Paper No.-10- what is meant by a story of ratiocination ? examine "the purloined letter " as a story belonging to this category.

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• Name:- Zankhana .M.Matholiya
• Roll .No:-36
• Paper No.-10- American Literature
• Topic:-what is meant by a story of ratiocination ? examine "the purloined letter " as a story belonging to this category.
• Class :- M.A. Sem-3
• Enrollment No:- 2069108420180036
• College:- Smt.S.B.Gardi Department of English
• Email ID :- zankhanamatholiya96@gmail.com
• Submitted:-Department of English M.K.University, Bhavnagar

v Introduction :-

·       The detective story is a tale that features a mystery or the commission of a crime, emphasizing the search for a solution. It distinguishes itself from other forms of fiction by the fact that it is a puzzle. The detective story did not just spring into being in its current form, but rather, evolved over time.

·       The first true detective stories were written by Edgar Allan Poe. Many writers and critics have plainly stated that he is the inventor of detective fiction.

·       Poe introduces one of the most basic elements of the detective story, which is the presentation of clues for his readers. This idea becomes very important in all subsequent works of detective fiction.

·       That is, in all such fiction, all of the clues are available for the reader and the detective to solve the crime , and at the end of the story, the reader should be able to look back on the clues and realize that he could have solved the mystery. A detective story in which the solution is suddenly revealed to the reader in considered bad form.

·       “The detective stories of have been called stories of ratiocination”. In the light of this label .Here, I described ratiocination in “The purloined letter”.

·       “To ratiocinate" means to follow a line of logical reasoning, or to go through a logical process of reasoning.

Ø A Logical Process of Deductive Reasoning

·       Poe wrote three stories in which Dupin figures. These are : The Murders in the Rue Morgue." "The Mystery of Marie Roget"; and "The have been described as stories of Purloined Letter." These stories have been described as stories of ratiocination. "The Gold-Bug" also belongs to this category though Dupin does not figure in it.

·       Dupin is a detective who solves a crime by following the method of deductive reasoning. This form of reasoning consists in drawing an inference from certain general principles.

·       This method is opposed to the method of inductive reasoning which means arriving at a general statement from the particular facts which are available. Induction means inferring a general principle from particular examples, while deduction means having a general principle in mind and applying it to a particular case.

·       Poe created the detective Dupin to illustrate what he thought to be a reliable and effective method of investigating a crime. In "The Purloined Letter", Dupin does a bit of really brilliant reasoning when he is called upon to find an important letter which a clever politician has stolen and hidden.

·       it is on account of the detailed reasoning and analysis in the story that the story has been regarded as a story of ratiocination. It may also be pointed out in this connection that this story is one of the very few by Poe not dealing with death or violence.

·       A crime story generally deals with violence and death ; but "The Purloined Letter" is an exception. It may also be pointed out in this connection that Poe is regarded as the originator or inventor of the detective story.

Ø The prefect's Failure and Dupin's Success.

·       The Prefect of the Parisian Police comes to Dupin because he is feeling baffled by a certain case which he had been asked by an important royal personage to investigate.

·       The Prefect has done his utmost to track the letter which is known to have been stolen by a government minister D-. The Perfect tells Dupin that he has personally made a thorough examination of the premises occupied by the minister as his residence, and that he has closely examined every piece of furniture on the premises, using :a microscope and other devices.

·       The Prefect has even examined the minister's pockets and person by having him waylaid by his men, making it seem that the minister had been attacked by hoodlums. Having heard the Prefect's version of the case, Dupin begins his search for the letter and succeeds in finding it. The main interest of the story lies in the line of reasoning which Dupin has followed in order successfully to solve the case. Later Dupin explain to a friend of his the line of reasoning which he had followed.

Ø Dupin's Criticism of the Prefect's Investigative Methods.

·       Dupin tells his friend that the Parisian police are certainly very efficient, but that they are efficient in their own way. They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thoroughly familiar with the ways of criminals. That being so, there could be no doubt that the Prefect had carried out his searches with the greatest possible thoroughness.

·       The Prefect's mistake, however, lay in his thinking that every case could be solved by following the same method of investigation. The Prefect had looked for the stolen letter at every place where a man could have hidden it.

·       If the letter had been deposited within the range of the Prefect's search, the police would have undoubtedly found it But the Prefect was mistaken in treating his investigative methods as a Procrustean bed to which every case could be forcibly adapted. Even a school-boy, says Dupin, may sometimes prove to be a better reasoned than the Prefect. Dupin cites the case of a young boy who had won universal admiration by his correct guess-work in the game of odd and even.

·       The young boy was successful because he was able to identify his own intellect with that of the man Who Was questioning him. And so the problem before Dupin was to identify his own intellect with that of the minister who had stolen the letter and put it at a place which the Prefect had not been able to find in spite of all his resources.

·       The Perfect made the mistake of carrying out his searches in accordance with his own ideas of ingenuity instead of carrying out his investigations in accordance with what could possibly be the minister's ideas of ingenuity. The Prefect had tried to find the letter at all those places where he himself might have hidden it in case he had been the thief wanting to hide the letter. The Prefect was accustomed to the application of one principle or one set of principles to all cases of human ingenuity.

·       Normally any thief would hide a stolen article in one of those places which the Prefect had searched thoroughly. But the casc of the minister could not be regarded as a normal case. Being a clever man the minister would naturally try to outwit all those trying to find the letter.

Ø Dupin's Analysis of the working of the Robber's Mind.

·       Continuing his exposition, Dupin tells his friend that the perfect had thought the minister to be a fool because the minister was known to be a poet. But the Prefect did not know that the minister was also a mathematician, in addition to being a poet. If the minister had been only a poet, he could not have shown the ingenuity which he actually showed in hiding the letter.

·       Similarly, if the minister had been only a mathematician, he could not have hidden the letter as effectively as he did. Mathematicians says Dupin, are wrong in thinking that mathematical truths are truths of universal applicability.

·       The mathematician wrongly thinks that his finite truths have an absolutely general applicability. If the minister had been no more than a mathematician, the Prefect would have been successful in his investigations. But the minister was not only a mathematician but also a poet, an intriguer, and a courtier. Such a man as the minister D-could not fail to be aware of the ordinary modes of police action.

·       The minister must have anticipated all those places which the police would search, and he must have anticipated even the waylaying to which he was afterwards actually subjected. The minister must have foreseen the secret investigations of his premises. He must have foreseen that even the most intricate and remote nooks and corners of his suite of rooms would be searched, and that even microscopes would be used in the process.

·       Having foreseen all this, the minister must have decided to put the stolen letter at a place which would not at all be suspected by the police. He must have deposited the letter at some obvious place which the police would not care to search.  Instead of resorting to some cunning or ingenious method of hiding the letter, the minister decided to employ the simplest possible device.

Ø Dupin's Visit to the Minister D-to Locate the Letter.

·       Having formulated this general principle in his mind, Dupin proceed to start his investigation by visiting the minister and carrying out a visual survey of the room where the minister generally sat and met his visitors.

·       Wearing green spectacles on the pretext of suffering from some eye-trouble, Dupin could conveniently carry out a survey of every part of the room. It was in the course of this survey that his eyes fell upon a card-rack in which he saw five or six visiting cards and a solitary letter. The letter looked much soiled and crumpled. It had been thrust carelessly into one of the uppermost divisions of the rack. Any on looker would have thought this letter to be a worthless document deserving no attention. But that was exaculy the trick which the minister had employed.

·       The minister's purpose had precisely been to mislead any beholder into thinking this letter to be something unimportant and something trivial. No sooner had Dupin glanced at this letter than he concluded it to be the one which he was searching for. He then wished good morning to the minister and departed, leaving his gold snuff-box deliberately behind him on the table.

Ø Dupin's Success in recovering the Letter.

·       The next morning Dupin went to the minister again, this time on the pretext of getting back his snuff-box. In the course of the conversation, the two men heard the loud sound of the firing of a pistol. The minister rushed to the window to see what had happened in the street from where the noise had come.

·       Dupin quickly and stealthily picked up the letter from the rack and put it into his pocket He then quickly joined the minister at the window as if to know what had happened in the street. It seemed that some mad fellow had fired a gun in the street aimlessly.

·       Actually the man, who had fired the gun, had been hired by Dupin ; and he had acted in this manner under Dupin's instructions. It was in this way that Dupin succeeded where the Parisian Police had failed.

Ø Not an Absorbing or Gripping Story.

·       Although we must give Poe due credit for his pioneering work in the field the detective story, and although we must recognize his ornginalIy in having created a new genre in the sphere of literature, yet we must also point out that "The Purloined Letter" is by no means a very gripping or absorbing story so far as its plot is concerned.

·       We do admit that the detective Dupin possesses a brillant capacity for deductive reasoning, that he also possesses keen powers of observation, that he shows a lot of ingenuity not only in solving the case before him but also in devising methods of outwitting the minister D who is himself a very ingenious man and who himself has been able to outwit the chief of the Parisian police.

·       We do admit, further, that Dupin has a sense of humour and is able to intersperse his elucidatory lecture to his friend with remarks which amuse us and entertain us. But we must at the same time point out that the story is lacking in that dramatic quality which we find in most other stories by Poe.

·       Poe's stories of mystery, murder, and horror are far more interesting than this story. There is very little suspensc in this story. One reason for the lack of suspense is that the thief or the robber is already known. The minister D-had picked up the important letter from the lady's table in the very presence of the lady, and with her knowledge, though she was in no position to stop him from picking up the precious document.

·       The identity of the robber is already known to the Prefect. In most detective stories the suspense arises from the mystery about the identity of the culprit or the criminal. The entire effort of the detecive is directed towards discovering the identity of the man who has committed the theft or the murder. In the present case even the crime is not of too serious a nature t

·       hough it can have serious consequences for the person concerned. We do not feel much involved in the concerns of the lady who has lost the letter; and we are therefore not much affected emotionally. The crime is not of a violent nature, with the result that there is nothing sensational in the story. we are not kept on tenterhooks. Our nerves are not kept on edge.

Ø The Intellectual Quality of the story.

·       The chief interest of the story lies in Dupin's reasoning powers. This means that the story has an intellectual quality. Our emotions, as already indicated above, are not involved. Pure reasoning does not have much appeal for the readers of prose fiction.

·       In fact, we read through this story in a semi-attentive manner. And we, therefore, feel that this story has been over-praised by critics. It is certainly not an engrossing or fascinating story which could hold us spell-bound. As a story, it stands no comparison with "The Fall of the House of Usher" or "The Tell-Tale Heart" or "The Cask of Amontillado."

·       We certainly enjoy the humorous touches such as the Prefect's astonished reaction to Dupin's suddenly producing the letter after depositing the cherub for fifty thousand francs in his drawer. But humorous touches are incidental to the plot which concerns the investigation into a case of the concealment of an important document.

·       We would in fact be expressing the reaction of most readers if we say that the story is somewhat boring. The same applies to another story which has also been equally praised or over-praised, namely " The Gold-Bug".

v Conclusion

·       In this sum up topic we can say that Poe's short story are very interestings deals with ratiocination or horror ,gothic to explain psychological thinking.With these examples of characters, we can say that, Poe’s characters have detective or criminal minds.Poe’s most of the tales are ratiocination, psychological, horror, gothic, detective, supernatural, mysterious, they are related to crime and ratiocination and suffering from their own mentality.

Works Cited

EDGAR ALLEN POE (A Critical study of his major works ). new delhi: Rama brother, 1991.

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