Related Titles and Adaptations
William Legrand, the central character in “The Gold Bug,” shares some characteristics with Poe’s famous amateur sleuth, Auguste Dupin. Like Dupin, he alternates between gloomy melancholy and excited...
View ArticleIdeas and Topics for Papers
VII TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Look carefully at the opening pages of the story and discuss the nature of the “analytical” faculty. 2. Discuss the personalities of Dupin and his companion. How are they...
View ArticleSocial Sensitivity
Poe’s fiction is not concerned with social issues. He viewed true reality as a process of the mind, not a fact of physical existence; consequently, for Poe, the human mind rather than the social world...
View ArticleLiterary Qualities
Although Poe is credited with the creation of the detective story and the character type known as the amateur sleuth, obviously Auguste Dupin and his ratiocinative ability did not spring from nowhere....
View ArticleThemes and Characters
The central character, Auguste Dupin, is idiosyncratic, more than a little egocentric, and somewhat of a recluse. He is highly observant and an expert at creating chains of reasoning based on his...
View ArticleSetting
The story is set in the city of Paris, France, in the mid-nineteenth century. The particularly brutal murders of a woman and her daughter have stumped the police. A young man of noble birth but of...
View ArticleOverview
Poe gained great recognition in the early 1840s for his creation of a type of story that has grown in popularity ever since-the detective story, or tale of ratiocination, which features an amateur...
View ArticleAbout the Author
Edgar Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of indigent actors. At age three, when his parents died, Poe was taken in by John Allan, a merchant from Richmond, Virginia. He...
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