In contrast with Minister D, the Prefect seems to be, at first, the ideal scientist, mocking the former for being “not altogether a fool but then he’s a poet, which I take to be only one remove from a fool.” (Poe 421) But what the Prefect fails to realize is that the poet’s mind and the scientist’s mind are complementary – and this might be one of the main reasons for which he is mocked by Dupin. His search method is made to seem so scientific and perfected, that one might wonder how it is possible for such an investigation lead to a dead end. The prefect made a show out of this thoroughness, describing all the methods through which he had been able to discover possible secret hiding places in objects that others would have ignored or to observe if even a speck of dust had been moved from its place. That character turns out to be, in accordance with the layout of detective stories, the Prefect, who, regardless of the countless attempts to find the letter, searching the minister’s house and the “two houses immediately adjoining” (Poe 423), showing a scrupulosity out of the ordinary, found himself having wasted three months and still not having solved the case. The originality and superiority of Dupin, the sleuth, his ability to solve mysteries which seem inaccessible to others lies in the quality of his mind – of being, at once, that of a poet and that of a man of science, thus being able to challenge opponents with an equally brilliant capacity of reasoning.Īt the beginning of the short story, the “mock didactic motto” (Peiu 40) states that “Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than too much cleverness,” which immediately gives the reader a hint that a certain character in the story might fail in his actions because of the means he employs. Poe creates an extraordinary character with a powerful personality, a master of ratiocination, and he lets the reader take part in the intriguing process of finding a missing letter hidden in plain sight. In one of the first detective stories, “The Purloined Letter”, E.

Poe the purloined letter