabridged Fiction and Poetry. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2006. 373-99. Print. ---. The Mystery of Marie Rogt. 1842, Edgar Allan Poe Complete and Unabridged Fiction and Poetry. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2006. 459-97. Print. ---. The Purloined Letter. 1844. Edgar Allan Poe Complete and Unabridged Fiction and Poetry. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2006. 602-16. Print.

Jackson 18 Thomas, Ronald R. Detective Fiction and the Rise of Forensic Science. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print. Wimsatt, William Kurtz. Poe and the Mystery of Mary Rogers. PMLA 56.1 (1941). JSTOR. Web. 1 April 2012.