THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE

Prototype

What is a prototype? The first of its kind from which other

forms are developed or copied. Prototype

Copy

Background

“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”

Published in 1841 in Graham’s Magazine Poe is the only American writer to create a new form

of writing. “Father” of the detective story Created what he called “tales of ratiocination” (stories

of deduction, in which there is a mystery, and it is the job of the protagonist to look at all the evidence and reason his way to the answer).

What makes a good detective?

Poe’s Criteria

According to Poe, a good detective must have:

Powers of observation

Retentive Memory

Vivid imagination

Epigraph

Epigraphs are like little appetizers to the

great entrée of a story. They illuminate important aspects of the story, and they get us headed in the right direction.

There are two separate things going on in this epigraph:

The first is what it

says and the second is what it is.

“What songs the Syrens sang,Or what name Achilles assumedWhen he hid himself among women,

Although puzzling questions are not beyond all conjecture.”

-Sir Thomas Brown (Urn Burial)

“What songs the Syrens sang,”

Who knows what songs the Syrens

sang? No one who heard the syrens sing survived to describe it.

Achilles

Next up is Achilles. According to the story, Achilles’s mother, Thetis, heard a prophecy that her son was going to be killed at Troy, so to protect him, she dressed him up as a girl and hid him among the daughters of King Lycomedes.

We don’t know what Achilles might have been called while he was hiding from his fate.

So, the quote poses two questions that are a challenge to answer. But, the passage is saying, even if we can’t know we can still have fun guessing (conjecturing).

The epigraph is the focus: In this story, there will be something difficult, but not impossible to figure out.

The quote sets the stage (foreshadows).

Now let’s learn to think like a detective.