Name: Gwyneth Ybanez Campus: SWU PHINMA

Yr & Section: BsEd-Eng III

ACTIVITY

A. Directions: Look for another book under the detective stories genre. Make a summary of
its story and discuss why it's categorized as detective stories.

“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841)

Summary

This murder mystery and criminal investigation is introduced by an unknown narrator talking
about the analytical mind. He says the analyst is paradoxically motivated by a moral need to
explain things to his peers as well as intuition. He continues by saying that the analyst delights in
mathematics and the game of checkers, which enables the cunning person to practice the art of
detection—not just of the moves essential to the game, but also of his opponent's manner.
However, the narrator contends that analysis is more than just creativity. He claims that while a
clever man may occasionally be analytical, a calculating man is invariably imaginative.

The narrator then goes on to relate how he met a fellow by the name of C. Antoine Dupin In a
little Parisian library on the Rue Montmartre, two men were looking for the same book when
they started talking. They quickly grew close and decided to split the cost of a place to live. The
narrator then tells a story to demonstrate Dupin's exceptional analytical skills: one night, as they
walked along, Dupin described an actor the narrator was thinking about. The narrator is
perplexed and asks Dupin to explain his process. We observe Dupin's ability to work backward
and recognize the significance of seemingly unimportant facts in order to reach clever
conclusions.

A terrible murder in the Rue Morgue was soon reported in newspaper headlines that the narrator
and Dupin soon read. At three in the morning one night, eight or ten of Madame L'Espanaye and
Mademoiselle Camille's neighbors are awakened by shrieks coming from their fourth-floor
apartment. After hearing two voices, the neighbors became silent. When the neighbors and two
police officers manage to get into the locked apartment, they discover complete chaos and a
variety of evidence of a crime, such as a blood-smeared razor, gray human hair, bags of cash, and
an unlocked safe. There are no signs of the elder woman everywhere. But the apparent soot
stains in the space direct them to the chimney, where they discover Mademoiselle Camille's
body. According to their theory, Camille must have been strangled to death before being thrown
through the chimney. The body of Madame L'Espanaye is found by the neighbors and police as
they broaden their search in a courtyard at the back of the building. They discover her severely
battered and with her throat slit. She loses her head when the police move the body, in actuality.
The flat still contains the 4,000 francs that Madame L'Espanaye had just taken out of the bank,
eliminating robbery as a possible explanation for the gruesome crime.

The newspaper then describes what witnesses said in their depositions about the voices they
heard. All of them concur that they heard two voices: one, a deep Frenchman's voice; and the
other, a higher voice of unspecified ethnicity, but it was rumored to be Spanish. Uncertainty
surrounds the second speaker's gender. The medical examiner's findings, which show that
Camille choked to death and that Madame L'Espanaye was brutally beaten to death—likely with
a club—are reported in the same publication. The newspaper's evening edition announces a
recent development. Adolphe Le Bon, a bank teller who once rendered Dupin a favor, has been
detained by police.

After Le Bon is taken into custody, Dupin decides to continue the inquiry and gets approval to
inspect the crime scene. Because the flat is described in the media articles as being impossible to
escape from from the inside, which makes the case so puzzling, Dupin is eager to examine the
location. Dupin contends that although the police have been alert to what has happened, they
have failed to take into account the possibility that the current crime may be something that has
never happened before because of the horrific nature of the murder and the apparent absence of
purpose. Dupin displays two pistols and says he's waiting for someone to show up to confirm his
theory about how the crime was solved.

Dupin also lists the components of the crime scene that, in his opinion, the police handled
improperly. For instance, neither the gender nor the nationality of the strident voice can be
determined, nor can it be determined that it is emitting any words at all, only sounds. He further
reveals that the windows in the flat, which are operated by springs and can be opened from the
inside, were disregarded by the police. Dupin finds a broken nail in one window that only
appeared to be unbroken, despite the fact that the police think the windows are nailed shut.
Dupin speculates that someone may have opened the window from the outside, entered the flat,
then shut the window without drawing attention to themselves.

Dupin also talks about how people enter through the windows. No suspect, in the police's
opinion, could scale the walls to the point of entrance. A person or object with exceptional
agility, according to Dupin's theory, may leap from the lightning rod outside the window to the
shutters. Dupin hypothesizes that no common person could have delivered the pounding
Madame L'Espanaye received. The murderer would need superhuman stamina and unimaginable
ferocity. Dupin clarifies that the hair that was plucked from Madame L'Espanaye's fingers was
not human hair to allay the narrator's concerns. Dupin presents his solution after sketching a
representation of the size and shape of the hand that killed the two victims. The hand matches the
paw of an Ourang-Outang.

Dupin hopes that by publicizing the safe capture of the animal, its owner will be attracted. Since
he discovered a ribbon tied in a manner specific to naval training near the lightning rod's base,
Dupin continues that the owner must be a sailor.

Dupin pulls out his gun and demands the sailor reveal everything he knows about the killings
when he comes. He gives the sailor his word that he thinks he is innocent. The sailor recounts
how the cat broke out of its closet one night while holding a razor and left his flat. Following the
Ourang-Outang, the sailor observed him ascend the lightning rod and leap through the window.
The sailor could only watch as the beast sliced Madame L'Espanaye and suffocated Camille
since he lacks the animal's quickness. The animal tossed Madame L'Espanaye's body on the
courtyard below before exiting the apartment. As a result, the sailor is able to positively identify
the voices as being his own—the deep voice—and the Ourang-Outang—the loud shrieks.

Le Bon was released by the authorities after they learned of Dupin's solution. The ideal is unable
to hide his dismay at Dupin's cunning. Although he is relieved that the crime has been solved, he
is caustic rather than appreciative of Dupin's help. Dupin concludes by saying that the prefect is a
man of invention rather than analysis.
B. Directions: Make a short comic strip about your mood / happenings today.