The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe A critical analysis Essay Example

The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe: A critical analysis Paper Edgar Allan Poe is a master of the short story form. All the skill and craft required of a short story are evident in The Purloined Letter. This short detective fiction is about displaying the cleverness of the investigator (Auguste Dupin) in solving a case. As is the norm in this genre of fiction, â€Å"the criminal is caught and the victim suffers, but the investigator flourishes, acquiring pleasure from the hunt and both egotistical and financial gratification from the solution.† (Thoms 141) In The Purloined Letter, the detective fully exercises his powers of reasoning and deduction to arrive at the solution to the riddle. In his regard, one can equate this work by Poe to those numerous Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Conan Doyle. But there are certain features that distinguish the story from others in the genre. Firstly, Poe has crafted the plot in such a deliberate manner that there is symmetry of thought and action by the characters. Secondly, Poe applies psy chological analysis in attributing meaning to, and anticipating actions of, the characters in the story. Thirdly, Poe subtly raises questions of morality through the means of actions of the characters. The rest of this essay will elaborate these points. An obvious feature of The Purloined Letter is its lack of pronounced mystery or suspense, for the identity of the thief, the manner of the theft and the motivations behind it are all openly disclosed. The only question is the exact place where the letter is hidden. The gravity of this question lies in the fact that the letter is a crucial document, upon whose access the Royal Lady’s illicit affair could be exposed. Indeed, â€Å"in the Minister’s and Dupin’s struggle to possess this letter, this hidden story of transgression, brilliantly dramatizes the contest for narrative control that underpins detective fiction.† (Davidson 219) A key passage in the story where Poe applies psychological analysis is when Dupin explains to his friend how he went about calculating the intelligence of the Minister and consequently using this measure to speculate on his likely behaviour. Estimating the Minister’s intelligence to be very high, Dupin infers that the p ossible methods employed by him to hide the letter will also be clever. In this way, the Minister is a match to Dupin’s own high intelligence, allowing the latter to mirror and predict the former’s thought and behaviour. An illustration of the Minister’s intelligence is his first accidental encounter with the royal lady’s letter, where, We will write a custom essay sample on The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe: A critical analysis specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe: A critical analysis specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe: A critical analysis specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer â€Å"after discerning the hidden story through a brilliant act of reading in which his lynx eye immediately perceives the paper, recognises the handwriting of the address, observes the confusion of the personage addressed, and fathoms her secret, the Minister conceives the plan of pocketing the letter and then blackmailing the lady.† (Thoms 141) Another merit of the story is the remarkable symmetry in the plot. The Minister, being a cunning and clever man, scripts the scenario in which he gains possession of the scandalous letter. For example, he manufactures a letter that looks similar to the lady’s secret possession and opens it and pretends to read it. Without raising any suspicion, he places casually places it next to the lady’s letter. After finishing his conversation, as he gestures to part, he nonchalantly picks up the lady’s letter. Even if the lady notices that it is her letter which is being taken, she cannot object to it, for it would give away her secret. Dupin’s masterful counterplot to steal back the letter from the Minister is conceived on similar lines, lending symmetry to the plot. (Thoms 141) The symmetry extends further, for both Dupin and the Minister are poets and authorial figures, who â€Å"can read circumstances and script the action; they share the initial D; and they both purloin the letter, an action which promises profit and allows us to see more clearly how detection becomes a kind of thievery as the investigator assumes possession of the hidden story and of the characters contained within it.† (Thoms 141) Poe’s genius is also evident in how he criminalizes the solving of crime itself, thereby raising questions of morality. In other words, far from acting on noble intentions, Dupin undertakes to solve the crime only for personal benefit, namely a check for 50,000 francs. He hardly breaks a sweat for this hefty pay, for the prefect was the one made to pursue standard search and seizure protocols, which prove futile. Having thus eliminated the usual hiding places for the letter through the Prefect’s testimony, Dupin makes his master move like a seasoned chess player. Moreover, the method he employs is not ethically above that of the Minister, for Dupin too resorts to stealing. Here, Poe is highlighting the moral ambiguity of the whole enterprise. The moral ambiguity is further heightened when we take into account how the Royal Lady’s mission to get back the letter is not officially notified to authorities. Instead, she uses her position of power to use state ap paratus for personal purposes. So, her actions are ethically dubious as well. Hence, The Purloined Letter is more than a mere detective story, for the detective and his client are not decidedly the righteous lot. In other words, â€Å"Poe proceeds to destabilize what he has wrought by challenging the apparent opposition between good detective and bad criminal. The story critiques the authority of the detective, subverts his solutions, and thus resists closure. From the making of the facsimile and the act of re-stealing the three Dupin stories seem preoccupied with reflection, repetition, and the blurring of boundaries†¦we glimpse how the imaginative Dupin adopts the character and perspective of the ostensible criminal.† (Thoms 142) Through a careful reading of The Purloined Letter, one can decipher a broader psychological device that Poe applies to his short stories. The key factor behind Dupin’s successful resolution of the case is his anticipation. This is made possible by being able to understand and rely on the pattern of behaviour of his subject – the Minister. Poe refers to it as ‘simplicity’, the â€Å"unitary characteristic of both mind and world† that aids Dupin’s predictions. Here, Poe is trying to approximate human behaviour to a scientific law by setting up a formula by which the several modes of human thought and action could be understood. First, â€Å"there was the action of the commonplace, ordinary mind — the â€Å"real† side of man — which conformed to a calculus of probability simple to unmask merely by putting one’s own mind in logical reference and identification with it: Poe’s analogy was the boy who could easily outwit his fellows by guessing in which hand the marble was held. Next, the more complex, original mind was impelled toward simplicity, toward final and ultimate comprehension. It was the character of this mind to conceal itself, as did Minister D behind some other or inverted calculus of relevance.† (Davidson 219) Works Cited Davidson, Edward H. Poe: A Critical Study. Cambridge, MA: Belknap-Harvard UP, 1957. Hayes, Kevin J., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 2002.

Microsoft Word Tips Creating a List of Charts and Figures

Microsoft Word Tips Creating a List of Charts and Figures Creating a List of Charts and Figures Adding charts and figures to a college paper or business report adds visual impact, which can help you make your point more clearly. However, if you are using charts or figures, you also need to make them easy to find for your reader. This is why Microsoft Word offers a quick way of adding a list of charts and figures to a document. Read on to find out how this works. A list of figures. Adding Images and Captions You can add pictures or charts to a document in Microsoft Word via the Illustrations section of the Insert tab on the main ribbon (you can also import charts from Excel). Adding images and charts. To create a list of the figures and charts, though, you’ll also need to add captions. There are two main ways to do this: Right click the image or chart and select Insert Caption from the menu Place the cursor where you want to add a caption and select Insert Caption from the References tab on the ribbon (or from the Insert tab if you’re using Word for Mac) Adding captions. This will open a new window where you can add your caption text and select a label type. For charts and figures, the â€Å"Figure† label is usually best. Make sure all images and charts that you want to list have captions with the same label type. Adding caption text. Creating a List of Charts and Figures Once you have added all the captions to your document, you can generate an automatic list of charts and figures. To do this on a PC, you need to: Place the cursor where you want to add the list Go to the Captions section of the References tab Click Insert Table of Figures Pick a label type from the menu and click OK Selecting a label type. To do the same thing on Mac computers, select Table of Figures from the Index and Tables section of the Insert menu. This will generate a list of charts and figures based on the caption text for images with that label type. If you make further edits to the document, you can update the list at the touch of a button (simply select it and click Update Table). Updating a list of figures.

The Effects of Decreasing Oil Prices on OPEC Creator States Essay

The Effects of Decreasing Oil Prices on OPEC Creator States - Essay Example OPEC was founded in Baghdad, triggered by a 1960 law instituted by American President Dwight Eisenhower that forced quotas on Venezuelan and Persian Gulf oil imports in favor of the Canadian and Mexican oil industries. Eisenhower cited national security, land access to energy supplies, at times of war. When this led to falling prices for oil in these regions, Venezuela's president Romulo Betancourt reacted seeking an alliance with oil producing Arab nations as a preemptive strategy to protect the continuous autonomy and profitability of Venezuela's natural resource: oil (Perkins, 2005). As a result, OPEC was founded to unify and coordinate members' petroleum policies. Original OPEC members include Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. Between 1960 and 1975, the organization expanded to include Qatar (1961), Indonesia (1962), Libya (1962), the United Arab Emirates (1967), Algeria (1969), and Nigeria (1971). Ecuador and Gabon were members of OPEC, but Ecuador withdrew on December 31, 1992 because they were unwilling or unable to pay a $2 million membership fee and felt that they needed to produce more oil than they were allowed to under the OPEC quota. Similar concerns prompted Gabon to follow suit in January 1995. Angola joined on the first day of 2007. Indonesia reconsidered its membership having become a net importer and being unable to meet its production quota. The United States was a member during its formal occupation of Iraq via the Coalition Provisional Authority (Yergin; Perkins, 2005). Indicating that OPEC is not averse to further expansion, Moh ammed Barkindo, OPEC's Secretary General, recently asked Sudan to join. Iraq remains a member of OPEC, though Iraqi production has not been a part of any OPEC quota agreements since March 1998. In May 2008, Indonesia left the OPEC group because of the soaring prices and the rising oil demand in East Asia. Economists think that the withdrawal of Indonesia will have little effect on OPEC and on the oil prices even though it has a high percentage in world oil production (Kohl, 2002; Perkins, 2005). The persistence of the Arab-Israeli conflict finally triggered a response that transformed OPEC into a formidable political force. After the Six Day War of 1967, the Arab members of OPEC formed a separate, overlapping group, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, for the purpose of centering policy and exerting pressure on the West over its support of Israel. Egypt and Syria, though not major oil-exporting countries, joined the latter grouping to help articulate its objectives. Later, the Yom Kippur War of 1973 galvanized Arab opinion. Furious at the emergency re-supply effort that had enabled Israel to withstand Egyptian and Syrian forces, the Arab world imposed the 1973 oil embargo against the United States and Western Europe. In the 1970s, the great Western oil conglomerates suddenly faced a unified block of producers. This Arab-Israeli conflict triggered a crisis already in the making. The West could not continue to increase its energy use 5% annually, pay low oi l prices, yet sell inflation-priced goods to the petroleum producers in the Third World. This was stressed by the Shah of Iran, whose nation was the world's second-largest exporter of oil, and one of the closest allies of the United States in the Middle East at the time. "Of