The Purloined Letter in Edgar Allan Poe Tales - Essay Example

? A critical analysis of any one material from the Autumn Term Reading Materials Pack. The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe Tales by Edgar A. Poe(Wiley & Putnam; London, 1846) pp200-218 Introduction Edgar Allan Poe’s The Purloined Letter represents Poe’s third short story in which detective Dupin is featured. Having scripted these short stories, Poe is said to have created the detective fiction genre. Certainly, The Purloined Letter is characteristic of the essential elements of the detective fiction genre. The short story contains the detective, his “sidekick”, law enforcement and the villain and the story is narrated in the first person.1 Each of these features are the essential elements of the detective fiction genre.2 However, The Purloined Letter is much more than a detective fiction. Poe takes a unique approach to the detective story and takes the reader from the end of the mystery to the beginning. By taking this approach, Poe presents an exercise in logical reasoning.3 Certainly, Poe’s The Purloined Letter has been the subject of considerable attention by literary critics, jurists and even psychoanalytical evaluation since its publication in 1845.4 Essentially, Poe masterfully interjects what is described as the “hermeneutic enterprise” by taking the meaning attached to a concealed item and revealing its meaning and significance.5 In this regard, the power of logic reasoning is explored and the struggle is therefore not between a criminal and law enforcement as is typical of detective fiction, but within the human mind. This paper will offer a critique of The Purloined Letter by first setting out the relevant historical factors and secondly, by presenting a synopsis of the text and commentary by critics on the text. I. Historical Background Commentary inserted under The Purloined Letter in a collection of Poe’s works titled Thirty-Two Stories, notes that there were more significant and drastic changes in Western countries during Poe’s lifetime than at any other “brief period in human history”.6 Technological advances in communications, transportation, photography and other technologies occurred and had an “impact within Poe’s short life”.7 The commentary further notes that: Industrialization and other aspects of modernized society tore apart traditional assumptions and altered the structure of families, the nature of work, and the “feel” of life itself.8 These changes brought with them a threat to conventions in which artist perceived that they had special authority and were knowledgeable. However, changes brought about by advances in technology significantly reduced the special power and knowledge attributed to artists. The artists were reduced to a creator of pure entertainment or beauty. In The Purloined Letter, Poe challenges these perceptions and promotes the wider significance of the artist. For instance the Prefect of Police may have a narrowly defined job, but the artist is not so narrowly defined. The systematic investigative techniques of the Perfect of Police fall short of the criteria necessary for finding the purloined letter.9 The fact is the Prefect of Police needs Dupin who is not only educated and experienced but also happens to be an artist: a poet. As the commentary notes: The Purloined Letter can be read as Poe’s version of that argument one sees in so many Romanic authors: the world needs “inspired” artists for their power and their wisdom.10 It is against this background that Poe’s The Purloined Letter is examined and critiqued. While Poe is said to have been defending the role of the artists in a rapidly changing world, it has also been suggested that Poe was demonstrating the flaws associated with humanity and institutions. An examination of the text will bear this out. II. Synopsis and Analysis of The Purloined Letter A. Synopsis The Purloined Letter centres around a letter that is presumably damaging although the contents of the letter are not revealed. The letter is presumably from a secret lover and was sent to the queen. Both the queen and the king are present when the letter is stolen by the minister who simply removes the letter and replaces it with another. The queen is aware of the substitute and theft of the letter, and the minister is also aware that the queen sees his malfeasance. However, the queen cannot call attention to the theft and substitution as the minister well knows because she would notify the king of the letter’s existence and she does not want him to know of the letter’s existence.11 The queen subsequently approaches the police chief and asks for his assistance in locating the letter. A search is conducted of the minister’s room and although the letter is in plain view, the search is unsuccessful. Dupin’s assistance is requested by the police chief and unlike the police chief’s failed search, Dupin does find the letter and before returning it to the queen substitutes it with another letter.12 B. Analysis Kennedy, who seeks to put The Purloined Letter in its historical context, suggests that The Purloined Letter cannot be read in isolation. In order to understand Poe’s message it is necessary to follow Dupin’s development as a character in the previous detective tales. The previous tales illustrate that Dupin is a former French aristocrat through which Poe offers commentary on the financial woes of artists and academics and the tenuous nature of truth in new technologically advanced world.13 In the first of these detective stories, Murders in the Rue Morgue, the audience learns of Dupin’s background. By the time Dupin appears in The Purloined Letter, his transformation is complete. His precarious position as an intellectual is unveiled as Dupin’s character and professional identity progresses throughout the tale. In the Murders in the Rue Morgue Dupin is not yet a full-fledged investigator and merely investigates the case for his own entertainment and to ensure that an innocent defendant escapes blame. In essence, Dupin is determined to uncover the truth rather than to acquire wealth.14 However, in The Purloined Letter, Dupin has moved away from his commitment to uncovering the truth as he had done in the previous two tales. He is more committed to the “cash value” of the purloined letter than anything else.15 Similarly, the reader is never informed of the truth via the contents of the letter which sits at the centre of The Purloined Letter. Kennedy puts the character development of Dupin into its proper perspective as follows: …the detective has been transformed from a free thinker into a hired intellectual, and like a prototypical data processor, he functions as a conduit for information that can bring him no enlightenment.16 Drawing on the commentary to The Purloined Letter discussed in the previous section, it is obvious that Poe is fixated on the implications for artists including writers in the new age of rapid technological advancement. Dupin, who was previously portrayed as a free thinker has been reduced to a mere unwitting role player in a technologically advanced world where science displaced creativity. Kennedy further suggests that The Purloined Letter also reflects the fact that during the time of publication, there was no copyright protection, which also rendered the truth more tenuous. As a result, once an author’s work was published its value was decreased significantly. Authors were therefore under pressure to conceal their work so as to increase its value and their “bargaining power”.17 Moreover, publishers insisted on original works as a means of increasing value and sales. The consequence was a decline in literary conventions and knowledge. However, in The Purloined Letter, according to Kennedy, Poe, “develops the tendencies of the capitalist publishing industry to a logical and perverse extreme.”18 The fact is, in The Purloined Letter, the stolen letter or the hidden truth only has authority and value if the contents of the letter continue to remain unveiled. If the contents of the letter are unveiled, the minister would not have the power or the threat of the power of blackmail. Moreover, law enforcement would not have an advantage with which to find favour with the queen and Dupin would not be in a position to bargain for an economic reward for the letter. As Kennedy explains: By the inner logic of both the tale and the emerging relations of production, information would lose all value the instant it became common knowledge. In the very extremity of its rationalism, the detective tale exposes the irrationality at the heart of the publishing industry.19 Chambers’ reading of The Purloined Letter differs from Kennedy’s. For Chambers, the stolen letter represents political power and he that possesses the letter also possesses political power. Moreover, the fact that the contents of the letter are unknown signifies that he who has the letter has the power to divulge those contents. It is that authority that confers upon the person with possession of the letter political power.20 Chambers is able to substantiate his interpretation of the letter by reference to the following excerpt from The Purloined Letter: The disclosure of the document to a third person, who shall be nameless, would bring in question the honor of a personage of most exalted station; and this fact gives the holder of the document an ascendancy over the illustrious personage whose honor and peace are so jeopardized.21 It therefore follows, that the power of the letter resides not in the revelation of its contents, but the possession of the letter and the secrecy surrounding its contents. In this way, he who possesses the letter also possesses the power to reveal its contents. With the contents of the letter revealed, “the power departs”.22 The minister’s power depends upon a unique juxtaposition “the robber’s knowledge of the loser’s knowledge of the robber.”23 In The Purloined Letter, the robber (the minister) is aware that the loser (the queen) saw him take the letter and substitute it with another. Chambers also argues that through narration and situation, Poe unveils the power and value of logic and more prominently, the “value of acumen”.24 Through narration, the Prefect is revealed as an unthinking agent of authority. For him poets are useless. However, through Dupin who is introduced behind a whirl of smoke, the power of concealment is unveiled while at the same time, the value of acumen is uncovered when Dupin uses his acumen to not only find the letter but to outwit the Minister who used the same methods to outwit the queen.25 Chambers explains Poe’s contrasting representations of the Prefect and Dupin as follows: The Prefect’s narration, it will be recalled, was an uncontrolled mass of details and particulars concerning a method of search that depends on the detailed and particular; Dupin’s argument is series of apparent divagations, covertly controlled by the notion of acumen and consequently requiring acumen in order to grasp their unstated ordering principle.26 Through this contrast, Poe demonstrates that real power resides with the ability to combine the art of concealment with the art of revelation. Dupin’s acumen and creativity permits him to master this combination. The Prefect on the other hand is a creature of authority and to some extent servitude. Arguably, Poe is defending the artist through his representation of Dupin and supplanting the perception of artist in the technologically driven society with his own perception of the value of the artist. Moreover, the Prefect can be seen as a representation of the mundane and functional, a role newly ascribed to the poet. In this regard, the Prefect can be seen as the individual condemned to regurgitate scientific data and as such is the product of a technologically driven society. Through Dupin, Poe essentially maintains that human creativity and acumen are far more productive and valuable than machines. The machine-like Prefect is unable to produce results in his search for the stolen letter. The creative and intellectual Dupin however, is successful. Schlag maintains that The Purloined Letter is capable of a variety of interpretations. He therefore turns attention to the functioning of reason. Schlag’s reading of The Purloined Letter focuses more on the power of reason than anything else. For Schlag, The Purloined Letter “is a cautionary tale about reason and the enchantment of reason.”27 The significance here, according to Schlag is the manner in which “professionals can become enchanted by their own disciplinary reason.”28 In The Purloined Letter, the police are the professionals who commit errors.29 However, as Schlag explains: Arguably, the very way in which the police go wrong is the way in which various academic disciplines go wrong. And for much the same reasons.30 Schlag argues that The Purloined Letter, like any detective fiction engages reason for the purpose of arriving at the truth and for solving the mystery of the stolen letter. The first order of business is the location of the letter. Although the police have conducted a meticulous search of the Minister’s premises, they are unable to locate the stolen letter. Dupin’s analysis informs that the police search methods are flawed although they appear on its surface to be entirely proper.31 The fact is, the police have fallen prey to what Schlag characterizes as the enchantment of reason. The enchantment of reason persuades and influences one to ignore fundamental common sense principles that are guided by emotion, experience, observation, research and other similar abstractions. Essentially, the individual who is enchanted by reason would attempt “to reason your way through everything.”32 However, the success of reasoning depends on the amalgamation of skills. As Dupin notes of the Minister: As poet and mathematician he would reason well; as mere mathematician he could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of the Prefect.33 The narrator’s response is reflective of Schlag’s contention that The Purloined Letter is a cautionary tale about “reason and the enchantment of reason.”34 The narrator expresses his surprise with Dupin’s comments and states that Dupin’s opinions “have been contradicted by the voice of the world”.35 The narrator goes on to state: You do not mean to set at naught the well-digested idea of centuries. The mathematical reason has long been regarded as the reason par excellence.36 In other words, mathematical reasoning is rigid and adheres to generalizations. This is the approach taken by the police and as such the Minister was able to predict just how the police would conduct a search and thereby ensure that they would not find the letter on his premises. It is the Minister’s poetic skill and law enforcement’s mathematical logic and reasoning that permits the Minister to conceal the letter. In addition to substantiating Schlag’s enchantment of reason theory, the Minister’s poetic creativity is also consistent with Lacan’s contention that The Purloined Letter points to the “poet’s superiority in the art of concealment”.37 This superiority is further underpinned by Dupin who ultimately reveals the fallacy of the police’s reasoning which is akin to rigid mathematical formulas which permit generalizations. Dupin thus says of the Prefect: The remote source of his defeat lies in the supposition that the Minister is a fool, because he has acquired the renown as a poet. All fools are poets; this the Prefect feels; and he is merely guilty of a non distribution medii in thence inferring that all poets are fools.38 Ultimately, the failure of authorities in The Purloined Letter comes from this kind of reasoning which is manifested by generalizations. There is no room for subjectivity. Smith explains that Dupin’s approach is different from the police in that Dupin does not follow a prescribed form. Dupin is not bound by a formal practice and is free to engage in “an intuitive approach”.39 As Dupin notes: Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometimes indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.40 According to Smith, Dupin’s approach to the mystery of the stolen letter is therefore aligned to Kantian philosophy. By being intuitive, Dupin is able to find solutions that are not available in universal methodology such as mathematics. In other words, Dupin much like Kantian theories of logic and reason is able to fill in the gaps that are left in universal truths.41 The result is a resolution as a result of logic and natural reasoning rather than the reasoning that produces “an axiomatic truth such as that to be found in mathematics”.42 In other words, law enforcement is tethered to rigid structures that are palpably flawed as there is no fixed formula for resolving mysteries. Discovery requires original reasoning. Each case must turn on its own specific facts and circumstances. A systematic approach will not always solve the mystery. This is where the police erred and Dupin succeeded. The latter took an original approach to the mystery and was not bound by a rigid investigative structure. He made no assumptions, and most certainly did not assume that the Minister was a fool. By taking this approach he was in a better position to ensure that the Minister could not anticipate how he might look for and retrieve the letter. Conclusion Poe’s The Purloined Letter is capable of various interpretations. As illustrated, critics have attempted to uncover historical and symbolic messages in the text. A common thread appears to run throughout the various evaluations of The Purloin Letter: Literature/the arts versus the sciences. Nevertheless, critics have used the struggle in different ways, to illustrate different points. Some argue the juxtaposition between literature and the sciences in an indirect way. For example, Schlag takes issue with reasoning, which is essentially revealed through Dupin who characterizes reasoning in terms of poetry and mathematics. Regardless, the text of The Purloin Letter itself is undeniably a commentary on the different approaches to problem solving and the acquisition of knowledge by the mathematically driven individual and the individual driven by poetry. Having regard to the rapid advances in technology at the time of publication, it is obvious that Poe felt the need to defend the inherent value of the arts. This is arguably accomplished by Dupin’s (the intellect) success and the Prefect’s (a mathematically driven individual) failure. Bibliography Amper, S. Bloom’s How to Write About Edgar Allan Poe. (Infobase Publishing, 1st Edition 2008). Chambers, R. Story and Situation: Narrative Seduction and the Power of Fiction. (University of Minnesota Press, 1st Edition 1984). DeShell, J. The Peculiarity of Literature: An Allegorical Approach to Poe’s Fiction. (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1st Edition 1997). Kennedy, J. A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe. (Oxford University Press, 1st Edition 2001). Lacan, J. and Mehlman, J. ‘Seminar on “The Purloined Letter”.’ (1972) 48 Yale French Studies, 39-72. Poe, E. The Purloined Letter in Edgar Allan Poe Tales (Wiley & Putnam, 1846) pp200-218. Poe, E. Thirty-Two Stories, (Hackett Publishing, 1st Edition 2000). Schlag, P. The Enchantment of Reason. (Duke University Press, 1st Edition 1998). Simon, S. Mail-Orders: The Fiction of Letters in Postmodern Culture. (SUNY Press 1st Edition 2003). Smith, A. Gothic Radicalism, (Palgrave MacMillan 1st Edition, 2000). Read More