Out of all the detective stories, the two that have made the most impact in the genre are Edgar Allen Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Although they were written years apart, Holmes and Dupin have as much in common, such as skills, qualities and results, as they have differences. This essay will focus on comparing and contrasting these two detectives. First, Dupin and Holmes have certain methods, qualities and skills in common. Second, the successes and failures of the two detectives reveal bits and pieces of the stories behind the crimes, among other things, and lead to the solution or answer. Finally, they share only some perspectives on criminal investigation which demonstrate similar interests. Observation
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Before the previous example of Holmes using his abilities to figure out how and when the client got to them, he wrongly deduced that she was cold because of the way she was shivering. The client informed him that she was not cold, she was frightened. His failure at deducing that she was afraid led him to bend over to comfort her and by doing so, he observes the train ticket in the palm of her left glove. In Poe’s The Purloined Letter readers are given an example of the detective’s successes leading to an answer. The letter was recovered when Dupin managed to bring in dark green eye glasses in to D’Arcy’s apartment and succeeded to convince him that he needed them at all times. The glasses helped him spot anything white with ease, including the letter. Although one of these examples show results based on a failure and the other on a success, both helped the detectives make …show more content…
In both Poe’s and Doyle’s stories we see that the detectives enjoy solving cases, however they enjoy it for different reasons. Dupin enjoys it because he can get money out of it while Holmes is in it more for the thrill of the hunt. Another thing that they have in common is that they always know that there is an answer no matter how crazy it is. For example, there is Sherlock Holmes’ famous line “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”, this line appears in many of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories but it demonstrates Holmes’s ability to comprehend that there is a solution, the just have not yet found it. Although Dupin does not have a line like this he can still understand that there is an answer that has not yet been uncovered. The reader can see this in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Dupin does state on two occasions “A mystery it is, yes. But there must be an answer.” (Poe 46, 48), this line along with Holmes’ line both show an understanding of logic an understanding of how things
Before the previous example of Holmes using his abilities to figure out how and when the client got to them, he wrongly deduced that she was cold because of the way she was shivering. The client informed him that she was not cold, she was frightened. His failure at deducing that she was afraid led him to bend over to comfort her and by doing so, he observes the train ticket in the palm of her left glove. In Poe’s The Purloined Letter readers are given an example of the detective’s successes leading to an answer. The letter was recovered when Dupin managed to bring in dark green eye glasses in to D’Arcy’s apartment and succeeded to convince him that he needed them at all times. The glasses helped him spot anything white with ease, including the letter. Although one of these examples show results based on a failure and the other on a success, both helped the detectives make …show more content…
In both Poe’s and Doyle’s stories we see that the detectives enjoy solving cases, however they enjoy it for different reasons. Dupin enjoys it because he can get money out of it while Holmes is in it more for the thrill of the hunt. Another thing that they have in common is that they always know that there is an answer no matter how crazy it is. For example, there is Sherlock Holmes’ famous line “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”, this line appears in many of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories but it demonstrates Holmes’s ability to comprehend that there is a solution, the just have not yet found it. Although Dupin does not have a line like this he can still understand that there is an answer that has not yet been uncovered. The reader can see this in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Dupin does state on two occasions “A mystery it is, yes. But there must be an answer.” (Poe 46, 48), this line along with Holmes’ line both show an understanding of logic an understanding of how things