To Reason Unreasonably—On the Undercurrent of Irrationality in Edgar Allan Poe’s Detective Stories

It is generally believed that Edgar Allan Poe’s detective stories feature the ratiocination of C. Auguste Dupin, a detective Poe has created. However, this paper aims to demonstrate that there is actually an undercurrent of irrationality in Poe’s detective stories. First of all, ratiocination, by definition, refers to inference, or deductive rules. It is also a type of the Enlightenment thinking that is closely related to reason or rationality. In detective fiction, it is the detective’s ability to analyze the clues and reason out the truth. It is true that Dupin’s ratiocination predominates in Poe’s detective stories. However, a closer look will reveal that Dupin’s ratiocinative processes in these stories are in fact blended with his speculation or imagination, namely, elements of irrationality. That is, beneath Dupin’s seemly seamless ratiocinative model is indeed an undercurrent of irrationality. To find out the origin of this undercurrent, we have to research the historical background of Poe’s detective stories. In the era of Poe’s detective stories, the Enlightenment is the dominant thinking, while there is also a resistant force developing at the same time, Gothicism. The Enlightenment puts a premium on reason; in contrast, Gothicism is often equated with irrationality, whose manifestations include horror or imagination. Poe, who is deemed as the “romantic ironist”, is a writer who is uniquely capable of making two statements with opposite meanings simultaneously. So as he indicates that ratiocination will lead to the truth in his detective stories, he may as well implies that imagination or speculation will also fulfill the same purpose. In addition, Poe excels in absorbing contraries; thus, he infuses both rationality and irrationality into his detective stories. For Poe, the latter has to be subdued by the former. As a consequence, the former plays a pivotal role in Poe’s detective stories, while the latter ends up as an undercurrent.