Why so complicated?
After reading The Purloined letter the moral of the story seemed clear. Sometimes the simplest answer is the best. This seemed pretty clear, but there was one thing that really confused me. Why would Dupin go through such complicated means to get the letter? Dupin visited the Minister, purposefully left an object, came back, hired someone to distract the Minister, replaced the letter, then returned back home and held onto the letter until the Prefect decided to visit him. Dupin could've easily told the police where to look as soon as he saw the letter. It seems to really go against the message that Poe is trying to convey.
I think that Poe might be trying to show that there are times when making things more complicated can actually work out. Sure Dupin could've had the police get the letter, but that wouldn't have given the mysterious, powerful person power over the Minister. By going the more complicated route Dupin was able to shift the power while leaving the Minister thinking that he was still in charge. Which is clearly a more exciting end to the story. I feel like the lesson here is that there are times when simple is best, but there are also times when complication makes things more fun.
I think that Poe might be trying to show that there are times when making things more complicated can actually work out. Sure Dupin could've had the police get the letter, but that wouldn't have given the mysterious, powerful person power over the Minister. By going the more complicated route Dupin was able to shift the power while leaving the Minister thinking that he was still in charge. Which is clearly a more exciting end to the story. I feel like the lesson here is that there are times when simple is best, but there are also times when complication makes things more fun.
I think the message Dupin is trying to send is that the simplest answer is the best solution only if your opponent is a "simpleton" and will overthink the problem and miss the most obvious answers. Like the boy in the game of marbles, the boy deduces that a sophisticated person will guess that the boy will think the second answer is different from the first, and therefore make the second answer the same as the first. D fits into the category of a sophisticated person, and therefore won't overlook the simple answers, which is why they won't work against D.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it's way cooler if Dupin solves the mystery and gets the letter himself. To Dupin, the police are incompetent imbeciles, so he would never give them the pleasure of snatching the letter from Minister D--.
I think the most obvious reason Dupin chose to do things the way he did is he got 50,000 francs out of it. He also probably just wanted to show off, and considering he went on for a long time about the detail of how the Prefect wasn't able to shift his perspective enough, I think this is pretty likely.
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