389. DSC 251/4th Sem- The Purloined Letter (1)
The Purloined Letter
Edgar Alan Poe was born in 1809 and died in 1849. He has been known for macabre and innovative stories of gothic horror. He was also a literary critic. His short stories can be read in one sitting and every word used serves a purpose. He called this the Unity of Effect and explored the paradoxes and mysteries of life in a unique, curious way.
This short story was first published in 1844 and republished in 1845. The story plays an important role in establishing the genre of detective story in American literature. Poe is often considered the first to start writing detective stories.
The word 'Purloined' means stolen. So the title means the stolen letter where the police and detective play the role to solve.
In the story, a young lady who is a royalist possessed a secret letter that could harm the image of a man. The name of the man has not been disclosed in the story. But it was a scandalous letter and could ruin the image of the man. As she was reading the letter, the man came in. She was unwilling to show the letter to the man. So she put it down on the table. Then came another character named Minister D who was clever and sinister. He found something fishy about the letter and quickly replaced the original one with a fake letter. After that, Minister D started blackmailing the young lady. Now, the young lady seeked help from Monsieur G who was a French police officer and he did everything to find this letter from Minister D. He visited Minister D's apartment and rummaged every corner of the room and even the Minister's body but failed to extract the letter. Soon he contacted a private, armchair detective named C. Auguste Dupin who was seated in the room with the story's narrator. The case was explained to Dupin by Monsieur G and Dupin suggested to research the letter in the Minister's apartment. The police officer agreed and spent another one month trying to find the letter but disappointingly he failed again. Returning to Dupin he announced a reward of fifty thousand francs if the letter is found. Dupin agreed and said that if the reward is given just then at that time, on the cheque, the letter would be handed over. Monsieur G was hesitant but signed the cheque and gave it. Dupin immediately handed over the purloined letter. On being asked how he extracted it, Dupin explained that Minister G was a clever man and the police lacked the psychology of a thief or the psychology of official personality and men in power. He also knew Minister G before hand, went to the latter's apartment, conversed on random affairs, with goggles on his eyes which Dupin used to scan the whole room. In this way, he identified a letter kept alongwith with a pack of cards, whose exterior was changed and so the police failed to identify it. Dupin left his snuff box deliberately in Minister G's apartment and the next day on the pretext of obtaining back his snuff box he went to acquire the letter. A fight outside the window, which was actually prefixed by Dupin to distract Minister G, really worked and made Minister G look at the matter outside. At that time, Dupin replaced the stolen letter with a fake one. When Monsieur G asked why Dupin did not pick up the letter at the first visit, he replied that in the past he was severely insulted by Minister G and so he was cautious this time. After that he has been also wanting to revenge Minister G by replacing the real letter in such a way.
Traditionally seen as a precursor to detective fiction this short story invited intense debate.French philosophers Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan were pivotal figures in this discourse. For Derrida, it was an ambiguous narrative with intricate meanings and linguistic depth. Lacan interpreted it psychoanalytically seeing the letter as a symbol of repressed desire.