The Purloined Letter
The Prefect of the Paris police calls twice on Auguste Dupin about a letter taken from a royal apartment by a minister who is using it for leverage. His men have searched the minister's rooms by night for months, probing chair legs and measuring cubic inches, and turned up nothing. Dupin's answer turns on matching one's reasoning to the opponent rather than the furniture, an argument later criticism has never stopped rereading.
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Lineage
- continues ↑ The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Attributes
Genre
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Symbol / motif
Culture / tradition
Closest analogues
- 55% · 11 shared
- 55% · 10 shared
- 54% · 10 shared
- 52% · 10 shared
- 52% · 9 shared
- 51% · 11 shared