fictional detectives -- how many can you name?In addition to being a sly humorist, tomahawk literary critic, and master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe is also notably credited with inventing the modern detective story. The first fictional private detective is recognized as Poe's C. Auguste Dupin, introduced in 1841 with "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."
Poe shifted the focus of the mystery story from the description of shocking crimes and eerie setting to what Poe calls "ratiocination" -- using the powers of human observation, logic, and creative imagination, even putting himself in the mind of the criminal, in order to solve the mystery. Critic Brander Matthews wrote: "The true detective story as Poe conceived it is not in the mystery itself, but rather in the successive steps whereby the analytic observer is enabled to solve the problem that might be dismissed as beyond human elucidation."
Dupin was the prototype for the more famous male detectives who would capture the imagination of generations of readers. Each had his own set of personal eccentricities, but all shared in using a process of ratiocination. A partial list:
Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle
Hercule Poirot, by Agatha Christie
Lord Peter Wimsey, by Dorothy Sayers
Father Brown, by G.K. Chesterton
Inspector Maigret, by Georges Simenon
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is also the most famous example of the mystery subgenre known as the locked room mystery, in which a murder victim is found inside an apparently sealed enclosure and the detective's challenge is to discover the murderer's modus operandi. Other famous locked room mysteries include Sherlock Holmes' "The Adventure of the Crooked Man," which bears many similarities to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." Others include:
"The Oracle of the Dog" by G.K. Chesterton
"The King Is Dead" by Ellery Queen
The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux
The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
And no mention of Arsene Lupin?
ReplyDeleteYes, well, Arsene Lupin was not a detective; he was a very clever and well-mannered crook. But I probably should mention Herlock Sholmes, the antagonist to Lupin in at least two of the novels. Maurice LeBlanc, the author of the Lupin novels, inverted the detective genre, making the protagonist with the powers of observation, logic and creativity a Robin Hood-style criminal, rather than a Dupin-style crime solver.
ReplyDeleteYou may notice, however, that the name Dupin looks a lot like Lupin. Hmm.