In addition, this tale is frequently cited as the precursor to modern detective fiction. Dialog is used almost exclusively to present it. Additionally, the conversation between the characters, who gradually reveal their information while interacting with one another, reveals the story’s main idea. This Edgar Allan Poe tale is a solid portrayal of human nature, one might say. Poe tried to illustrate how the two groups of people have different perspectives on the same event. We frequently need to consider things from the viewpoint of others. The Minister, the police chief, and even the detective fall victim to various temptations as characters in the story. Both of these are a result of wealth and power, either directly or indirectly.



Detective Dupin serves as the story’s main character in “The Purloined Letter.” He is spot on when he says that people often fail to notice the most obvious things. That is how he discovered the location of the letter during his visit to the Minister. Dupin consistently acts in the same way. He constantly presents himself as being superior to everyone he interacts with. It is evident in the way he tells the tale of the big and small signs that help solve the mystery of the letter that wasn’t exactly missing. He claims that while most people would have missed the letter, he did not because he is not like the average person. His goal is to demonstrate that he is superior to the average person. He demonstrates that he is a detective simply based on that.

The letter itself is only a literary device around which Poe creates a game of wits in the story “The Purloined Letter,” despite all the discussion about it. The letter’s contents and its political ramifications are left out because they are not necessary to the plot. Significantly, the letter is folded inside out and made to appear insignificant by the Minister before Dupin finally finds it and places it carelessly into a rack hanging from the fireplace. For the purposes of the story, the way he hid the letter is very important. Ironically, the letter’s contents will never be made more widely known to the fictional Dupin universe than they are to the reader, despite all the fuss surrounding it.

One can say decipher a more general psychological device that Poe employs in his short stories by carefully reading “The Purloined Letter,” as the saying goes. Dupin’s anticipation is a key element in the case’s successful conclusion. This is made possible by being able to comprehend and rely on his subject Minister’s pattern of behaviour. Poe refers to the unifying qualities of the world and the mind that support Dupin’s predictions as “simplicity.” By establishing a formula by which the various modes of human thought and action could be understood, Poe is attempting to approximate human behaviour to a scientific low in this passage.

The plot neither has a shocking conclusion nor a sense of surprise. The letter was kept throughout the story in plain sight, which is the only unexpected element that can be found in the narrative.