The Purloined Letter

On the surface, “The Purloined Letter” is a perfect example of detective fiction. There is one main character, C. Auguste Dupin, and one major conflict that needs solving: locating and recovering a letter stolen from the queen. However, unlike conventional detective fiction, the crime and suspect are known from the beginning of the story. The plot also relies heavily on intellect rather than action, though this emphasis on the deductive process—what Dupin calls ratiocination—would also feature heavily in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories.

The story consists of two parts: the narration and resolution of the crime, and Dupin’s explanation of his methods (and, arguably, his motive) for solving the crime. These events take place in Paris over the course of one month, with both halves of the narrative occurring in the evening at the home of C. Auguste Dupin, where he and the narrator are smoking pipes. The two “action” scenes both occur in the first part of the story and serve as an example of repetition. The first, narrated by Monsieur G——, describes how Minister D—— stole the letter from the queen’s boudoir by replacing it with a letter of similar appearance. The second, narrated by Dupin, describes how he recovered the letter from the minister’s residence, again by replacing it with a similar letter. The second part of the narrative also mirrors the first in their setting (Dupin’s home) and cast of characters (the prefect visits Dupin and the narrator on both occasions).

Although the narration is in the first person, the primary role of the unnamed narrator is to act as a narratee, or the one to whom the story is told: Monsieur G—— and Dupin recount all the action in the story to the narrator. However, the narrator does play a significant role in what information he chooses to transmit, or omit, to the reader. For example, the only character whose name he relays completely is C. Auguste Dupin; the narrator refers to other characters either by the first letter of their name or by a somewhat vague description, such as the “exalted” woman in the “royal boudoir” who the reader infers to be the queen. Moreover, the narrator records Dupin and the prefect’s conversations almost entirely through direct quotation. It is only when the prefect provides an exact description of the letter that the narrator pulls back, telling the reader that the prefect “read aloud a minute account of the internal, and especially the external appearance of the missing document” (13). As a result, the reader never knows the contents of the letter or the exact physical appearance of it.

The reader’s ignorance is essential to the letter functioning as a symbol of The Nature and Exercise of Power. It also reinforces the concepts of presence and absence implicit in all language, and the deconstructive idea that all writing implies absence: All spoken language and words are representations of the things in which they refer to, assuming also that the subject being spoken about is absent, while writing is a physical representation of the spoken word. Furthermore, at the time a letter is written, the addressee is not present, and when the addressee receives the letter, the author is not present. According to John P. Muller and William J. Richardson, “The word negates the immediate physical presence of things by providing them with a symbolic presence that enables things to become articulable and subject to mediated relationships” (Muller, John P. and William J. Richardson. “The Purloined Letter”: Notes to the Text.” The Purloined Poe, edited by John P. Muller and William J. Richardson, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988, pp. 83-98). Whatever material fact(s) the letter refers to, the letter’s meaning is contextual and depends on how characters use it vis-à-vis one another—as blackmail, as revenge, as a commodity to cash in, etc.

Another important theme involves deception. When Monsieur G—— first arrives at Dupin’s home, he openly states that what he has come to tell them requires “greatest secrecy,” and he insists that the main people affected by the crime remain nameless. The crime that precipitates his visit is the result of the queen receiving a letter that proves she has been deceiving her husband; she therefore wants to keep the contents of the letter secret. Toward the end of the story, Dupin deceives the narrator by not divulging to him that he has recovered the letter before the prefect returns. Lastly, Poe leaves readers in the dark about whatever “evil turn” Minister D—— once did Dupin.

Poe utilizes various symbols to reinforce this theme. Darkness and smoke both symbolize secrecy and deception. The two parts of the narrative take place in the evening, and Dupin even goes so far as to extinguish the lamp he lights when Monsieur G—— arrives because “[i]f it is any point requiring reflection […] [they] shall examine it to better purpose in the dark” (7). The unexpected association of darkness (rather than light) with understanding reflects the theme of Intertwined Truth and Lies—that is, the complex relationship between truth and falsehood in a story where characters deceive one another by behaving openly (e.g., the minister hiding the letter in plain sight) and uncover the truth through trickery (e.g., Dupin’s visits to the minister’s home). Relatedly, it suggests Dupin’s method for discovering the letter’s hiding place, which is to inhabit the minister’s cunning and duplicitous mindset.

Smoke is a more straightforward symbol of deception; in the two conversations Dupin and the narrator have with the prefect, all three men are surrounded by “curling eddies of smoke” (6), exhale “contemplative puff(s)” of smoke, and take “thoughtful whiffs” of smoke. These references to smoke and darkness disappear when Dupin explains how he solved the crime, suggesting that the smokescreen is now being fully lifted. According to Dupin, the problem the French police had in searching for the letter is that “They consider only their own ideas of ingenuity; and, in searching for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which they would have hidden it” (16). They investigated every logical place where they believed that a letter could be concealed, but they did not consider the fact that Minister D—— most likely knew that they were searching his residence—that is, they did not consider the role of perspective in reasoning. The green glasses that Dupin wears to search for the letter symbolize Dupin’s ability to assume the point of view of the minister, illustrating the theme of Perception and Reality.