Dupin Character in The Purloined Letter
Once in his course of his writing the first story of his detective stories, ‘The Murder in the Rue Morgue‘, he once commented that,
“But it is in matters beyond the limits of mere rule that the skill of the analyst is evinced. He makes, in silence, a host of observations and inferences.”
However, when the writer wrote the story the word ‘detective’ must not have been coined. His art of the characterization of C. Auguste Dupin was really considerable. The character of Dupin was first introduced with his analytical trick in his first story of the crime series. His first story in the series and his last appearance happened in the last story of the series. The theory of ratiocination is a path breaking theory of crime fiction for all other crime fictions. Even Arthur Conan Doyle followed the same theory in making the character of Sherlock Holmes. The world famous crime fictions irrespective of all other regional language the detectives follow Dupin to some extent. Actually Dupin through observation thinking mind and argumentation creates a certain atmosphere. Later in his writing as we see Arthur Conan Doyle observed minutely the framing of the mind of his detective in the same frame of Dupin.
Dupin is not actually a professional detective. He is an amateur one who belongs to a wealthy family. By some unwanted reasons he has been reduced to more humble situation. He lives in Paris with his close friend whose name is not disclosed here. He is the anonymous narrator of the story. He has played an anonymous role in the story. In three consecutive stories Dupin has played an amazing role of perfection. In the first story of the series he solves the case of the murders of the two characters, both mother and daughter. In his second story He investigates another murder of a lady in the cigar stall called Mary Rogers whose body has been found by the river side. Hudson river. In the last story the character Dupin appears in a rare situation and rare atmosphere where he shows that hoe he takes the revenge against the minister and solves the case. But in this three stories Dupin has used his special concentration and observation.
Dupin is the hero of the story. The story is not about the characters. In spite of having a tragic past of Dupin being out of his property we accept him to show his sense of cleverness. The major crime novel’s plots include one side having policemen and another side the murderer or criminal and in the middle, the detective, the most vital role connecting both sides of the case. However, in ‘The Purloined Letter‘ the police prefect visits to Dupin being failed to solve a simple case. He actually visits Dupin to seek his help in finding a letter of the queen.
The narrator of the story, an anonymous friend of Dupin listens all the details about the case after prompting questions and sentences largely from the narrator the perfect takes Dupin the total details. The letter was stolen from the queen by minister D, the well known politician or better be said an opponent. The letter was highly confidential and due to its suppressive, the queen and her attendants cannot try to seek the letter openly, they rather try to find out the minister’s house. The prefect was to tell about the case and his unable attempts to find out the letter.
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Dupin is about prefect’s method of screening. After listening the Prefect Dupin advises the prefect to visit once again to the minister’s home and search minutely. But here, as that the prefect was confused and went to the minister’s house. After one month when the prefect again fails he visits to Dupin. There Dupin offers the prefect that at the cost of the letter what he will give to Dupin. The prefect says that he will be gifted fifty thousands francs. Dupin then produces the letter before him. Thus it is the mastermind of Dupin that becomes able to find out the letter. During this one month, at the middle, his sketched out the letter visiting the hose of the minister. But the letter be offered for the queen was a false one. So establishes his intention to take revenge against the queen and the minister.
Moreover such a crafted handling of the character of Dupin in such a wonderful creation must be given applause. His work is to identify with the criminal and put himself in his mind by knowing everything the criminal nose. Mind reading of the criminals is the big achievement. Dupin was a Mastermind in that letter part, we can also see that how Sherlock Holmes projects his sharp minds to denote the criminals. However and whoever comes in after criminal fiction but Dupin will remain at the centre of all discussion. Every projected mind and association may be assessed critically in the mind of Dupin. Throughout the series of his stories single scope has never been found any set back about Dupin.
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