Harrell 1 Drew Harrell Ms. Coumes English I May 1, 2013 A Series of Disastrous Events “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” by Edgar Allan Poe, is about a murder of two women, a mother and her daughter, daugh ter, with a weird twist at the end. The story is a great example of assumptions versus intellectual analysis of the facts that actually happened. In this short story the phrase from the cover of the town’s newspaper caught Monsieur Dupin’s attention, “Extraordinary Murders. This morning, about three o’clock, the inhabitants of the Quartier St. Roch were aroused from sleep by a succession of terrific shrieks.” The story is about the death of two women that has everyone wondering who committed the grotesque crime of killing Mad ame L’Espanaye and her daughter Mademoiselle Camille L’Espanaye. Through analysis and assumptions, the seemingly impossible murders were solves and figured out by Monsieur Dupin. The analysis versus assumptions, the thorough analysis of the clues of the murders, and the solving of the murder mystery are the topics. One theme of this story is to analyze the facts before making conclusions based on on assumptions. The officers in this story assumed the murders were based on theft when in reality the money was left in the apartment and had not been taken. They also assumed that the crime was done by a human, hu man, but the facts disproved their assumptions. Adolphe Le Bon states that on the day in question, about noon, he accompanied Madame L’Espanaye to her residence with four thousand francs in gold, put into two bags. The reason police thought it was a human that had done the murders was because the witnesses said, “The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman.
Harrell 1 Could make out several words but cannot remember all. Heard distinctly ‘Sacre’ and ‘mon Dieu’.” Based upon the actual facts, Dupin realized that it would take superhuman strength to stuff the daughter up the chimney head downward. The hair in the hand of the victim disproved the assumptions of the murder being done by a human. When he found the hair he said, “Dupin! I said, completely unnerved; this hair is most unusual, this is no human hair.” Monsieur Dupin discovers a broken nail in the window behind the bedstead, and the discovery of the orange ball of hair, that seemed to not be human hair, was found clutched in the victims hand. When he found the broken nail in the window, he realized the murderers had gone through this window to get into the apartment. When he found the broken nail, Dupin says, “There must be something wrong, I said, about the nail.” These clues were very important to solving the mystery. The final clues were the key to solving the mystery, the appearance of the grotesque wounds and the witnesses hearing a man say two words, “Sacre and “mon Dieu.” A specific example from the story is “This, I said, is the mark of no human hand.” Once all of the clues were discovered, the orangutan and his owner were proven guilty. This story is a great example of learning never to make assumptions before thorough analysis of the clues. As the mystery unfolds and the facts come to the surface, the characters learn the true culperates of the murders. The twists and turns of Poe’s plot in this story captures’ the reader’s imagination. A perfect example is, “If now, in addition to all these things, you have properly reflected upon the odd disorder of the chamber, we have gone so far as to combine the ideas of an agility astounding, a strong superhuman, a ferocity brutal, a butchery without motive, a grotesquerie in horror absolutely alien from humanity.” The ending of the story brings the orangutan and the owner to justice. All of the characters realize no human could have done such a terrible murder.
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