American Literature

A  detective  story  must  have  as  its  main  interest,  the  unraveling  of  a  mystery,  a  mystery  whose  elements  are  clearly  presented  to  the  reader  at  an  early  age  in  the  proceedings  and  whose  nature  is  such  as  to  arouse  curiosity,  a  curiosity  which  is  gratified  at  the  end.
     
Edgar  Allan  Poe  is  often  credited  with  being  the  first  author  to  have  developed  the  method  of  writing  defective  fiction  that  set  the  stone  rolling  for  subsequent  authors  of  this  genre  who  borrowed  heavily  from  Poes  work.  Tony  Hillerman  and  Rosemary  Herbert  in  their  book  -  The  Oxford  Book  of  American  Detective  Stories,  have  accorded  Edgar  A.  Poe,  the  status  of   Father  of  Detective  Fiction.
       
In  order  to  understand  the  emergence  of  this  genre  of  literary  writing,  a  brief  overview  of  the  events  that  led  to  the  birth  of  detective  fiction  must  be  delved  into.  With  the  establishment  of  police  and  law  enforcement  forces  around  the  world,  the  experiences  of  police  officers  working  on  criminal  investigation  cases began  to  be  written  about.  Although  the  word  detective  had  not  yet  come into  common  parlance,  the  memoirs  of  police  officers  surfaced  quite  often.  The  most  famous  among  these  were  the  memoirs  of  the  head  of  the  first  French  Police  Force  (the  Surete),  Eugene  Frances  Vidocq.  Published  in  a  series  of  four  volumes  during  1828-1829,  they  were  immensely  successful  and  despite  the  fact  that  the  works  supposedly  based  on  Vidocqs  personal  experiences  as  a  police  officer,  they  were  to  a  large  extent  fictitious.  Also,  although  the  volume  was  published  under  the  name  of  Vidocq,  it was  in  fact  ghostwritten.  Following  these  publications,  works  on  detective  fiction  formally  began  which  led  to  what  is  popularly  known  as  the  golden  age  of  detective  fiction.
     
By  that  time,  Edgar  Allan  Poe  had  already  published  his  main  works  of  detective  fiction  and  set  the  trend  for  a  generation  of  authors  who  followed  in  Poes  footsteps  to  contribute  extensively  to  the  literary  genre.  This  was  the  time  when  Agatha  Christies  published  her  famous  works  epitomized  in  her  characters  Miss  Marple  and  Hercule  Poirot.  A  wide  range  of  works  were  published  during  this  time  including  the  works  of  Nicholas  Blake,  John  Dickson,  Ngaio  Marsh  and  Margery  Allingham.  In  all these  works,  the  style  created  by  Poe  was  followed  in  varying  degrees.  The  now  celebrated  ingredients  of  a  detective  fiction  story  which  includes  an  enigmatic  and  brilliant  detective,  a  more  or  less  always-at-a-loss  police  force  and  the  occurrence  of  an  astounding  crime.  The  detective  was  most  often  accompanied  by  a  friend  who  also  chronicled  his  friends  work.  The  police  force  who  appear  almost  contemptuous  of  the  detective  initially,  are  ultimately  forced  to  acknowledge  the  superior  intelligence  of  the  detective  as  he  succeeds  in  unraveling  the  mystery.  The  authors  of  the  golden  age  of  detective  fiction  used  a  variety  of  backdrops  for  their  works.  Thus  while  the  traditional  English  settings  saw  their  characters  amidst  country  houses,  cruise  ships,  trains  and  the  quiet  English  villages,  some  other  authors,  such  as  Ngaio  Marsh  took  examples from  their  daily  lives  to  create  the  backdrops  for  their  works.  Marsh,  who  was  a  theatre  producer,  often  used  theater  as  the  setting  for  his  detective  mysteries.  Another  instance  is  that  of  Freeman  Wills  Crofts  who,  being  a  railway  engineer  himself,  used  it  as  a  backdrop  for  his  writings.  The  golden  age  of  detective  fiction  thus  continued  for  the  years  to  come  along  the  formulaic  lines  set  forth  by  Poe.
       
As  is  the  nature  of  human  progress,  or  rather  every  act  of  human  progress,  there  always  appears  a  counter  to  every  ser  standard  and  this  happened  with  the  genre of  detective  fiction  as  well.  The  form  of  writing  that  had  come  to  be  accepted  and  practiced  by  authors  ranging  from  Agatha  Christie   to  Arthur  Conan  Doyle  was  found  reversed  in  the  American  style  of  writing  the  emerged  soon  after.  The  American  style  of  writing  has  been  referred  to  as  the  Hard  Boiled  School  and  it  presented  a  wide  contrast  with  the  traditional  form  of  writing  detective  fiction.  While  on  the  one  hand  the  English  authors  claimed  their  ingenuity  through  their  incredible  mysteries  which  had  to  be  unfurled  through  brilliant  and  meticulous  modes  of  deduction,  the  American  authors  focused  more  on  the  glamour  and  sleaze  of  city  life  and  violence  and  underhandedness  that  goes  with  crimes  committed  by  physical  strength  rather  than  the  power  of  the  little  grey  cells.  Quite  naturally  enough  therefore,  the  readers  of  these  two distinct  schools  of  writing  were  also  divergent.  The  most  important  point  of  distinction  between the  two  forms  of  authorship  was  that  whereas  the  American  style  used  first  person  narrative,  that  is  the  detective  himself  was  the  narrator,  the  English  school  did  not.  The  suspense  that  was  kept  up  through  till  the  end  of  the  story  in  the  traditional  detective  fictions  was  therefore  lost  in  the  Hard  Boiled  School  because  the  readers  were  let  in  on  the  conclusions  of  the  detective  all  along  in  the  story.  Hence,  the  theoretical  progression  and  analytic  deductions  that  were  characteristic  of  traditional  detective  fiction  were  absent  from  the  writings  of  the  Hard  Boiled  School.  Two  best  known  examples  of  the  Hard  Boiled  School  fiction  are  the  Black  Mask  magazine  and  the  Yellowbacks.  Both  were  quite   successful  among  their  respective  readership.  The  yellowbacks,  so  called  because  of  the  distinctive  yellow  covers  of  the  books  followed  the  trend  set  by  the  Hard  Boiled  School  and  while  they  lacked  in  imaginative  and  analytic  content,  they  did  gain  some  commercial  success.  The  publications  were  dependent  on  little  more  than  hack  journalism  and  were  published  cheaply.  Recollections  of  a  Detective  Police  Officer,  written  in  1856  by  Waters  was  probably  the  most  important  among  the  yellowbacks.  Till  today,  both  schools  of  writing  detective  fiction  persist  with  the  yellowback  types  providing  for  quick  reads  while  the  traditional  detective  fictions  stimulate  the  mind  and  provide  an  intriguing  read.
       
During  the  next  few  decades  after  the  golden  age   of  detective  fiction  however,  an  attempt  was  made  to  revive  the  traditional  form  of  detective  fiction  writing.  This  attempt  was  first  made  by  Wilkie  Collins  in  his  work  -  The  Woman  in  White  which  remains  popular  to  this  day.  It was  followed  by  another  Wilkie  Collins  work  titled  The  Moonstone  in  1868.  Detective  fiction  continued  its  journey  through  the  works  of  Victor  Hugo  and  Charles  Dickens  in  Les  Miserables  and  The  Mystery  of  Edwin  Drood  respectively.  At  the  same  time  the  pulp  fiction  supplied  by  the  Hard  Boiled  School  also  continued  to  find  its  own  audience  with  the  most  famous  title  being  The  Mystery  of  Hansom  Cab  by  Fergus  Hume.   Publications  of  the  two  forms  of  mystery  stories  continued  in  more  or  less  the  same  way.
He  is  best  understood  in  contrast  but  not in  conflict  with  his  environment. His  great  achievement  needs  no  reflected  glory  from  the  mirror  of  an  America depicted  as  a  barren  waste  of  spiritual  vacancy.  (Quinn, 1998)
       
Monsieur  August  C. Dupin,  the  character  created  by  Poe  is  regarded  as  the  first  in  the  line  of  detectives  of  fiction.  Dupin  was  first  introduced  to  readers  in  1841  in  the  short  story  -  The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue  (1841).  Dupin  also  appeared  in  the  subsequent  works  of  detective  fiction  by  Poe  such  as  The  Mystery  of  Marie  Roget  (1842 )  and  The  Purloined  Letter  (1844).
       
The  character  of  Dupin  with  his  meticulous  attention  to  detail  and  ability  to  think  out  of  the  box  and  beyond  what  the  officers  of  the  police  force  could,  is  probably  based  on  the  story  The  Man  of  the  Crowd  by  Poe.  In  The  Man  of  the  Crowd,  Poe  examines  the  dichotomy  in   the  disposition  of  a  person  through  the  portrayal  of  two  characters.  The  Man  of  the  Crowd  begins  with  an  anonymous  narrator  who  after  having  suffered  an  illness  sits  in  a  London  caf  watching  the people  pass by.  As  the  narrator  observes  the  various  people  bustling  about  in  the  street  outside  the  caf,  he  tries  to  form  an  opinion  about  each  of  the  persons  by  reading  the  expression  on  their  faces,  by  their  habit  and  so  on.  While  doing  so,  the  narrators  attention  is  caught  by  one  particular  man  who  has  an  almost  idiosyncratic  expression  on  his  face  and  is  wearing  tattered  clothes  but  made  of  some  fine  textile.  The  narrator  finds  himself  intrigued  by  this  stranger  and  his  inscrutable  expression  which  he  is  unable  to  decipher.  Taken  up  by  this  stranger  whom  the  narrator  cannot  describe  like  the  others  on  the  street,  he  decides  to  follow  the  man  and  thus  begins  a  long  chase  through  the  narrow  streets  and  bazaars  of  a  poorer  section  of  London  back  into  the  heart  of  the  metropolis.  Contradiction  was  one  of  Poes  favorite  subjects. He writes humorously
If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
       
Poe,  with  subtle  dexterity,  hints  at  the  fact  that  the  man  he  was  following  may  represent  another  hidden  side  of  the  narrators  character  himself.  At  the  end  of  the  story,  the  narrator  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  stranger  with  the  idiosyncratic  expression  could  have  the  capability  to  perform  some  of  the  most  exquisite  crimes.  The  fact  that  the  stranger  represents  a  concealed  part  of  the  narrators  character  himself,  points  to  the  existence  of  contrasting  attributes  present  in  every  person,  with the  predominance  of  one  of  the attributes  determining  the  overall  character  of  a  person.  By  leaving  the  interpretation  of  the  man  being  followed  open  to  his  readers,  Poe  also  portrays  the  fact  that  the  same  thing  can  be  interpreted  differently  by  different  people.
       
These  two  lines  of  thought  eventually  found  their  expression  in  the  traditional  detective  fiction  requisites,  in  that  the  detectives  (for  example,  Dupin,  Poirot  and  even  Holmes)  often  tried  to  examine  the  scene  of  the  crime  and  the  crime  itself  from  the  perspective  of  the  criminal.   Getting  inside  the  mind  of  the  perpetrator  of  the  crime  was  a  tactic  used  by  the  detectives  to  ascertain  who  the  criminal  was  and  also  the  motive  for  the  criminal  act.  Secondly,  that  a  similar  occurrence  could  be  interpreted  in  divergent  ways  is  also  portrayed  by  Poe  and  other  authors  of  detective  fiction  by  showing  how  the  detectives  view  the  scene  of  the  crime  and  how  the  police  view  the  same.  While  the  police  often  take  things  at  face  value  and  characteristically  refuse  to  dig  deeper  and  overlook  vital  clues  and  information  relating  to  the  offense,  the  detectives  do  the  exact  opposite  and  are  thus  instrumental  in  solving  the  case  to  the  utter  bafflement  of  the  police  officers.
       
The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue,  first  introduce  Monsieur  August  Dupin  and  through  him,  the  readers  are  invited to  take  part  in  the  analysis  of  the  crime,  a  style  that  was  unique  to  the  traditional  school  of  detective  fiction.  The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue  also  for  the  first  time,  chooses  the  locked  room  as  its  backdrop,  therefore  making  the  story  all the  more  mysterious.  The  story,  which  is  narrated  by  Dupins  friend,  begins  by  the  narrators  amazement  with  his  friends  powers  of  deduction  and  analysis.  He  is  enthralled  by  Dupins  reflective  capabilities  and  his  sharp  powers  of  observation  which  surpass  that  of  most  men  in  their  ingenuity.  What  often  eludes  other  men,  is  never  lost  on  Dupin  and  this  capability  of  being  the  objective  observer  to  problems  is  what  separates  Dupin  from  the  standardized  thought  processes  that  the  police  forces  are  slaves  to.
       
The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue  begin  with  newspaper  articles  about  the  murders  of  Madame L Espanaye  and  her  daughter  Camille.  Both  women  are  killed  in  a  brutal  manner  that  is  concluded  by  Dupin  as  not  being  possible  by  a  human  being.  While  the  narrator  and  Dupin  follow  the  newspaper  updates  carefully,  the  arrest  of  Adolphe  le  Bon,  a  banker  whom  Dupin  knew,  inspires  him  to  personally  look  into  the  case.  The  facts  of  the  case  which  are  constructed  based  on  the  accounts  of  the  neighbors  of  the  two  women,  baffle  the police  and  the  murders  having  been  committed  in  a  room  that  was  locked  from  the  inside  serves  to  further  mystify  them.  The  neighbours  inform  that  they  heard  two  distinct  voices,  a  deep  masculine  one  and  an  unidentifiable  one.  While  the  daughters  body  is  found  stuffed  inside  the  chimney,  the  mothers  body  is  found  beaten  and  mangled  with  incredible  ferocity  with  her  throat  slashed  to  an  extent  which  hardly  joined  the  head  to  the  neck.  The  police  find  a  bloodied  razor,  that  was  used  to  slash  the  mothers  throat  and  are  stuck  at  a  dead  end  when  they  see  that  the  doors  and  windows  of  the  flat  were  fastened  from  the  inside.
     
It  is  at  this  juncture  that  Dupin  begins  his  own  investigation  and  the  reader  is  taken  through  an  engaging  journey  as  Dupin  derives  from  the  facts  of  the  case  that  the  murders  were  in  fact  committed  by  an  orang-otang  and  an  advertisement  about  the  lost  animal  in  a  newspaper  is  indeed  responded  to  by  the  owner  of  the  animal  who  upon  assurance   that  he  will  not  be  charged  with  the  murders,  reveals  that  it  was  his  orang-otang  that  had  escaped  with  a  razor  on  that  fateful  night,  climbed  up  the  lightning  rod  and  entered  the   flat  through  one  of  the  windows  which  had  a  screw  loose,  had  in  a  fit  of  rage  committed  the  acts  of  violence  upon  the  two  women  and  escaped  by  the  same  window.  The  owner  of  the  animal,  who  was  a  sailor,  had  followed  the  animal  and  that  is  how  he  knew  about  the  crime.  But  since  he  had  been  unable  to  climb  up  the  lightning  rod,  he  could  not  do  anything.  The  deep  masculine  voice  that  the  neighbors  heard  thus  belonged  to  the  sailor  and  the  unidentifiable  one  to  the  orang-otang.  The  solving  of  the  case  by  Dupin  was  not  welcomed  by  the  prefect  of  police  who  is  sarcastic and  ungrateful  in  acknowledging  Dupins  brilliance.
       
Both  The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue  and  The  Purloined  Letter  take  place  in  a  static  setting  with  The  Purloined  Letter  being  all the  more  inanimate  in  its  simplicity.  However,  the  prefect  of police,  in  The  Purloined  Letter,  calls  upon  Dupins  investigative  capabilities  himself  and  while  The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue  found  Dupin  refusing  any  compensation  for  his  efforts,   in  The  Purloined  Letter,  Dupin  solves  the  case  after  he  is  offered  a  reward.  The  story  of  The  Purloined  Letter  revolves  around  the  theft  of  an  important  letter  with  sensitive  content  from  the  rooms  of  a  lady.  The  police  in  The  Purloined  Letter,  know  who  the  thief  is,  but  due  to  lack  of  evidence  are  unable  to  charge  him.  They  search  his  apartments  but  to  no  avail.  Dupin  solves  the  case  by  delving  into  the  mind  of  the  thief  and  is  successful  in  retrieving  the  letter.  Dupin  reveals  that  stolen  objects  are  often  to  be  located  in  plain  sight  which  people  searching  for  the  object,  would  most  certainly  overlook.  Dupin  finds  the  letter  in  the  thiefs  rooms  and  replaces  it  with  a  fake  one  and  shows  once  again  that  the  fact  that  the  police  cannot  go  beyond  the  procedures  set  for  them,  is  precisely  the  obstacle  that  stands  in  the  way  of  their  solving  the  case.

Poes  play   with  human  nature  draws  the  attention  of  the  readers  by    pointing  to  the  fact  that  the  thief  and  Dupin  are  two  sides  of  the  same  coin,  rather  than  opposite  characters.
     
It  is  because  of  Dupins  ability  to  get  inside  the  mind  of  the  thief, that  enables  him  to  understand  the  workings  of  his  mind  and  thus  figure  out  the  location  of  the  stolen  letter.  Poe  does  this  by  his  analogy  of  the  story  of  Atreus  and  Thyestes  in  the  note  that  Dupin  leaves  for  the  thief  in  the  fake  letter  which  said  -  Un dessein si funeste, Sil nest digne dAtre, est digne de Thyeste.  (When  translated,  it  means  - If such a sinister design isnt worthy of  HYPERLINK httpen.wikipedia.orgwikiAtreus o Atreus Atreus, it is worthy of  HYPERLINK httpen.wikipedia.orgwikiThyestes o Thyestes Thyestes).  Both  the  thief  and  Dupin  have  an  equal  mind  but  Dupin  succeeds  in  duping  him  because  of  his  moral  strength.  Whereas  the  thief,  or  Minister  D  as  he  is  named,  is  unscrupulous,  Dupin  is  a  man  of  principles  and  therefore  it  is he  who  triumphs  in  the  end.
       
The  Mystery  of  Marie  Roget  is  a  little   distinct  from  both  The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue  and  The  Purloined  Letter  in  that  it  takes  place  outdoors  and  is  also  based  on  actual  events.  The  same  method  of  deductive  reasoning  is  once  again  applied  in  The  Mystery  of  Marie  Roget.  Whereas  the  real  events  on  which  the  story  was  based  was  never  brought  to  any  conclusion,  Poe  did  solve  the  case  in  his  story  through  the  powers  of  ratiocination  of  Dupin.
       
While  Poe  builds  his  plots  and  writes  his  stories,  he  also  enjoys  tugging  at  the  more  subtle  sensibilities  of  his  readers.  Thus,  the  audience  is  invited  by  Poe  to   participate  in  the  process of  solving  the  case  through  analysis  and  subsequent  deductions  and  they  are  inspired  to  think  beyond  the  immediate  facts  of  the  case.  This  form  of  writing  was  later  on  followed  by  many  authors  of  the  traditional  school  of  detective  fiction.  It  was  a standard  practice  of  Poe  to  contribute  puzzles  and  complex  problems  to  various  publishing  houses  as  well  as  newspapers  and  he  challenged  his  readers  to  come  up  with  solutions,  though  he  often  provided  the  solutions  himself.
     
While  Poes  writings  have  been  celebrated  and  his  genius  acknowledged,  he  has  also  been  criticized  from  certain  quarters.  For  instance, in  The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue,  the  perpetrator  of  the  crime  being  a  beast  rather  than  a  human  being  has  often   been  challenged  on  the  grounds  that  Poe  took  his  fascination  for  mysteries  a  little  too  far  and  thus  provided  his  readers  with  an  incredible  solution  rather  than  a  credible one.  The  Mystery  of  Marie  Roget  has  also  been  criticized  as  being  little  more  than  an  essay  which,  in  its  sole  focus  on  ratiocination,  lost  out   on  the  complexity  of  a  real  story.

Poes  contribution  to  the  creation  and  formulation  of  the  traditional  school  of   detective  fiction    can  hardly  be  denied.  The  most  lasting  impression  hat  Poe  leaves  in  the  minds  of  his  readers  is  much  more  than  merely  the  narration  of  a  gripping  story.  
   
He  leaves  his  readers  with  their  own  thoughts  about  the  characters  as  well  substance  of  the  stories  providing  an  amazing  amount  of  insight  into  the  workings  of  human  nature.  That  Poe  set  and  raised  the  standard  of  writing  mystery  stories  is  an  established  fact.  As  Poe  himself wrote

Experience  has  shown,  and  a  true  philosophy  will  always  show,  that  a  vast, perhaps  the  larger  portion  of  the  truth  arises  from  the  seemingly  irrelevant.