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12.2.09

Gotyk... (Część IV)

POKAŻ/UKRYJ SPIS TREŚCI | POKAŻ/UKRYJ TREŚĆ NOTKI

The Distribution of Power Within and Without The Gothic Mode in Edgar Allan Poe's The Purloined Letter

PART IV:
DUPIN AS A GOTHIC "VILLAIN"

Dupin, though inactive, is cunning enough to be perceived as a semi−Gothic character with an almost "villainous" ambivalence in the way he conceals himself in the darkness amongst smoke and misleads his interlocutors. Indeed, Ross chambers insists that:

Dupin's alleged "explanations" are often closer to being enigmatic pronouncements, and they have as much the character of nondisclosure as of disclosure. From the beginning of the story, he has been portrayed not just as a pipe smoker (...) but more specifically as one who uses clouds of pipe smoke as a measure of concealment: his more outrageous pieces of ironic flattery or of didactic lesson giving are directed at the Prefect "amid a perfect whirlwind of smoke" or "between the whiffs of his meerschaum." But when it comes to his dialogue with his friend, all notations of smoke production disappear from the text, because that function has now been taken over by his discourse itself. (5)

Dupin's ability of psychological mimicry is also alarming. He describes his technique as follows:

When I wish to find out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked is any one, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts and sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression (463).

This technique enables Dupin to simulate the patterns of thought of the thief — the villain — although it also means that Dupin himself has the potential to think and act as a villain. He labels Minister D— a monstrum horrendum, and unprincipled man of genius (479), but because Dupin reconstructed the Minister's mode of thinking, he himself has the potential to become such an unprincipled man. Indeed, Dupin's final conversation confirms that he is capable of unprincipled action. Although he sets out against a thief of immoral standing, Dupin himself resorts to stealing the letter. He even hires a man with a musket to start a commotion outside the Minister's hotel, who fires among a crowd of women and children (479). The fact that Dupin exchanges the purloined letter for a clever facsimile means that his main concern is not for justice to triumph. In fact, for Dupin the whole encounter with Minister D— is nothing more than a game of intellect. His aspiration is not to reduce the power of the Minister, but to achieve his own ascendancy over him. Such an immoral quality enables Dupin to be read as a mirror image of the thief himself, or, in fact, as an ambivalent Gothic "villain".

(5) Chamber, Ross. "Narratorial Authority and The Purloined Letter." The Purloined Poe... P. 294.

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