traces of unconscious

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I desperately need to know about traces of the unconscious in The Purloined Letter, please .

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2001

Answers

You really have to detail tough questions. There is an an article on The Purloined Letter at www.eapoe.org that discusses Dupin's use of the example of the boy's gambling skills, as possibly taken from Burke. Regardless of the origin, this anecdotal explanation of Dupin's method in this story might have something to do with your question. In a sense it is the skill of assuming the other's physical presentation of himself(face,posture,etc)so that the detective might assume the inner "feelings" and thus secret thoughts of the other. What a person is thinking without speaking and the general state of his inner personality can thus be intuited from external manifestations reprogrammed via the detective's mimickry. Dupin discovers the hidden letter by understanding the man, even though he has no other clue except general knowledge and the reasoned point that the secret must be "obvious". This story has to do with determining the course of the criminal vis a vis the predictable police through understanding his psychology- and of course without his conscious cooperation. In The Imp of the Perverse and The Tell-Tale Heart the need for the criminal to reveal his secrets is inwardly very powerful and can manifest itself in many more obvious ways leading to a full confession. The Purloined Letter is all about the different psychologies, the human nature of police and criminal in play, that Dupin must analyse and follow to the necessary solution.

Beyond this I haven't a clue myself.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2001


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