Aaron Ferber

Assignment 6

ENGL 1147

amf272

Aaron Ferber

The Mystery Outside the Story

Excuse me, but you seem to be somewhat lost. Ah, I see I have startled you. Please, do not be frightened by my appearance: we French are kind and hospitable people. I noticed that you seemed to be quite exhausted, in fact it seemed as if you had been wandering for quite some time. You see I am a native of this city, and I thought I could be of service to you. Ah, I see you hungrily eyeing that freshly baked bread across the street, why don't we take a small snack before we set you on your way?

That is quite a nice coat you have, and the orange color makes it stand out so well. There are undoubtedly few others like it anywhere near here. It reminds me of an adventure I once went on with one of my close friends. Ah, my story piques your interest? Very well, I shall tell you while we wait for the next batch of baguette. 

You see it all started on a very dull day. Why yes, actually most of my stories begin on the most dreary of days, c'est la vie. So on this day, a Wednesday I believe, I had simply been taking a stroll around town, seeing if there was anything to be done. You see, I thrive on an intellect that derives it's main source from observation and extrapolation. You don't quite understand? Look at that man over there, hastily glancing back and forth over at the woman sitting across the café and again at the plate in front of him. No doubt most would assume he is interested in getting her phone number. However, if this were the case, we might also assume a slight dilation of the pupils as well as a neglect of the food in front of him. Both of which, in this case, are not present. Now look at her food, ah she is just now realizing that in fact, the meal she has before her is not what she had asked for. Indeed, it is the other man's food that has been brought to her table. That man's eyes of desire are not so much for the woman, as for the food at her table. Ah yes, and there he is walking up to go correct the waiter's mistake. The world is a funny place in this way.

Ah, my ability to predict excites you. It is quite common for most to find my train of thought intriguing. You wish to hear my original story? Very well, we will continue this story after you have a nice croissant.

Your waving hand gestures seem to indicate that you would like another piece of bread. No, it is the rest of the story that you desired. Very well, I shall try to satiate your appetite. Well, you see, it was a rather dreary day when I decided to pick up a newspaper and skim over some of the local headlines. Going over the articles I found that there had been many things that were, much like the day, rather ordinary and of little consequence. However, I soon stumbled across an article describing a pair of extraordinary murders in the Rue Morgue. Apparently there had been a recent break in at the L'Espanaye residence. Nearby residents had complained about some noise and when heading over to investigate, found that the door was locked tight and they could not enter until they took a crowbar to the door. They also heard some form of shouting, both from the mouth of Madame L'Espanaye, as well as the perpetrator. None of the witnesses could quite tell the origin of the perpetrator from his language, but they had soundly defined him as male, which narrowed the search pool by roughly a factor of two. A pool which, when originally factoring in the entire population of the world, still seemed rather large. In addition to identifying that the culprit was male, the report also indicated that nothing had actually been stolen from the household, indeed all that seemed to be missing was Madame L'Espanaye and her sister, which directly tied the case to one of immense rage. Only someone so brutal and with an inhuman lack of compassion could have done such a deed. Indeed, a large amount of soot was found and upon inspection of the fireplace, the body of Madame L'Espanaye's sister, Camille, was found fully jammed up the chimney, head first. Her corpse was dragged from the chimney. Upon inspection of her corpse, severe scratches on the face, dark bruises along the throat and deep indentations of finger nails were found that seemed to hint the deceased had been throttled to death.

Ah, of course you are not interested in hearing such stories of gore and violence while we eat. Please enjoy some of our finer cheeses with your bread. Take some wine perhaps, it is quite fragrant. Yes, I see your nose picks up the scent. Do you drink much wherever you are from, no? Oh what a pitty, here in France we all enjoy some wine with our meals, it helps dull the mind as well as the tongue. Yes, I do see that you are enjoying yourself, and your claps of joy seem to beg for a continuation into my story. Very well, we shall hear more of my tale, but only after we get one of my favorite cheeses. Ah, yes, I practically grew up on this. It's one of the most expensive cheeses money can buy. Why yes, actually my family was quite wealthy, but I am not so unfortunately. Such is life. But yes, where was I.

Right, I had read through the newspaper article and indeed they had eventually found Madame L'Espanaye. She turned up outside the house, in the small paved yard to the rear of the building. The body, as well as the head, was so mutilated that in an attempt to raise here, the head had fallen off. In addition, the police had thus far been unable to identify a single clue. After the article were several key witness accounts that all seemed to conflict with one another. Some deposed that the culprit had been from Spain while others said they must have been from France. Indeed the only intelligible information given was the fact that the two sisters were very friendly with each other, lived a rather retired lifestyle, and that the door was forced open with the bayonet of a Gendarme, rather than by crowbar. The only possible suspect was one Adolphe Le Bon, who had delivered four thousand francs on the day in question to the two sisters. However, that being said, no money was taken from the household. In fact, the key to the chest of valuables had still been in the lock and any culprit could have gained immediate access with little to no resistance. 

It was in essence, an unsolvable puzzle, the kind of which greatly whets my appetite and only presents itself once in a while. Just as you are tearing into your hard bread with your claw-like hands, I was eager to immerse myself in this newfound puzzle. Ah, but I see you are finished with your bread and cheese. It's getting somewhat dark out, why don't we stay for a bit and enjoy a nice cake or pastry. Here in Paris, we tend to enjoy the finer things in life, food, drink, unsolvable puzzles, we have it all. Why don't I get you one of these fine pastries glaring at you through the glass. Yes they are somewhat fattening, but I hope you'll realize that it's truly how much something satiates your desire that counts, not as much what happens afterwards. I myself have had one too many pastries, but I've enjoyed every last one of them. Indeed we must fully indulge ourselves in order to fully appreciate something. Your tapping finger seems to indicate that you would like me to continue. Very well, I shall indulge your sense of mystery.

Many, after seeing that even the parisian police could not find out what had happened, immediately mark the case as solved and never give it a second thought. However, the parisian police, while extolled for the acumen, are cunning, but nothing more. There is no method beyond that of the moment for their procedures. They take a vast parade of measures, each of which are specifically suited to the mundane tasks of day to day life. Their abilities, for the most part, come up with not infrequently surprising answers. However, they are found the majority of the time through their diligence and hard manual labor, rather than educated thought. Vidocq, for example, was a good guesser and a hard worker. However, he relied for the most part on the intensity of his investigation. He tended to bring in an object of interest too close to his view, as to be able to see with excruciating intensity each individual nook and cranny of the object. However, in doing so he lost a great deal of sight on the outside world. He was unable to see the object's place in the bigger picture and as a result was unable to find the true mistake of his fellow gendarmes. Indeed I did go pay the Rue Morgue a visit so as to verify the information myself. It was lucky that I happened to know the prefect police in that I was able to obtain permission quite simply into the building. Indeed the witnesses had agreed on nothing with regards to the voice save for it's gruffness and that no words had been distinguishable. Since the door had been locked and watched heavily by the gang of disturbed neighbors, that point of egress was definitively out. At this point I told myself that there must be some other way of escape. The window, of course was the only other possible route available short of climbing out the chimney, which had been backed up at the time by the corpse of Mademoiselle Camille. In fact, once I had removed the other impossibilities for reasons relating to witnesses, I was only left with the highly improbable method of using the windows as an escape route. In fact, in the police's notes they had noted that a very stout nail had been fitted one of the windows. And upon inspection of the other window, they had found the nail practically immovable and the sash covering the window just as firmly in place. I then proceeded to think that the culprit had definitely escaped through the unchecked window. In fact, it was highly unlikely as any escape through the window would have necessitated a removal of the sash and then a replacement of it upon complete exit which is something that was nearly impossible. However, the culprit most definitely did not escape through the front entrance as the majority of witnesses and higher up gendarmes were essentially blockading the front entrance. A careful search of the room brought to light a hidden spring which, when pressed, raised the sash enough to allow and escape. The spring was attached to the stout nail that no doubt caused much effort in opening for that same reason. In essence I now understood that the method of exit was definitively through this window. The entire mystery was no longer unsolvable and I had all the answers to be able to solve this mystery. It was quite simple really, a man, or woman, of considerable strength must have entered and exited this window. Of course, this would be quite simple were the residence not on the fourth floor of the building. Clearly, a feat of this caliber needed a culprit that was so sure footed as to be able to climb a four story building and then jump out as he exits. In order to understand this I took a look around the back of the estate. It was almost entirely devoid of climbable material, save for a rod sticking all the way up the back of the house, and very old shutters, both about ninety degrees from the wall in such a way that an very courageous robber might have climbed all the way up and then swung with all his might onto the shutters and then into the room. Of course, this begs us to question why a robber would go through all this trouble and not bring a single item from the L'Espanaye residence. Such an acrobat would surely have wanted more than the mere pleasure of killing the two sisters. Indeed they didn't seem to be acquainted with any person of this sort.

Ah, but you seem to be enjoying yourself. Yes the lights do dance very enticingly across the street. Many small shops have this type of light that playfully dances in the wind. You seem to be finishing up your pastry quite nicely. You see, I told you it was a good idea. Don't worry, I am also almost done with my story. You enjoin me to continue, very well I shall.

The way in which the culprit so decimated the bodies and shoved that of Camille up the chimney was unparalleled in terms of fear and awe. It had to have been the work of an acrobat; however, no acrobat could speak with an unintelligible tongue to so many people. Someone must have understood something the man said if it were truly an acrobat. In fact, I deduced that it couldn't have been human as much of the acts were completely inhumane or near impossible feats for a human to achieve. 

No, it would not be wise to venture out this late at night into the wilds. Better you stay with me and avoid trouble. Don't worry sir, I promise to take good care of you. Nothing will happen to you and no one else needs to know our secret. Yes well, you see the fur pulled out by Madame L'Espanaye turned out not to be that of a human, but rather that of an ourang-outang. The animals, known very well for their climbing and courageous abilities perfectly fit the bill for culprits. In fact, it would be the only creature to want to enter the room by climbing the back entrance four stories up to the window where it would kill the two sisters in the most gruesome and animalistic way possible with no regard for their monetary treasures. Only a creature of this nature could have done such a deed, a creature, such as yourself.

ANALYSIS:

Assignment 6 Writeup

ENGL 1147

amf272

Aaron Ferber

The Mystery Outside the Story Writeup

For this assignment I wanted to include as much as possible from both Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Reluctant Fundamentalist. I purposefully didn't include the unnamed narrator from  Murders in the Rue since I felt that with a character like Dupin, a side character is not nearly as important to him as it is to the author. Dupin doesn't need our interlocutor, but rather we as readers need the interlocutor, to be able to better understand the story.

I think Dupin and Changez are very similar characters in that they are extremely well gifted in reviewing situations. Dupin notes that, unlike the Parisian Police, he is exceptionally gifted in viewing a problem as a whole and not overlooking a single possibility, however improbable it may seem. In addition, Changez is very good at reading situations such as when he is able to do very well in his job interview for Underwood Samson given that he is already in the top percentile of the class of Princeton. Changez is able to look at a situation from many perspectives and often overthinks things such as human contact that we so often ignore. It is because of this that Changez is able to make such a powerful connection, albeit a one way connection, with Erika.

In addition to this I tried to drop in small hints that the interlocutor present in my story was in fact the Orangutan from the original story. I felt that this added a second layer of mystery to the story and that in any case it would be interesting to see the hints dropped along the way when the truth is finally revealed at the end. As for the ending itself, I tried to make it somewhat vague as we saw in The Reluctant Fundamentalist since it seemed to keep us as readers guessing as to what the actual ending was. In The Reluctant Fundamentalist we had no idea whether Changez was an enemy spy, a friendly informant, or even still just a regular guy who was caught in the crossfire. All of this is very difficult to differentiate and I think it fits perfectly well with the terrorism genre. The biggest problem with terrorism, as noted by David Black, was that in the modern theatre of war, it is nearly impossible to tell who are your allies and who are your enemies. There are no more flags, no more boundaries between us and them, and I think this is what keeps The Reluctant Fundamentalist a mystery even after we're done the story. I wanted this effect in my story because it is the same concept with animals. They are neither with us nor against us. Indeed in the modern theatre of war, many animals such as dogs, dolphins and other domesticated creatures are used extensively to combat many forms of enemies. In Murders in the Rue Morgue, it seems as thought the culprit was not really the enemy of the L'Espanaye sisters but rather a passerby who happened upon them by accident. As a result of the shrieks that likely would have followed a large orangutang jumping into your bedroom window, the creature would probably have turned ballistic and attacked them.

Overall, I believe that the two stories, even though they were separated by a great deal of time, have much in common. They both deal with the unknown allegiance of the culprit, with an unknown motive. Indeed, they both have an unnamed interlocutor, even though in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Changez seems to actually acknowledge and try to aid his American interlocutor as much as possible, whereas with Murders in the Rue Morgue, we never hear the person's name because it is seemingly unimportant. Both stories also have an overarching mystery of some kind, which of course was necessary for it to be featured in this class. Changez, as much as Dupin, is dealing with a rather unpredictable character. Both the American and the Orangutang are considered highly dangerous and unpredictable by the majority of people who deal with them, the waiter and the Gendarmes respectively. However, when confronted by a man of intelligence and near perfect train of thought, they seem much less dangerous and unpredictable.