Unspeakable Horror!

I have a few more thoughts to conclude my analysis of Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue."  Please make sure to read the previous entry on this excellent story. 

In a sense, "Rue Morgue" starts out as a kind-of "romance" between Dupin and the unnamed narrator, as the quoted excerpts in the previous entry demonstrate.  The description of this close bond between two men living together reminds me of other 19th century "closeted" descriptions of men together like Queequeg and Ishmael in Moby-Dick.  However, after Poe establishes the closeness of Dupin and the narrator, the description of their relationship almost completely vanishes in order for the mystery to take center stage and focus. 

Once this relationship is subsumed into the larger plot of the story, all of the horror begins.  According to Freud (and this is a very general paraphrase), horror and dread result from the repression of sexuality (of course, this is a narrow lens for the interpretation of the horror genre).  Considering this as a general guideline for interpretation,  I think it yields interesting suggestions and possibilities for a continuation of a queer reading.   

Poe is famous for his doubles and doppelgangers, and this story is no exception.  Poe presents Dupin and the narrator, and this relationship is doubled by the relationship between the sailor and the Ourang-Outang.  A lot of my interpretations of the horror genre rest on the assumption that the doubles act out or embody what has been repressed.  For example, the horrible figure of Dracula embodies the repressed sexuality of Victorian society.  In this story, the horrible Ourang-Outang is the double of Dupin.  The Ourang-Outang is not a real creature, by the way.  Poe based this monster on a real ape, but I read the Ourang-Outang as a monster created in Poe's mind, and I think this helps with the interpretation of the story as a real monster story.  The Ourang-Outang embodies ferocious malevolence and wild, untamed violence.  In other words, this creature is direct from the id, the complete opposite of the excessive analysis and higher intellect employed by Dupin as he solves the case.  It is very interesting that the sailor keep the monstrous ape locked up in his closet -- this seems to be a clear symbol of repression, no matter how you interpret the meaning of the repression.  

More interesting aspects of this monstrous ape: it is a little gender confused.  When the sailor discovers the Ourang-Outang has escaped, it is playing with the straight razor -- trying to shave like it witnessed the sailor shaving through the keyhole of the closet.  The ape escapes from the sailor, and savagely murders two women -- ostensibly trying to "shave" the older woman with the razor, but this is all madness.  

I haven't read this story for a number of years, and in addition to being surprised at the homoerotic bond between Dupin and the narrator, I was bowled over by the irony of the story.  For all of the narrator's rational explanations of Dupin's analytical methods, the crime itself is pure madness: a wild Ourang-Outang going on a murderous rampage with a straight razor in Paris!  There is nothing logical or rational about the crime, which suggests the complete polar opposite of Dupin's methods of analysis and his higher intellect.  

This split between intellect and madness can be found in many Poe stories, and the madness often comes from below, or in this case, from within the confines of the sailor's closet.  I guess the real interpretive question becomes:  how do you interpret this deeper realm from which madness springs -- is it the depths of repression?  

It is also interesting to note that the ape's victims are women.  If the sailor and the Ourang-Outang are the shadow figures of Dupin and the narrator, then the two women victims are the anima figures (the female doubles -- this is a Jungian archetype), and there appears to be perhaps a trifle of turmoil about these figures: decapitated, stuffed up a chimney, hair pulled-out, strangled, thrown out a window.  Does this story act out hatred towards women?  If the Ourang-Outang embodies the complete opposite of Dupin's higher intellect, it would suggest some serious psychic distress.  

I think I raised more questions than I resolved through my interpretation of this story.