44 pages • 1 hour read
AviThe Man Who Was Poe
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1989A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1
Prologue Summary
In November 1848, 11-year-old Edmund Brimmer and his twin sister, whom he calls “Sis,” spend two days waiting for their Aunty Pru to return to their dingy rented room on Ann Street in Providence, Rhode Island. Hailing from London, England, the family has been in Providence for a month searching for the children’s mother.
Edmund and Sis are worried and hungry, but Edmund is reluctant to disobey Aunty’s orders to stay in the room. Sis, less concerned with Aunty’s rules, finally convinces him to run to the nearby saloon for food, and Edmund agrees under the condition that he lock her in to keep her safe. With their remaining five cents, Edmund can only afford to buy half a loaf of bread. As he runs back to the tenement, an old man, his face bundled in a scarf against the cold, stops him to ask for guidance. Torn between Sis and this stranger, Edmund decides the respectable thing to do is to help the elderly man. After spending the next 20 minutes walking the man to his destination, Edmund races back to his room. When he unlocks the door, Sis is gone.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Might I Know Your Name?”
That evening, Edgar Allan Poe, lacking ideas and in need of money, arrives in Providence by train. He intends to deliver a handwritten letter to 88 Benefit Street but instead agonizes over it and flees. He crashes into Edmund, who begins to sob. Edmund explains that Sis is missing, which shocks the stranger. Edmund recounts the day’s events, begging the man to help him. Poe asks Edmund to deliver his letter to Mrs. Helen Whitman at 88 Benefit Street, which he obediently does. Not knowing what she looks like, Edmund is unsure if the woman he gives the letter to is Helen. They observe a candle lit in an upstairs room of the house and assume Helen is reading it.
Intrigued by Edmund, Poe wonders if there is “a story to be made out of this boy’s circumstances” (17). Edmund agrees to let Poe sleep in his room, even though the author did not promise to help him yet. Poe finally introduces himself to Edmund as Mr. Auguste Dupin, a fictional detective from Poe’s short stories. Meanwhile, a servant from 88 Benefit Street rushes to deliver a note for Mr. Arnold at The Hotel American House announcing that Edgar Allan Poe is in town.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Beneath a Cold November Moon”
As Edmund and Dupin walk together toward the tenement in Fox Point, Dupin wonders if he can trust the boy. Edmund admits that he helped an old man before returning to the room, and the omission of this detail frustrates Dupin. He demands that Edmund take him to the docks, but Edmund, regretting Dupin’s help, tries to convince him that Aunty must have returned and that he no longer needs his assistance. Dupin reminds Edmund that “there is a difference between what happens and what we would like to have happened” (22) and urges him to the docks.
There, Dupin notices two men staring at something. Asa Throck, a member of the Providence Night Watch, and Mr. Fortnoy, a ship’s watchman, stare at the corpse of a woman Fortnoy spotted in the water. Throck explains that there will be an inquest to determine her cause of death the next morning, and if no one can identify or claim her, she will be buried in the pauper’s field. Upon noticing she looks related to Edmund, Dupin calls him over. Terrified, Edmund confirms it is his Aunty Pru, though she is wearing someone else’s dress (26). Dupin assures Edmund the men will “take care of her” and has Edmund lead them to his room.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Steps in the Night”
Certain that Sis must have returned, Edmund dreads telling her the news of Aunty’s death. Edmund is discouraged to find the tenement room still empty, and Dupin gives him money to buy some food and candles from the saloon. While Edmund runs off for supplies, Dupin writes down some notes emphasizing the “certainty” of death (29). Dupin drinks liquor to “quiet his emotional pain and dozes off before Edmund returns.
On his way to the saloon, Edmund senses he is being followed. He glimpses light hair, but the figure disappears. He momentarily thinks it might be Aunty’s ghost but reassures himself that ghosts are not real. He buys a meat pie and candles, and when he leaves, Throck explains to the barkeep that Edmund is a boy from England whose aunt drowned. Having followed Edmund and Dupin, Fortnoy enters the bar and confirms their whereabouts at the tenement. Fortnoy and Throck leave the saloon together, and the barkeep explains to others that Throck is trying to locate Mrs. G. Rachett, a woman from London, for a reward.
Back at the room, Edmund tries to rouse an inebriated Dupin without success. Although he doubts Dupin can help, Edmund imagines Aunty reassuring him that “adults can be trusted to take care of children” (34). Edmund has not been fully honest with Dupin about his family history, because Aunty called the truth about his stepfather “shameful”. Edmund falls asleep, and Dupin wakes to the sounds of footsteps in the hall. He imagines disturbing images and words on the ceilings and walls before falling asleep again. Someone in the hallway slips a piece of paper under the door of Edmund’s room.
Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 3 Analysis
The novel begins by establishing a setting that is gloomy and uninviting: the rundown tenement and the dismal winter weather immediately provide elements of the Gothic style. Traditionally, Gothic stories are often set in haunted castles, but the Providence tenement, with its locked doors and seemingly magical exit, provide an urban alternative. As Edmund points out, “Aunty was always saying things were dangerous” (6), and the howling wind, impenetrable fog, and depressing drizzle all heighten the sense of uncertainty, danger, and hopelessness. Several other key plot points and descriptions evoke a Gothic story: the missing women, the footsteps Dupin hears in the hall, and the motif of ghosts and supernatural hallucinations. When Dupin/Poe arrives, he appreciates the dreary atmosphere, thinking it would make the perfect setting for his own book. This is further evidence that the novel is an attempt to emulate Poe’s own work.
Although Edmund is initially characterized as “frail,” he proves to be a brave boy willing to face his fears head-on, which later stands in contrast to other adult characters he encounters. Even though Sis is his twin, Edmund feels an obligation to protect and provide for her, and his uncertainty of what to do makes him self-conscious about his masculinity and his age. Though he wishes he were “older and a real man” (6), Edmund will learn that adults do not always have the answers nor make the right choices. By helping the old man find his way—an attempt at moral redemption for leaving Sis alone—Edmund ironically allows Rachett to kidnap his sister.
When Poe first arrives, the author describes him as a nervous, fearful, unkempt man, with immediate allusions to his poverty and alcohol addiction. Many of the facts of this character’s back-story are based on true events and relationships from Edgar Allan Poe’s real life, though Avi presents his own interpretation of Poe’s personality in this fictional story. The author creates a version of Poe that is erratic, impulsive, and demanding of Edmund, and his unreliable help does little to outweigh his objectionable behavior. Though the letter sent to Hotel American House reveals to the reader that this is Edgar Allan Poe, he introduces himself as Auguste Dupin, a detective character from multiple mystery stories Poe wrote in the 1840s. Dupin is the protagonist of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” which is widely considered to be the first detective story in Western literature. Poe inhabits this character as he assumes the role of detective in Edmund’s life. He by no means adopts the role of a traditional hero; he is haunted by and fascinated with death, hallucinates morbid images, and is so preoccupied with writing a story that he has little concern for anything else. His unstable mental health, substance abuse, and obsession with his work embody the trope of the “tortured artist.”
The author offers several moments of foreshadowing in the early chapters of the books: one of the first details mentioned is that Sis is reading a book of fairytales; the story of Hansel and Gretel inspires her later when she is taken. When Dupin and Edmund encounter Aunty Pru’s corpse, Edmund insists that the dress she was wearing was not hers, a significant clue to solving the mystery later. While writing down notes for his story, Poe describes the sea as a “bringer of death” (29), which proves to be true in the final chapters of the book.
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