Modern Hayatın Eleştirmeni ve Edgar Allan Poe’nun “Morg Sokağı Cinayetleri”

Edgar Allan Poe’s oeuvre has undoubtedly been pioneering in the field of detective fiction not only for American literature but also for various literatures across the world. With his detective stories, Poe introduced the eccentric figure of Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin–synthesizing ratiocinative capabilities with imaginative faculty. This article focuses on Edgar Allan Poe’s ambivalent characterization of detective Dupin in the short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” The main point is to examine the emergence of the detective figure as a reaction to the rapidly changing world of mid-nineteenth century urban modernity. While focusing on the first detective story of its kind, this paper argues that the portrayal of Dupin’s partial attachment to the past and his temporal dislocation as a displaced individual in the predominantly bourgeois society is used as a means to provide a critique of the modern world and to reveal the ambivalence of modern man confronted with conflicting forces between the past and the present. While the first half of the article focuses on the detective’s alliance with both the past and the present values by examining specific illustrations of this ambivalence, the second half, borrowing from the works of Foucault, Benjamin and Moretti, discusses the theoretical ramifications of the detective’s embodiment of modern surveillance culture.