The Murders in the Rue Morgue

Use this activity to engage all types of learners while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

CREATIVE WRITING: “The Second Case of Detective Dupin”

In this activity, students will write a subsequent adventure for Dupin in a creative writing assignment.

Imagine that Edgar Allan Poe has asked you to assist him with writing Detective Dupin’s second investigative case in Paris. Working in small groups, use the questions below as you prepare your installment of Dupin’s case:

• How much time has passed since the first case? How have both the Parisian public as well as the police department responded to the success of the first case?
• Summarize the new case. What are the facts? What is the mystery surrounding the perpetrator?
• How does Dupin solve the case? For example, which pieces of evidence does he focus on, and how does he determine the identity of the perpetrator from them?
• How do the Paris police respond to Dupin’s assistance? How does the Parisian public?

After drafting your piece with your group, share your story with the class in a presentation. Reflect on the diversity of responses to the themes of The Power of Rationality in your classmates’ responses.

Teaching Suggestion: This activity invites students to consider Dupin’s characterization in the context of a creative writing assignment. While Poe did write a sequel to his story (please see the first Recommended Next Read), students should focus on creating their own plot and mystery independent of any further published stories. Students may find it helpful to work backward (i.e., establish the end of the mystery, then determine the clues from there).

Paired Text Extension:

In Poe’s Gothic short story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” written the following year, “madness” is central to the crime. Likewise, after being presented with the facts of the case, the narrator in “The Murders at the Rue Morgue” states, “A madman has done this deed—some raving maniac” (27). What is Poe proposing regarding the contingency between violent acts and rationality? Imagine that Dupin has been assigned to the case in “The Tell-Tale Heart.” How would he deduce who the murderer was? Write a complementary short story from the point of view of Dupin and the narrator as they investigate the murder case in “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

Teaching Suggestion: This Paired Text Extension offers further opportunity for analyzing and creatively responding to Poe’s characterization. Students may complete this extension in addition to and/or instead of the main activity.

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. The Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries promoted “empiricism,” or the belief that knowledge is gained from the senses.

• In which instances does Dupin gather evidence empirically, and how does his empirical knowledge intersect with his rationalism and deductive reasoning? (topic sentence)
• If Dupin were a scientist and not a detective, would he be an empiricist or a rationalist? Cite 2-3 specific examples of textual evidence to support your claim. 
• How does Dupin’s acquisition of evidence link with the theme The Power of Rationality?

2. Poe’s story is set in cosmopolitan Paris, a diverse city with people from around the world.

• How does movement between geographic boundaries shape the story’s plot? (topic sentence)
• Identify 2-3 examples in which diversity creates obstacles for Dupin and the narrator.
• How does the cosmopolitan nature of Paris in Poe’s story speak to the larger theme of Social Isolation Through Transience?

3. When investigating the victims’ and perpetrator’s shrieks, the police and Dupin inquire about both the languages spoken by the witnesses as well as the language they report having heard.

• While the reader comes to understand that the murderer’s voice was not human, why do you think each witness readily identified the Ourang-Outang’s voice as an intelligible human language? (topic sentence)
• Use 2-3 examples from the story to support your argument.
• How does this misinterpretation of the Ourang-Outang connect with the theme Language as a Social Barrier?

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Edgar Allan Poe is well-known as a Gothic writer, a genre that frequently employs the exploration of “Otherness” through monsters, villains, or outcasts. The element of “Otherness” is described repeatedly in “The Murders at the Rue Morgue.” Consider how the peculiarities of Chantilly’s stature, Monsieur Dupin’s intellect, the Ourang-Outang’s strength, and the victims’ seclusion propel the plot. Assuming that the fantastical details of “Otherness” draw a fiction reader in, what does sensationalizing characters’ peculiarities engender for the reader and for society generally? Contextualize this story based on its attitudes toward normativity given the time period and setting.

2. The two victims of “The Murders at the Rue Morgue” are both women who live together in relative isolation. In the same way, the narrator describes his living arrangement with Dupin: “Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no visitors” (4). What might Poe be suggesting about victimization as it pertains to gender and community engagement? At the story’s conclusion, the ineffective Prefect of Police prefers that Dupin and others mind their “own business” (34). How might Poe be indicating the destructiveness of that maxim? How does the motif of seclusion link to the increased cosmopolitanism of diverse 19th-century industrial cities?

3. The Ourang-Outang commits violence against the old lady in response to her struggle and screams. It commits murder immediately after having seen its owner’s face in the window. What do these actions suggest about the animal’s motive and moral conscience? Were the murders random and without cause? Why or why not?

Multiple Choice and Long Answer Questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, exams, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. Which of the following emotions does Dupin believe the duo will derive from visiting the crime scene?

A) Pleasure

B) Fear

C) Boredom

D) Disgust

2. Which of the following phrases best summarizes the purpose of the narrator’s introduction?

A) To establish the importance of subjectivity in fact-checking

B) To review the differences between popular 19th-century card games

C) To propose a new perspective regarding the use of mental analysis in games

D) To prepare the reader for the potentially unsettling content of the narrative

3. Which of the following words best describes the relationship between Dupin and the narrator after they decide to live together?

A) Tenuous

B) Mistrusting

C) Apathetic

D) Compatible

4. Read this passage from Paragraph 4:

“It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call it?) to be enamored of the Night for her own sake; and into this bizarrerie, as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving myself up to his wild whims with a perfect abandon. The sable divinity would not herself dwell with us always; but we could counterfeit her presence.”

Which of the following literary devices does the narrator use in his description of nighttime?

A) Pantoum

B) Parable

C) Paradox

D) Personification

5. Which best explains the narrator’s astonishment to hear Dupin comment, “He is a very little fellow, that's true, and would do better for the Théâtre des Variétés”?

A) Because it goes against a prior argument that Dupin made the night before

B) Because it points to a rather immature perspective regarding Parisian theater

C) Because it suggests that Dupin was able to read the narrator’s thought process

D) Because it discredits the general Parisian opinion of this particular actor

6. Which of the following elements do witnesses not agree upon in their testimonies?

A) The gender of the victims

B) The location of the crime

C) The hour of the murder

D) The language of the murderers

7. Dupin notes that “[c]oincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities—that theory to which the most glorious objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of illustration.” Which of the following literary terms does Dupin use in his description?

A) Simile

B) Metaphor

C) Alliteration

D) Paradox

8. Which of the following best describes Dupin’s monologue concerning the murders?

A) It centers on defending the innocence of the accused.

B) It follows a logical train of thought regarding his deductions.

C) It establishes the guilty party prior to the explanation of his reasonings.

D) It references legal sources related to the possible murderer.

9. How does Dupin feel after solving the case?

A) Pleased he outwitted the local police

B) Ashamed he was not able to avenge the women’s deaths

C) Concerned about the future of the sailor

D) Intrigued with the possibility of his rising fame

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. What is the setting of Poe’s story? How does this setting add to the intrigue of the overall plot?

2. What is the narration style of the story? How does this narration style support the development of the main characters?