The Purloined Letter

As the protagonist of all three of Poe’s ratiocination stories, C. Auguste Dupin is the prototype of the literary amateur detective. His methods for crime solving are unconventional and often go above and beyond the capabilities of the police.

“The Purloined Letter” contains no physical description of Dupin. He is represented as an intelligent, pipe-smoking gentleman who spends most of his time in leisurely, intellectual conversations with his friend. Dupin considers himself both a poet and mathematician who disputes “the availability, and thus the value, of that reason which is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly logical” (18). He utilizes various analogies to explain his methods of investigation to the narrator, all of which give the reader direct insight into his way of thinking. The most significant is the story of the schoolboy who consistently triumphed at even and odd, which demonstrates how Dupin seeks to inhabit the mindset of his “opponent.”

Also important are Dupin’s motives for helping to solve the crime of the purloined letter. Essentially, the narrative proposes three specific things that motivate Dupin. The first is a monetary reward, as the prefect offers him 50,000 francs for the recovery of