An often debated question is that of what makes a good story. In the 1800s, Edgar Allan Poe created one list of rules that he thinks makes a good detective story. These include requirements such as "clues ... to allow the reader to solve the crime" and "a detective with strong intuitive skills" (Poe, "Rules for Detective Stories"). Two mystery tales that can be judged using these rules to determine which is better are Poe's own short story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and a movie, The Bone Collector. According to Poe's guidelines, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a better mystery story than The Bone Collector because of the detective's strong but reasonable intuitive skills and the fair clues that Poe gives to the reader.
Both stories have detectives present in them. In the Poe story, Dupin, the detective, shows both reasonable intuition and unreasonable intuition. At the beginning of the story, he appears so intelligent that he can "know what [his friend] was …show more content…
Poe presents "all the material testimony elicited" (Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" 6), allowing the reader to know everything that the detective does. The combination of testimonies that the "strange voice" (Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" 6) was anything but the speaker's language and that they could all identify the "gruff voice" (Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" 6), could have led a reader to guessing that the assailant was an animal. When combined with the multitude of other clues, all of which have lengthy explanations in the story, such as the "body of Mademoiselle L'Espanaye [being] so firmly wedged into the chimney that it could not be got down until four or five [people] ... united their strength" (Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" 8), it is entirely possible for the reader to come to the self-same conclusion as
Both stories have detectives present in them. In the Poe story, Dupin, the detective, shows both reasonable intuition and unreasonable intuition. At the beginning of the story, he appears so intelligent that he can "know what [his friend] was …show more content…
Poe presents "all the material testimony elicited" (Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" 6), allowing the reader to know everything that the detective does. The combination of testimonies that the "strange voice" (Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" 6) was anything but the speaker's language and that they could all identify the "gruff voice" (Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" 6), could have led a reader to guessing that the assailant was an animal. When combined with the multitude of other clues, all of which have lengthy explanations in the story, such as the "body of Mademoiselle L'Espanaye [being] so firmly wedged into the chimney that it could not be got down until four or five [people] ... united their strength" (Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" 8), it is entirely possible for the reader to come to the self-same conclusion as