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From C. Auguste Dupin to Leroy Jethro Gibbs: Why Contemporary Detective Fiction is Indebted to Poe

A Joint English/Honors Thesis Presented to The University Honors Program And The Department of English Language and Literature Gardner-Webb University 4 April 2012

by

Chelsea Renee Usher

Accepted by the Honors Faculty

______Dr. June Hobbs, Thesis Advisor Dr. Tom Jones, Associate Dean, Univ. Honors

______Dr. Matt Theado Honors Committee Dr. Cathy Ciesielski, Honors Committee

______Dr. Joseph Webb, Honors Committee Dr. Ivelina Naydenova, Honors Committee

______Dr. Janet Land, English Workshop II

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my mentors for their support: Dr. Matt Theado for sparking my interest in the academic side of detective fiction and Dr. June Hobbs for providing guidance and support as I turned that interest into a thesis.

I am especially grateful to Dr. Tom Jones, my honors advisor, professor, and friend. Thank you for making honors come alive and being a constant source of support and encouragement over these last four years.

Special thanks is due to my army of “puppy-sitters” who diligently cared for Future Leader Dog “Tucker” so I could actually sit down to write.

I am also appreciative of my parents, who have been with me through it all and who made attending Gardner-Webb possible. Finally, I am thankful to God for all of the above and the rest of my many blessings. Usher 3

Abstract

This thesis examines the impact Edgar Allen Poe’s detective stories, or stories of ratiocination, had on the formation of the detective genre. Through the examination of several well known novels and television shows, it seeks to show how the formula Poe created in the

1840s is still influencing the genre today. An analysis of Poe’s stories reveals a very distinct formula and list of classic elements, which includes but is not limited to, the brilliant detective, admiring sidekick, wrongly accused, and villain above suspicion.

These elements were then used to analyze a variety of works, beginning with the

Sherlock Holmes story, A Scandal in Bohemia. From there, the analysis moves through the hard- boiled novels of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, to novels by James M. Cain, Walter

Mosley, and John D. MacDonald. Because of the recent spike in detective shows and their popularity, this thesis also examines Poe’s elements in relation to several television shows, most notably NCIS. Though this analysis illustrates the copious ways in which Poe’s stories influenced these works, it also makes note of several deviations. Despite this seeming opposition to Poe’s formula, this thesis argues that the changes and alterations seen within contemporary detective fiction are merely representative of contemporary culture in the same way that Poe’s stories were influenced by the culture of the nineteenth century.

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The network announces the title of the next program, and that “viewer discretion is advised.” The camera zooms in on a young woman walking down a nondescript sidewalk in a nondescript city. It’s dark. She might be drunk and returning from a party, or a nervous student coming home after class. A shadow approaches behind her. The screen goes blank.

Now the camera opens on the light of day, as cops and forensic specialists mill about an area cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. The viewers’ favorite detectives appear on the scene, sometimes chatting idly, sometimes already discussing the gruesome scene before them.

They crouch next to the body. One of them makes a profound statement regarding the victim or the case, and the screen changes to the opening credits as the show’s theme song plays.

Even the most dedicated fan of detective television couldn’t begin to guess which of today’s crime shows is most accurately described by the above scenario. While die-hard fans may try to argue that their favorite show is completely unique and unlike the series flooding the television networks, they would be mistaken. The details may change with each series and each episode within that series, but the basic formula and premise will remain unchanged, much like it has since Edgar Allen Poe created the detective fiction genre in the 1840s.

Since Poe is probably most well known for the traditional high school English selections of “The Raven” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” fans of detective fiction may be surprised to learn that he is also widely accepted as the father of the detective genre. Though the art of detecting has been around since human beings were first faced with mystery, it was Poe who solidified the literary genre and allowed it to stand on its own, separate from the traditional genres of the 1800s. However, in his book, Crime Fiction from Poe to Present, Martin

Priestman points out that “Poe’s tradition has...run alongside and often intertwined with other ways of writing about crime, which are less easily pinned down to a point of origin” (1). This Usher 5 assertion raises the question of how much of the formula that Poe created in the 1840s is still influencing detective fiction today. After examining Poe’s detective stories and comparing them to a selection of the stories, novels, and television shows that came after, it becomes clear that his influence is still alive and well. It would be remiss, however, to claim that the genre has remained totally unchanged for over a century. These changes and alterations shouldn’t be viewed as opposition to Poe’s formula, however. This paper seeks to prove that just as Poe’s stories reflect the era in which he wrote, so do the changes in Poe’s formula present in today’s stories, novels, and shows reflect the changing ideals of the American culture.

Poe’s Culture

For Poe’s era, the idea of the police detective was a fairly new concept. In fact,

Priestman notes, “it was not until the establishment by Napoleon in 1812 of the Sûreté, the

French criminal investigation department, that the figure of the professional detective began to gain public approval” (10). Therefore, it is not surprising that the stories of detection that existed previous to this date focused more on repentance and much less on the detective. According to

LeRoy Lad Panek in The Origins of the American Detective Story, “unlike what passed for crime fiction at the time, Poe’s Dupin stories both center on the detective as a character and have nothing to do with morality and have nothing to do with crime, justice, or law” (9).

In Great Britain, London didn’t found its Metropolitan Police force until 1829, and the specially trained Detective Police didn’t appear on the scene until 1842, the year after Poe wrote his first detective story. In the United States, New York didn’t found the Day and Night Police until two years later, in 1844. This group was formed partly in response to the murder of Mary

Rogers, which ironically enough, was the inspiration for Poe’s second detective story published Usher 6 in 1842, “The Murder of Marie Roget.” Understanding this portion of history also helps the reader appreciate why Poe, an American, would choose Paris as the setting for three of his five detective stories. Quite frankly, at the time Poe was writing, the French law enforcement system would have been more seasoned (Priestman 10).

That being said, while Poe would have certainly been influenced by these historical milestones to write about crime and detection, his motivation for the creation of the brilliant detective may have been a little closer to home. Panek believes that “much, if not most, of Poe’s inspiration for creating Dupin and writing his detective tales to begin with came from his own larger than life view of himself...he was moved to write about the genius, not just as genus but as genius detective” (7). This theory is supported by Robert Daniel in his article “Poe’s Detective

God.” Daniel claims that Dupin was created as Poe’s alter ego, and that the detective’s “function in society [was] one that allowed Poe to dominate society imaginatively, when in fact society pretty much rejected him” (106).

Some of this rejection came from a group of writers known as the

Transcendentalists. One of the most influential members of this movement, Ralph Waldo

Emerson, was certainly opposed to Poe’s methodology. In “The Poet,” Emerson posited that verse is a miracle to the poet and should be just as interesting and surprising to the author as the reader. He believed that poets were not made, but born, which was in complete opposition to

Poe’s belief that the art of poetry could be learned (Hobbs). In fact, Poe disagreed with “The

Poet” to such an extent that he wrote a rebuttal of sorts titled “The Philosophy of

Composition.” In this essay, Poe maps out in detail the composition of what could arguably be his most famous poem: “The Raven.” Poe explains every poetic choice within the piece, from the number of lines to the species of the bird, showing that logic and reason are fully capable of Usher 7 creating excellent poetry. Not only that, but by using a raven, i.e. part of nature, to torment his subject, Poe is slamming the Transcendental ideal that nature brings truth and relief (Hobbs). This love for the specific, the detailed, and the logical was certainly at work as

Poe began writing the stories that would become the base of the detective genre.

Poe’s Stories: The Base of the Genre

To fully understand the origins of the genre, one must first understand its elements in relation to Poe’s work. From 1841 to 1844, Poe wrote five detective stories–“The Murders in the

Rue Morgue,” “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” “The Gold Bug,” “Thou Art the Man,” and “The

Purloined Letter”–which he termed “stories of ratiocination” or logical reasoning (Priestman 8).

While Poe was certainly not the first author to dabble in detective fiction, he brought substance and legitimacy to the genre by providing a set of repeatable elements that would come to define the genre. Dorothy L. Sayers, in her essay “The Omnibus of Crime,” claims that “‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ constitutes in itself almost a complete manual of detective theory and practice” (60). Her theory is supported by David Lehman, author of The Perfect Murder: A

Study in Detection, which lists “locked rooms... least likely culprits, eccentric sleuths and their admiring companions, dullard cops, and wrongly accused bystanders” as the “conventions of the classic whodunit” (71). All of these elements can be found in “Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

The list doesn’t end there, however, as Lehman also sites “the rules of detection, the...cipher...the murderous double, the city as the criminal landscape,” “the villain above suspicion,” and “the armchair detective” as additional elements seen in one or more of Poe’s other detective stories

(71-72, 73, 78). Yet, though these are the elements Poe scholars have identified as being the most important to the genre he created, none of the five stories contains every element, Usher 8 foreshadowing, in a way, the mixing, matching, and fluidity that the genre would develop over time.

The first of Poe’s stories, “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” introduces the genre and begins with a lengthy discussion of chess, draughts, whist, and checkers as they relate to the art of analysis. This strategy is exceedingly fitting given Panek’s opinion that “for Poe, it’s not about law or crime or criminals; it’s all about playing games” (9). Contemporary readers often find this portion overly long and arbitrary, but as Daniel explains, “the introductory section...was in

1841 of paramount importance to the success of the idea that a debilitated amateur would triumph where the police had failed” (106).

Having thoroughly explained his belief that the analytical mind must be combined with ingenuity to be successful in games such as these, Poe’s unnamed narrator proceeds to relay the story of a double homicide as evidence to his theory. Before launching into the mystery, however, the narrator provides the reader with some background. He and Dupin, whom he feels honored to know, are creatures of the night. They live in darkness and secrecy during the day, and only venture out of their quarters onto the streets of Paris after dark. Here they “[sally] forth...arm in arm...seeking, amid the wild lights and shadows of the populous city, that infinity of mental excitement which quiet observation can afford” (“Murders” 401). It is while discussing these observations that the mention of the double first arises. The narrator claims that in these near fits of analysis, Dupin’s voice would change from tenor to treble, causing his companion to “[dwell] meditatively upon the old philosophy of the Bi-Part Soul, and [amuse himself] with the fancy of a double Dupin–the creative and the resolvent” (“Murders” 402).

The narrator also claims that Dupin’s powers of deduction are so honed that he can essentially read the narrator’s mind just by applying a bit of logic. Ergo, because the narrator Usher 9 bumped into a man carrying a basket of apples on his head, tripped, and stepped on a pile of loose stones, Dupin has deduced that he must be thinking of stones, which as they stepped onto a paved road, meant his thoughts must logically have shifted to the new types of pavement available. This clue he manages to link to the theories of Epicurus, which he then links to a previous conversation about astronomy as the narrator looks into the sky. An article which appeared in the previous day’s paper used a Latin phrase about the constellation Orion to describe a play, so when Dupin notices that the narrator begins to walk a little more upright, he deduces that the narrator has in fact been pondering a short actor whom they both believed unsuited for his particular role in the aforementioned play (“Murders”). In this long exaggerated exchange, the narrator not only establishes Dupin as a master of detection, but creates the iconic character of the brilliant detective who, employing observation and logic, can solve any case.

Finally, the narrator gets to the story’s namesake, the double murder at the Rue Morgue.

Having read about the murders in the paper and seeing that Adolphe Le Bon, a man whom Dupin says “rendered him a service for which [he was] not ungrateful” has been arrested, Dupin decides he and his companion should look into the case. After all, Dupin notes, “the Parisian police...are cunning, but no more” (“Murders” 411, 412). Picking on the cops not only offers a way for Poe to make Dupin appear more brilliant, but as Panek points out, “in most crime fiction before

WWI, there wasn’t a whole lot that the police could do that the average, educated, upper-middle class man (and a few women) couldn’t do” (61).

The police are baffled for two main reasons. First, the room in which the first victim is found dead appears to be locked from the inside and the room has no other obvious entrance.

Second, witnesses have reported hearing two voices arguing, but none of the witnesses can agree on the language used by the second suspect. Upon examining the scene, Dupin quickly Usher 10 discovers that though the room appears to be locked, one of the windows is in fact open, allowing the intruder access. He also finds a tuft of orange hair clutched in the cold dead hand of one of the victims. From these and a few other clues, Dupin deduces that the murderer is in fact an orangutan brought to France by a sailor. To prove his accuracy, he places an advertisement in the paper, claiming to have found a lost orangutan. To the narrator’s amazement, shortly thereafter, a sailor appears at their door and is forced by Dupin to reveal the finer details of the incident. Not surprisingly, Dupin’s assessment of the murders is accurate (“Murders”). It is also worth noting that it is the narrator’s point of view that allows Poe to hoodwink his readers. Were the story from Dupin’s point of view, the readers would be privy to all of his deductive reasoning, making the explanation of his ratiocination much less awe inspiring.

Returning for a moment to Lehman’s list, it is easy to see how each element is represented here. The story begins as a locked room mystery in a large city, an exotic animal is accused of the murder (the least likely culprit and, arguably, the villain above suspicion); the police are unable even to come close to solving the crime; an innocent bystander is jailed; the brilliant detective steps in to save the day; and, of course, his slightly dimmer sidekick1 is by his side, recording the entire incident for posterity. While the previously listed elements and the idea of the sidekick as chronicler would be used frequently by subsequent authors, it is unlikely that those authors found much use for Poe’s second detective story, “The Mystery of Marie

Roget.”

Unfortunately for Poe, Dupin’s second story is not nearly so impressive as his first, and is often hidden behind the success of “Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter.”

As previously mentioned, Daniel theorizes that Poe actually based Dupin on himself in an effort

1 Although Lehman labels the sidekick as an “admiring companion,” Poe’s narrator’s function within the story lends itself more to the title of slightly dimmer sidekick. Usher 11 to applaud his own brilliance. This theory may help to explain Poe’s strange choice with

“Mystery.” In his second tale of ratiocination, Poe creates the element of the “armchair detective”, or the detective so brilliant he doesn’t need to leave his home to gather his own evidence (Lehman 78). Taking the real life story of the murder of Mary Rogers in New York,

Poe creates the parallel murder of Marie Roget, a French girl. Due to the nature of the real crime, which Poe knew only through newspaper clippings, Poe has Dupin attempt to solve the entire mystery from his armchair, relying on his always faithful sidekick to bring him newspaper articles and visit the scene of the crime in his stead (“Mystery”). When Mary Roger’s body was discovered in the Hudson in July of 1841, it sparked a lot of excitement and curiosity within the community, and especially within the press (Saltz 240). This popularity may have been what inspired Poe to write a French version of the story, claiming that by solving the Dupin version, one might solve the real mystery (237). The opening of the story reads,

The extraordinary details which I am now called upon to make public, will be

found to form, as regards sequence of time, the primary branch of a series of

scarcely intelligible coincidences, whose secondary or concluding branch will be

recognized by all readers in the late murder of MARY CECELIA ROGERS, at

New York. (“Mystery” 507)

This passage leaves no doubt what Poe truly hoped to accomplish through this story. Although it seems Poe believed that his powers of ratiocination were foolproof, they failed him in the end.

While this story, like his first, was certainly influenced by the development of police departments, “Mystery” may have been further influenced by a more specific cultural topic: abortion. In her article, “(Horrible to Relate!): Recovering the Body of Marie Roget,” Laura

Saltz notes that “though Dupin produces Marie’s body as evidence of a crime, he leaves the Usher 12 nature of the crime, the possibility that she has been violated, and the identity of the culprit disturbingly obscure” (237). Saltz claims that while other analyses of this story have focused on the poor narrative structure, failed logic, and historical inaccuracies, they tend to omit something that Poe seemed to ignore, the fact that “Mary Rogers was generally believed to have perished not at the hands of her lover but under the knife of an abortionist” (239).

Unfortunately for Poe, it was only after the first two installments of his story were printed that the deathbed confession of an innkeeper identified the most likely cause of death as abortion.

Poe revised the third portion of the story based on this information in an attempt to hide his failure. Noting that Poe added some of the original theories to his manuscript, Saltz questions his decision not to mention abortion, especially given the fact that it was the most plausible cause of death. She reminds the reader, “Dupin carefully refutes the suggestion of suicide, the possibility that the body found was not correctly identified as Marie, and the popular gang theory, but thoroughly mystifies the question of abortion” (241).

In a letter to a friend, Poe appears to admit that the abortion theory is correct, but claims he left it ambiguous in order to protect her lover and his family from further scorn (241-242). It might seem odd that Poe would be more concerned with protecting the man who helped facilitate the lethal abortion than the victim, but Saltz claims it “make[s] sense when seen in the context of anxieties about abortion current in 1840s America” (242). While abortions were both legal and common prior to that period, the 1840s saw a sharp increase in the number of abortions. The procedure that had once been used to cover up an illegitimate pregnancy was now being used as birth control. Poe may have been among the crowd that thought “because it allowed married women a certain latitude of power in the home, abortion threatened the ‘natural’ domestic order, and was perceived as a threat to the patriarchal organization of the family” (Saltz 242). Given Usher 13 the popular opinion of abortion at the time, and the fact that Poe’s only use for women in his detective stories is as victims, it is logical to assume that he may have had similar feelings regarding the role of women in the home and that this may have affected this story.

Though Poe, and his detective, technically failed in their ultimate goal of solving a real crime though “Mystery,” it could be seen as ironic that “his own text would, over time, become more thoroughly integrated into collective memory–more authoritative–than the fragments of newspaper reportage on which it was based” (Saltz 263). So, in a sense, Poe’s belief that “we read history through the lens of fiction” is substantiated regardless of the story’s factual success or failure (Saltz 263).

Even so, the story still had a positive effect on the genre by repeating the elements of the brilliant detective, the slightly dimmer sidekick, dullard cops, and the city as the criminal landscape. In his article, “Never Bet the Detective (or His Creator) Your Head: Character

Rivalry, Authorial Sleight of Hand, and Generic Fluidity in Detective Fiction,” John Gruesser speaks to the importance of this repetition. He claims that, “by bringing Dupin back...[Poe] incorporates repeatability, self-referentiality, and authorial competition into detection” (10). Poe, however, apparently failed to see the benefits of repeatability at first, probably due in part to the failure of “Mystery”, and chose to go a different route with his next two installments in the genre, “The Gold Bug” and “Thou Art the Man.”

Almost immediately, readers will notice a distinct difference between “The Gold Bug” and both of Poe’s prior stories: the absence of violence. While the first two stories may be more accurately described as crime and detective fiction, “The Gold Bug” is very simply a story of detection, or as Poe had dubbed it, ratiocination. Though Poe steps away from Dupin in this piece, creating a character named William Legrande as the detective, he still keeps an unnamed Usher 14 narrator in the role of the admiring sidekick. This story also differs in location, as Legrand lives on Sullivan’s Island, an island off the coast of South Carolina (“The Gold Bug”). While the story may at first appear to be of little consequence because of these striking differences, its literary significance lies in the new element it introduces: the cipher. While the unnamed narrator is visiting Legrande in his island home, the old man discovers a cipher on a piece of old parchment. Unwilling to disclose his discovery at first, Legrande leads the narrator and his servant on what they believe to be a wild goose chase. It isn’t until the last clue leads them to the literal buried treasure that the narrator realizes that Legrande is not insane, but a genius. In typical Poe fashion, however, the story cannot merely end with this discovery. After having examined the contents of the treasure chest, the narrator writes, “Legrande, who saw that I was dying with impatience for a solution of this most extraordinary riddle, entered into a full detail of all the circumstances connected with it” (“The Gold Bug” 580).

Not only would this cipher have fascinated Poe’s readers, but it gave Poe yet another opportunity to show off his superior intellect. In fact, while writing for Alexander’s Weekly

Messenger, he actually challenged his readers to submit ciphers “written in hands, numbers, and typographical devices, or printed upside down in an effort to fool him. Some he reprinted, together with his solution, stressing that the poser ‘gave us no trouble whatever’ and offering to take on all comers” (Silverman 152). Given this intense love of concrete solutions, it is a wonder he didn’t use ciphers in all of his detective stories.

For his next story, “Thou Art the Man,” Poe again takes leave of Dupin and his newly added cipher, and adds a new twist: the unnamed narrator becomes the detective. He is still brilliant, though more talented than eccentric, but he lacks an admiring companion. This story includes three of Poe’s former elements seen in “Murders”: the least likely culprit, the villain Usher 15 above suspicion, and the wrongly accused. The elements of the least likely culprit and the villain above suspicion are very often connected. Just as a square can be a rectangle but a rectangle cannot be a square, so too the villain above suspicion is often the least likely culprit, but the least likely culprit does not always have to be a villain above suspicion.

In the case of “Thou Art the Man,” the murderer, Charles Goodfellow, fits both of these descriptions. As the victim’s (Mr. Shuttleworthy) best friend and the person who leads the search party that discovers his body, Goodfellow plays right into the role of the villain above suspicion. After all, why would a man kill his best friend? Goodfellow also causes the element of the wrongly accused, which is filled by the deceased’s nephew, Mr. Pennifeather, by planting and doctoring evidence.

As with Poe’s previous stories, the detective very quickly deduces the identity of the killer. Yet, in Dupin fashion, this detective isn’t satisfied with merely turning the man in to the authorities. Instead, he decides that a theatrical production is the most effective way to oust

Goodfellow’s guilt. Using a whale bone, the narrator rigs the body inside a box delivered to the murder’s home during a party so that when the box is opened, the body will sit straight up.

Then, using his amazing skills of ventriloquism, the narrator throws his voice towards the body saying, “thou art the man!” Not surprisingly, this very public accusation causes Goodfellow to give a complete confession, and then fall over dead from shock. Again, the story can’t simply end here, however, and the following paragraph begins the detective/narrator’s explanation: “the means by which this happily-timed confession was extorted, although efficient, were simple indeed” (“Thou Art” 741). Having announced his own brilliance in harnessing the simple (a very Dupin-like trait), the detective/narrator is then free to explain how he followed

Goodfellow’s plot through each and every stage. Usher 16

Despite the story’s success, Poe decided to return to his first detective for his final tale of ratiocination. This story, “The Purloined Letter,” which is “regarded by many critics as his best detective story and one of the greatest tales of detection ever written,” turns the Dupin stories into a trilogy (Gruesser 13). As Grusser sees it, if “Mystery” was considered a “whodunit,” and

“Murders” a “whatwuzit,” then “The Purloined Letter” would be a “whereisit” (17). In his final case, Dupin is charged to find a letter stolen from the royal apartments. The police are well aware that “Minister D” (or “D”) stole the letter, but what they cannot do is find it. The police

Prefect tells Dupin, “the fact is, we have all been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet baffles us altogether,” and in good form, Dupin replies, “perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you at fault” (“Purloined” 681). The prefect tells Dupin that they know for a fact that the Minister D still has the letter, but that searches of his person and apartment have turned up nothing. Essentially, he has come to Dupin as his last resort.

Theorizing that the letter must be hidden in plain sight, Dupin, wearing a disguise, actually goes the Minister’s home. As they converse about an unknown subject, Dupin notices an old dingy looking letter stuffed into one of the shelves. Realizing immediately that this must be the letter in question, because the Minister had taken such pains to make it look worthless, he memorizes its every detail, leaves his snuff box on the table, and bids the Minister farewell.

Calling the next day, claiming to be retrieving the snuff box, Dupin waits until a disturbance outside (which Dupin choreographed) draws “D’s” attention, and replaces the original letter with a replica (“Purloined”).

In the character of “D,” the reader is again introduced to the idea of the double. Not only do Dupin and “D” share a common letter, they are both masterminds of logic. Poe has his flawless sleuth “go head to head with a criminal genius,” known as a worthy opponent in Usher 17 contemporary times, making it all the more impressive when Dupin again comes out victorious2

(Lehman 95-96; Gruesser 13). The idea of the double is repeated again at the end of the story as

Dupin swaps a fake letter for the real letter. Again, Poe has kept his reader in the dark until the final moment so that only he can solve the crime. Gruesser sums up this idea of victory thus:

Poe, too [in addition to Dupin], comes out victorious, not only successfully

manipulating readers but topping himself in the concluding installment of the

series. He devises one of the most remarkable stratagems: hiding the solution out

in the open in the same manner that the Minister fools the Prefect by having

Dupin suggest to G__ near the beginning that “perhaps the mystery is a little too

plain [...a] little too self-evident.” (16)

Sherlock Holmes: The New Dupin

What Poe couldn’t have known then, and dying in 1849 was not able to see, was this strategy, in tandem with the other elements he created, would become the base of the genre, and that his eccentric sleuth would inspire the creation of “Sherlock Holmes, the most important and beloved sleuth in literature” (“Formal Detective” 90). In fact, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of

Sherlock Holmes, might well be given credit for solidifying the foundation Poe invented, and also for expanding it, as he “developed Poe’s inventions further, giving his detective varied abilities and wide and exotic interests, especially in the sciences and criminology” (“Formal

Detective” 90).

2 Although not discussed in this paper, this same element is used within the Sherlock Holmes stories, most notably with the rivalry between Holmes and Professor Moriarty. Usher 18

According to Panek, however, Doyle’s success may have had just as much to do with timing as with brilliance. Panek sites five “fortunate convergences” that helped catapult Doyle and Holmes to fame and fortune:

1. the appearance of new media (newspaper syndication and mass circulation of

magazines);

2. the availability of a significantly larger adult readership resulting from universal

education in Britain and the U.S.;

3. the emergence of real detectives and detective police in Britain and the U.S.;

4. the invention or discovery of revolutionary scientific and analytical tools that

could be applied to the solution of a crime; and

5. the emergence of new attitudes toward crime and criminals. (Panek 29)

Despite the fact that these five circumstances may have played a role in the popularity and success of Holmes, Panek still maintains that Doyle’s detective had something that Poe never fully mastered. He writes,

Poe, in spite of his role as the inventor of the form, never even gets close to

Holmes in the recognition given to literary influences in turn of the century

detective fiction. The few critics who wrote about literary history aside, when

writers mentioned Poe it was usually in reference to intellectual things (the

calculus of probabilities) or narrative technique; it was never about the character

of the detective. Sherlock Holmes owned character. (Panek 38)

What Panek doesn’t seem to take into account in this section, however, is that Holmes is in fact very similar to Dupin. Not only that, but Poe had written only three Dupin stories at the time of his death, whereas Holmes had so many stories they had to be put into multiple volumes. Usher 19

Truthfully, one needn’t look far for proof that Doyle was heavily influenced by Poe’s work.

Doyle himself said of Poe’s detective stories that, “each is a root from which a whole literature has developed....Where was the detective story until Poe breathed life into it?” (qtd. in Frank and

Magistrale 103).

Even without such a direct link from Poe to Doyle, the Holmes stories themselves speak to Poe’s influence. Take for example, “A Scandal in Bohemia,” one of Doyle’s short stories. In this one story alone, Doyle borrows several elements seen in Poe’s previous works, especially those found in “The Purloined Letter.” Sherlock Holmes is immediately described by his admiring sidekick and narrator (Watson) as the most brilliant man he has ever known. Watson claims Holmes “was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and cleaning up those mysteries, which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police”

(Doyle 153). Here he not only secures Holmes’ brilliance, but introduces the reader to the idea that the police, though they may try, will never be able to match the detective’s success.

Watson also references the past cases he and Holmes had worked together, much like the unnamed narrator does at the beginning of “Purloined,” were he reminds the reader about

Dupin’s last case, “The Mystery of Marie Roget.” As if this isn’t enough, Doyle mirrors the beginnings of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” by having Holmes use his powers of observation to deduce that Watson had recently been caught in a rainstorm and that his servant girl is inept. As in “Murders,” Watson responds with amazement and confirmation that Holmes is correct. Holmes then, like Dupin, begins to explain to Watson the clues that led him to his marvelous conclusion. He begins this explanation with the familiar statement, “it is simplicity itself,” which most certainly appears to be a nod to Dupin (Doyle 155). Doyle continues to Usher 20 strengthen the idea that only brilliance allows a person to see the simple, as Watson says, “when

I hear you give your reasons...the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each... instance...I am baffled until you explain your process”

(155). This statement also supports the sidekick as the way to keep the reader in the dark until the detective has had an opportunity to announce the solution.

As the story continues, Watson learns that Holmes has received an unsigned letter stating that he will be called on that night to help with a case. When the man arrives, he claims to be but a messenger of the Bohemian king, though Holmes deduces very readily that the man is actually the Bohemian king himself. Having established his genius, Holmes listens as the man relays his problem. As a young man, he had an affair with a woman named Irene Adler. She has letters and a photograph that could ruin his upcoming marriage, and he wants Holmes to retrieve them for him. The king has already attempted to retrieve the incriminating documents, sending men to ransack her home, but to no avail.

Like Dupin, Holmes dons a disguise and makes his way to Adler’s home. Also like

Dupin, he employs the help of bystanders to create a scene of chaos which affords him entrance into the home. Further employing Watson’s help to fake a fire, Holmes observes Adler as she checks the security of the letters’ hiding place. Having solved the mystery of the items’ location,

Holmes calls in the king to pass along the good news. After explaining his methods, the three men drive to Adler’s house, apparently in hopes of confronting her with this knowledge. They find she has fled the country with her new husband and the evidence, but she has left something behind: a letter for Holmes. In the letter, Adler admits Holmes’ disguise had her fooled at first, but that once he left her home, she used her own disguise to follow him back to Baker Street, thus confirming his identity. Though she is still in possession of the letters and photograph, she Usher 21 says she now holds them only as security, and has no intention of using them to blackmail the king. Satisfied with Holmes’ work, the king offers to give him a ring as payment. Holmes declines the offer and asks instead for a large photograph of Adler that had been purposefully left behind. A memento to a worthy opponent, perhaps?

In conclusion, Watson writes, that is “how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman’s wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler...it is always under the honorable title of the woman” (Doyle 182). This is the only point where Doyle seriously deviates from the elements Poe employed. Not only did Holmes find himself out witted in the end (though, one may notice, he technically still solved the mystery and won the approval of his client), but out witted by a woman. While no one can know for certain, it is probable that Poe would have balked at this ending. In Poe’s stories, women are never given power. In fact, the only women ever identified by name are all dead, and the cause of Dupin’s investigation. It is important to remember, however, that Poe’s stories were written just as the women’s rights movement was gaining momentum. The Seneca Falls Convention occurred one year prior to Poe’s death, and therefore, would not have been reflected in Poe’s writings like it may have been in Doyle’s.

Doyle began writing the Holmes stories over forty years after “Purloined” was published, and

Alder’s character may have simply reflected the trends of the time regarding increasing women’s rights and feminism. Essentially, Poe had done the same, writing about detection, crime, and unorganized police departments just as large police forces were being organized and people were becoming more aware of the crime around them.

Changing Ideals Usher 22

This idea that Poe and Doyle’s stories reflect nineteenth century culture is supported by

John G. Cawelti in Adventure, Mystery, and Romance. He writes, “it seems clear that the classical [detective] formula is related to a distinctive historical period and reflects attitudes and interests that are no longer as widespread as they were” (80). Cawelti’s claim is substantiated by

Panek who notes, “law and the courts are conspicuously absent in the Holmes stories” (43). Fans of contemporary detective fiction would be hard pressed to find many novels or television series that didn’t have at least one scene set in a courthouse or a lawyer as a character. Not only has the

U.S. court system expanded since Poe’s day, but the current American culture practically encourages excessive, and often ridiculous, interaction with the court system.3

Therefore, it shouldn’t be surprising that though Doyle was British, Americans immediately took his formula (essentially Poe’s formula) and made it distinctly American,

“focus[ing] on the law not only as a source of narrative devices... but also as subject matter–to discuss the changing nature of law-related testimony...as well as the fundamental nature of the law itself” (Panek 43). Panek also notes that the “classics” left out one very important element that contemporary readers might find hard to live without: motive. At the same time Doyle was writing about his master detective, psychologists like Lombroso and Freud were studying the criminal mind and attempting to determine the cause of aberrant behavior. The new studies in criminology were so much a part of the up-and-coming society that one of Doyle’s own publishers hired a psychologist to write an article about it for his magazine. Amazingly, many of the classic detectives seemed unaffected by these new developments. Yet, “the fledgling

3 Stropoli, Rebecca. "Today in Food Finance: Nutella is Not Broccoli." Yahoo Finance. Yahoo, 27 Apr 2012. Web. 28 Apr 2012. Ferrero, which manufactures Nutella, a hazelnut and cocoa spread, has been sued by a woman who claims they implied their product was part of balanced breakfast. This is just one of many cases were it seems that American culture prefers suing through the court system over reading the nutrition label.

Usher 23 disciplines of psychology and sociology became common adjuncts to the detective story in

America at the turn of the century” (Panek 45).

While motive may be the most contemporarily desired “element” that the classics missed, they also held to a very narrow view of which crimes were suitable for detective literature.

Doyle is not the only author guilty of this narrow-mindedness, as most “turn of the century

British detective fiction observes this same condition – politics and finance are not fit subjects for the genre” (Panek 45). The attitude in America at the time, however, was the exact opposite, as publishers jumped at the chance to publish a muck-raker’s piece exposing injustice in either of those fields. While Poe and Doyle may have preferred to stick solely to detecting, “one finds that social comment looms rather large in turn of the century detective fiction in the U.S.” (Panek

45). Americans were becoming more disillusioned with their country by the day and desired the truth. This desire was shared by the authors of the decade who began to shed light on every area of their society, a prime example being Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. It would have only been natural for this new fascination with the injustices of politics and finance to spill over into all of their literature, not only the non-fiction.

The Classical Formula

Even so, Cawelti claims that up until the 1940s, writers of detective fiction still often followed the pattern Poe laid down in “Murders” and “Purloined.” He has divided this formula into four parts: situation, pattern of action, characters and relationships, and setting. The

“situation” is always thus: the detective is faced with an unsolved crime and the story progresses as the mystery nears its end (80). Cawelti also notes that Poe’s “situations” seemed to focus on two specific types of crimes, “murder, frequently with sexual or grotesque overtones, and crimes Usher 24 associated with political intrigue” (81). That being said, however, Poe always puts more emphasis on the solving of the crime than the crime itself. His passion was for ratiocination, not criminal studies. Poe was also sure never to allow his readers to feel connected with the victims, as emotions would have just clouded the presentation of his investigative genius. The reader is not the only one who needs to remain distant from the victims, however, for as Cawelti notes,

“the classical detective usually has little real personal interest in the crime he is investigating”

(81). He quotes William Aydelotte, who argues that the lack of emotion and distancing in classical detective fiction is necessary for the formula because they allow a clean ending:

“troubles are objectively caused by an external circumstance, the murder, which can and will be resolved...the mess, confusion, and frustration of life have been reduced to a simple issue between good and evil” (81). While Dupin and the unnamed narrator of “Thou Art the Man” display this characteristic well, many of the detectives and subgenres that would follow Poe’s stories would find emotions entirely unavoidable.

Cawelti’s second point is that of the pattern of action, which according to Poe, was

“center[ed] upon the detective’s investigation and solution of the crime” (81). There are six stages to Cawelti’s pattern: “(a) introduction of the detective; (b) crime and clues; (c) investigation; (d) announcement of the solution; (e) explanation of the solution; (f) denouement”

(82). Each of Poe’s stories begins with the introduction of the detective, and especially in the case of the Dupin trilogy, an example of Dupin’s superiority. This is certainly one of the traits that has become timeless, as even “James Bond often begins ... by outwitting the villain in a game, as he defeats Goldfinger at golf and Sir Hugo Drax at bridge” (Cawelti 82). Such situations also serve to show the reader that no matter the challenge, the hero will be victorious. Usher 25

Dupin’s second step is always to visit the scene (unless he’s playing the role of the armchair detective) and gather clues before returning home to put all the pieces together in his mind. The detective is always more brilliant than his sidekick or reader; the detective must announce his solution to the crime. This announcement is almost always met with shock and amazement by those parties still wading through the clues, and thus the detective gets to explain his thought process. Finally, the story must be wrapped up at the end, either by the capture/confession of the criminal or the acquisition of a sought item.

Another classical element that ought not be overlooked is the role of the slightly dimmer sidekick as it relates to the reader. While it may seem obvious that the unnamed narrator’s responsibilities include recording the incident and asking stupid questions to make the detective appear brilliant, keeping the reader in the dark is also part of his job description. Think about it: if the story were told in first person point of view by the detective, whose mind is constantly in a state of ratiocination, readers would not only be unable to speculate about a solution themselves, but there would be no need for the detective to explain his ratiocinative process (Cawelti 83).

Readers may notice that the stories of one of genre’s subcategories, hard-boiled detective fiction

(which will be discussed later), seem to contradict this formula, as the detective is almost always the narrator. However, these detectives differ greatly from Dupin and because they do not have his brilliance and are normally as confused as the reader, “continual insight into [their] mental processes does not reveal the solution” (Cawelti 83).

The next element to examine is the crime itself. In Poe’s stories, this section always appears after the introduction of the detective, which he viewed as more important.

Contemporary writers, however, have discovered that some stories lend themselves to a presentation of the crime followed by the introduction of the detective. By changing the order of Usher 26 events, they are able to “place greater emphasis on the puzzle of the crime and less on the character of the detective” (Cawelti 84). For Poe, however, this theory has to be somewhat reversed. While Poe definitely wanted to emphasize the crime itself, he also thrived on the detective’s ability to explain said crime, which is why he often skips over Cawelti’s third element, the investigation. Poe preferred to skip straight to the fourth and fifth elements, the announcement of the solution and its explanation, which he actually turns into Cawelti’s sixth stage, the denouement. Each of his five previously examined stories has shown his love for this pattern, as he always puts more work into the explanation of the solution than the identification of guilt.

Cawelti’s third point, characters and relationships, may seem somewhat obvious. The classical detective story has to have a victim, criminal, detective, and bystanders. Due in part to this simplicity, “later writers have elaborated on these roles and in some cases have mixed them up, but on the whole it seems safe to say that without the relations implicit in these roles it is not possible to create a detective story” (Cawelti 91). As mentioned earlier, the emphasis an author puts on any one of these given characters can drastically change the style of the story. Poe was a minimalist in this regard. The only character he allowed his readers to become familiar with was

Dupin, partly because he was meant to be seen as the most important character, and partly because Poe’s true focus was the mystery itself.

Finally, Cawelti ends his analysis with setting. While the macro setting of a detective story doesn’t hold much importance, the micro settings control what the reader sees. For Dupin, there are always two micro settings in his macro setting of Paris: his office and the scene of the crime. This choice “furnishes a limited and controlled backdrop against which the clues and suspects so central to the story can be silhouetted” (Cawelti 97). This formula plays right into Usher 27

Poe’s desire to control the reader’s experience and reveal certain aspects of the story at his own convenience. While Cawelti’s four previous formulaic points work exceedingly well with Poe and Doyle’s classical formula, as the times began to change and the genre began to evolve, authors of detective fiction found themselves emphasizing different aspects of the story.

The Hard-Boiled Detective: Striving for Realism

In addition, since the World Wars, detective fiction has joined forces with “other formulas that include some elements of the mystery archetype, but are also stories of adventure or melodrama – the hard-boiled detective story, the spy story, the police procedural tale, the gangster saga, and the Enforcer’s caper” (Cawelti 80). While each of these subgenres has its own distinct characteristics derived from this time period, the shift to the hard-boiled novel was heavily influenced by the trend towards realism in American culture at the time. After World

War I, American society faced a variety of problems: “the Boom of the twenties, Prohibition, the national spiritual hangover of the Depression, and gangsterism on a spectacular scale” (Grella

105). This era of “chaotic violence,” marked by individuals like Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde, and John Dillinger, was employed by writers, and “the hard-boiled stories were considered by their writers and readers honest, accurate portraits of American life” (Grella 105).

To add perspective to this idea, George Grella compares the hard-boiled novel to the classic formula. He claims the classical style is characterized by “charm and manner” whereas the hard-boiled novel is uniquely American and “characterized by rapid action, colloquial language, emotional impact, and the violence that pervades American fiction” (103, 104). This style first emerged after the World War I in pulp magazines, the most famous of which was edited by Joseph T. Shaw: Black Mask. Shaw wanted “simplicity for the sake of clarity, Usher 28 plausibility... belief....[and] action, but held that action is meaningless unless it involves recognizable human character in three-dimensional form” (qtd. in “Hard-Boiled Detective” 104).

Though Black Mask went out of print in 1953, one of its writers, Dashiell Hammett, who

Grella labeled as “the most important American detective story writer since Poe” (“Hard-Boiled

Detective” 105) would flourish, writing five novels and a myriad of short stories. While

Hammett may have been one of the pioneers of the hard-boiled era, he was quickly joined by

Raymond Chandler, who would help to solidify the style as a subgenre. One of the most important contributions these authors made to detective fiction was the development of “an appropriate hero, the private eye” (“Hard-Boiled Detective” 106).

Prior to this time, “the classic detective was most likely an amateur, which meant not only that she or he was not a policeman, but that he or she was not in business as a detective”

(Landrum 12). This shift may be reflective of the changing ideals within the U.S. as more families moved from rural, agricultural environments into highly populated urban settings.

Private eyes would not have been needed or effective in small rural towns, but in the quickly growing cities, where crime and deception were on the rise, those with a gift for details would have been able to find an employable niche through detection. Though Dupin and Holmes both receive compensation for their work at some point, they do not technically run an investigative business. Even so, the idea of Poe’s detective continues to carry on within the variations, for as

Grella states, “Dupin [exhibited] the striking characteristic of intellectual brilliance and personal eccentricity which indelibly mark all later detective heroes” (“Formal Detective” 89). In

Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and Chandler’s The Big Sleep, detectives Sam Spade and Philip

Marlowe are actually private eyes by profession, working not from home (or an armchair) but using an office as a base. The hard-boiled detective is best summed up by Grella who states: Usher 29

Like the lonely man of the forests, [the hard-boiled detective] works outside the

established social code, preferring his own instinctive justice to the often

tarnished justice of civilization. The private detective always finds the police

incompetent, brutal, or corrupt, and therefore works alone. He replaces the

subtleties of the deductive method with a sure knowledge of his world and a keen

moral sense. Finding the social contract vicious and debilitating, he generally

isolates himself from normal human relationships. His characteristic toughness

and his redeeming moral strength conflict with the values of his civilization and

cause him ... to flee society which menaces his personal integrity and spiritual

freedom. (“Hard-Boiled Detective” 106)

Though the hard-boiled detective may seem quite different from Poe’s Dupin, there are actually a number of similarities between the brilliant French sleuth and the private eye. Dupin is also operating outside of the normal social standards of his fellow man, spending his days locked away in his dark residence and emerging only at night to observe people on the streets.

He clearly finds the police incompetent in “Murders in the Rue Morgue” when they blame an innocent man for an orangutan’s crime, and is specifically asked for help by the police prefect in

“The Purloined Letter.” Finally, while he may not work in complete solitude, the relationship he has with the unnamed narrator is definitely not a “normal human relationship.”

Hammett and Chandler’s novels both fit into this description. In The Maltese Falcon,

Sam Spade and his partner, Miles Archer, are asked to help a woman locate her missing sister.

Though Spade immediately deduces that the woman is lying, the men agree to take the case.

When Archer is murdered, the woman, Brigid O’Shaughnessy, admits to Spade that she has no sister, and is instead in town because of the Maltese Falcon, a life-sized bird statue encrusted Usher 30 with jewels. O’Shaughnessy is part of a group of thieves who stole the bird, and who are now attempting to steal the bird from one another.

Chandler’s novel, while similar in style, begins not with a stolen bird, but blackmail. His private eye, Philip Marlowe, is asked to investigate an incident of blackmail for an elderly gentleman named General Sternwood, under the guise that he is trying to locate the man’s missing son in law, Rusty Regan. As Marlowe begins to dig, however, he discovers that his blackmail case is actually a multiple homicide, and that General Sternwood’s manipulative daughters are right at the center of it all. Sternwood’s youngest daughter, Carmen, could easily be described as a sex-crazed maniac. When she becomes irate that Marlowe won’t return her sexual advances, the private eye realizes that Regan has probably been subjected to similar treatment, and that Carmen has probably killed him for rejecting her. Vivian, Regan’s husband and Sternwood’s older daughter, has helped Carmen cover up the crime by asking a friend to dispose of the body. Not surprisingly, a lengthy chain of blackmailing has ensued, which is how the situation comes to General Sternwood’s attention originally. Unlike Spade, Marlowe is unable to reveal the sisters’ crimes, and walks away from the case dismayed.

Despite this difference, there are quite a few similarities between Poe’s stories and The

Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep. Both suggest the element of the least likely culprit, as the beautiful and flirtatious Brigid O’Shaughnessy is found to have shot Miles Archer, and the also beautiful, but sex-crazed Carmen Sternwood is ousted as Rusty Regan’s killer. Spade and

Marlowe are forced to compete with a less-than-desirable police force as well. Spade is constantly questioned by detectives Polhaus and Dundee, the latter of which is convinced Spade is guilty of something and is determined to prove it. Though Marlowe seems to have a somewhat decent relationship with Bernie Ohls, the DA’s chief investigator, the cops still refuse Usher 31 to treat him with respect, and once, he is even accused of causing a murder by not reporting a previous murder. In this sense, these novels both touch on the element of the wrongly accused, though it isn’t an innocent bystander as in Poe’s “Murders,” but the detective himself. The

Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep are also prime examples of Poe’s idea of the city as the epicenter of crime: San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Despite the number of similarities between the two books to Poe’s formula, however, readers would be remiss to assume that these two novels follow his formula exactly the same way. While no doubles exist in The Big Sleep, the falcon, found to be a forgery, acts as a double in The Maltese Falcon. As in “The Purloined Letter,” a switch has been made, though in this case, the detective doesn’t make the switch, but it simply there to witness its discovery.

Likewise, Spade is afforded one other common element not given to Marlowe: the slightly dimmer sidekick. Though his secretary, Effie Perine, oftentimes appears to be even dimmer than

Poe’s unnamed narrator and doesn’t really do any legwork for him, she still plays the role well, asking obvious questions in order to make Spade look even more brilliant.

Even though both detectives are prime examples of hard-boiled investigators, they differ distinctly in personality, somewhat like Dupin and Holmes. For example, Spade doesn’t seem to have a well-developed sense of morals. This could also be a product of the disillusionment

Americans were experiencing during this post-WWII era. A fully upstanding private eye may have seemed too farfetched to a culture that had just witnessed its second global war. He has

“affairs with his partner’s wife and his client and even participates temporarily in the criminal schemes of Casper Gutman and Joel Cairo,” the other parties interested in the falcon (“Hard-

Boiled Detective” 108). However, like Marlowe, Spade does live by a code of sorts. It is this code that leads Spade to tell Brigid, “I won’t play the sap for you” (Hammett 263). This code Usher 32 requires him to avenge his partner’s death, not because he cared for Archer, but because it’s bad for business for a private eye to let his partner’s murderer get away (Hammett 265). Grella says

“an almost painful honesty accompanies the private eye’s toughness and stamina; however imperfect or limited he may be, he acts according to his apprehension of the truth. No matter what it may cost him, the detective follows his moral code” (“Hard-Boiled Detective” 107).

Marlowe’s code is slightly different from Spade’s. His code “fuses personal integrity with professional ethics” (Lehman 108). It is this personal integrity that draws him to “the outcast, the vulnerable, [and] the miserable,” and often causes him to end up “working only for what [he] conceive[s] as justice” (Lehman 108). In the case of The Big Sleep, Marlowe is working for the Sternwoods, who don’t fit any of the aforementioned descriptions outright.

However, it is Marlowe’s honorable nature that makes him continue the case for the sake of Mr.

Sternwood, though he finds out that Vivian and Carmen are not helpless victims, but out of control.

However, even the honorable Marlowe must overcome temptations, something it would seem Dupin never encountered. When Marlowe finds Carmen naked in his apartment, the theme of the knight resurfaces from the introduction of the novel. Chandler “combines it with the motif of the chess puzzle, a prop used to remind us that the dilemmas facing the hero differ radically from the neat, soluble, aesthetically pleasing mannerist artifice we find in the classic whodunit”

(Lehman 158). Though both Spade and Marlowe face such temptations that make them different from Dupin, they also differ from each other in the way they respond to them and are affected by them. In The Maltese Falcon, though Spade had become somewhat enamored of Brigid, he doesn’t seem to have a problem handing her over to the police because that’s what his code calls for. He isn’t concerned with her fate. In contrast, when Marlowe is faced with a similar Usher 33 situation, he cannot bring himself to turn in the girl. Instead, “Marlowe... feels ultimately compromised by the chivalrous gesture he makes at the end of The Big Sleep when, rather than identifying Carmen as the killer, he lets her sister ‘take her away’” (Lehman 158). Unfortunately for the detectives, this plot line is fairly common in hard-boiled fiction, as “the detective generally finds that the beautiful and available girl is also the source of guilt” (“Hard-Boiled

Detective” 109). Herein lies one of the many reasons the hard-boiled detective works alone and is never afforded a normal human relationship. Essentially, because of his code/moral standing, he “is too good for the society he inhabits. Although not a perfect man, he is the best man in his world” (“Hard-Boiled Detective” 110). Though Dupin may have changed “best” to “smartest” in that statement, it would seem safe to say that he would still have sided with Spade: emotions are pointless, solving the whodunit is more important. Again, the detective, despite his best efforts is forced to live in an imperfect world filled with injustice, which could easily have been a metaphor for some Americans in the 1950s who had survived both World Wars and the Great

Depression.

Double Indemnity: Inside the Crime

At the same time that Hammett and Chandler were perfecting the hard-boiled detective, other authors were taking the hard-boiled style and making it their own. A prime example is

James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity. The protagonist’s identity and role varied greatly from

Poe’s original, as the protagonist, Walter Huff, was not the detective but the perpetrator.

Nevertheless, the novel is still inundated with Poe’s elements. Huff, an insurance salesman, is seduced by his client’s wife, Phyllis, and together they hatch a plan to kill her husband, Mr.

Nirdlinger, and defraud the insurance company. After all, who better to trick an insurance Usher 34 company than an insurance salesman? Again, published in 1943, this novel was reflecting the same cultural feelings represented by Hammett and Chandler’s novels. Financial injustice was a suitable subject for a crime novel in the 1940s whose readership was just beginning to recover from the Great Depression. Crime was beginning to take on new faces both in the U.S. and worldwide during this period of global turmoil, and it was no longer as simple as a loose orangutan or a stolen letter. More often than not, crime was tied to greed, and this is exactly what Cain’s novel embodies.

Poe’s era was fearful of corruption within police departments, and here, Cain takes that fear of internal corruption and ties it to what would seem a fairly ambiguous and safe occupation, creating not only a least likely culprit, but a sneaky and conniving least likely culprit. In a way,

Huff also fits as the villain above suspicion because he is so well loved and trusted by his boss,

Barton Keyes. Though Keyes almost immediately smells foul play, it isn’t until the end of the novel that he realizes Huff is involved. Ironically enough, if there is a detective to be found in this piece, it would have to be Keyes, who, like an armchair detective, discovers and nearly solves the mystery entirely from his office. He is also like Dupin in that, as head of the claims department, he is a superior analyst, which becomes clear as he presents a myriad of figures on suicide rates to Huff and his colleagues in an attempt to prove that Nirdlinger’s death was the result of foul play (Cain 59-60). What Dupin would find unacceptable, however, is that Keyes remains partially in the dark until the very end when Huff confesses all and fills in the remaining blanks for him.

Because Huff himself narrates the piece and the reader is kept up to speed throughout, the element of the sidekick/admiring companion is eliminated. The story has a frame narrative, however, which means that the reader is not living the story with Huff, but rather listening to Usher 35

Huff’s rendition of the events. Therefore, Huff, like Dupin, still has control over which details are afforded to his readers at what time, thereby maintaining some mystery. The novel also employs three other elements Poe laid down in “Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The

Purloined Letter” almost exactly 100 years before Double Indemnity was published: the wrongly accused, the locked room, and the double.

Mr. Nirdlinger’s daughter’s boyfriend, Mr. Sachetti, plays the part of the wrongly accused, but is both wrongly accused by dullard cops as Adolphe le Bon is in “Murders,” and framed by the perpetrator herself as seen in “Thou Art the Man.” Finally, Cain pushes the element of the locked room to new heights, substituting a literal room for a moving train car, and throwing the double into the mix.

To say that Mr. Nirdlinger’s murder was premeditated would be a gross understatement.

Huff knows that in order to collect on the double indemnity portion of Mr. Nirdlinger’s life insurance policy, the older man must meet his demise on a train, and it must appear to be accidental. After convincing her husband to take the train to a distant business meeting, Phyllis offers to drive him to the station. Lying in wait in the backseat, Huff comes from behind and strangles Nirdlinger with one of his own crutches. When they reach the station, Huff, dressed exactly like Nirdlinger, boards the train and makes his way to the final car, the observation platform. Meanwhile, Phyllis has driven the body a short distance up the tracks. After having made sure there were witnesses who thought Nirdlinger was on the platform, he jumps off the train onto the tracks. He and Phyllis position the body on the tracks to stage the scene, hoping the police will believe Nirdlinger lost his balance and fell accidently. With no witnesses to the actual accident, a missing man, and a moving train, Huff has completed the formula of the locked room. Usher 36

Darker Than Amber: The End of the Lone Wolf Detective

While Double Indemnity altered Poe’s original model of both the detective and the perpetrator, nearly two decades after Cain’s novel, a new detective series appeared on the scene which would significantly alter the commonly held view of the sidekick. In 1964, John D.

MacDonald introduced the world to the Travis McGee series, which would include twenty-one books by the series’ end in 1984. The seventh of these, Darker than Amber, provides an excellent example of a well-played double as well as the shift in the role of the sidekick.

Of the American detectives discussed thus far, McGee may actually have the closest resemblance to Dupin. Instead of being self-employed as a private eye like Spade and Marlowe,

McGee is a semi-retired salvage expert who lives on his houseboat, The Busted Flush. Also like

Dupin, McGee doesn’t look for mysteries: he assumes they will find their way to him. In Darker than Amber, the mystery literally drops from the sky. McGee and his friend Meyer are fishing when they see a woman thrown off the bridge above them. After rescuing Vangie, said damsel- in-distress (McGee, like Marlowe, has a bit of a knight complex), McGee and Meyer discover her dark past and the murderous scheme in which she’s been involved.

While Meyer does serve as McGee’s sidekick, he is not the slow-minded, unnamed narrator of Poe’s tales. In fact, MacDonald chooses to have the novel remain in McGee’s point of view, which means the reader has the unique experience of seeing the sidekick through the detective’s eyes. Meyer is a confident and intelligent individual. Unlike Dupin’s sidekick, his role is not to ask dumb questions to make McGee appear brilliant, but to be a friend and confidant: a novel idea in the detective genre. The fact that McGee trusts Meyer to take care of some elements of their plan on his own shows that he has much more confidence in Meyer than Usher 37

Dupin appeared to have in his unnamed friend. This is a significant shift because the majority of today’s contemporary detective shows and novels are geared towards partnerships and team efforts more than a lone wolf detective. American culture no longer valued the Romantic ideal of the self-reliant individual, but instead pushed for a more realistic interpretation of life.

Once McGee and Meyer figure out that Vangie, who doesn’t survive the second attempt on her life, and her friend Del have been luring wealthy, married men onto cruise ships where they meet their demise, they formulate a plan to oust the remaining conspirator, Terry. This is where the element of the double comes into play. To force Terry’s hand (and drive him just a little crazy), Meyer makes a small doll that resembles Vangie and plants it in Terry’s bathroom on the ship. When the drunken Terry discovers the doll, it is as if he has seen a ghost. To bring home the paranoia begun by the doll, McGee hires an actress who resembles Vangie to be waiting at the pier when the cruise ship pulls in. When Terry sees the actress, he flies into a crazed rage, giving himself away and getting arrested. On top of the double use of the double, this practice of using the victim, or memory thereof, to force the villain into a guilt-filled state is very reminiscent of Poe’s “Thou Art the Man.” While McGee and Meyer don’t have access to

Vangie’s actual body (as in Poe’s tale) for their scheme, the end result is the same: the perpetrator’s guilt is left out in the open.

Another element of the novel that must be discussed is the ending. McGee technically makes a deal with Del agreeing to help her escape if she will help them take Terry down. For a moment, the reader may be fooled into believing that McGee is going to follow through with this unjust plan, but at the last minute, he pulls a Sam Spade and hangs her out to dry for the sake of morality. This link to The Maltese Falcon is vital because it gives a prime example of how detective and crime novels have built upon one another over the years. At the end of his essay, Usher 38

Gruesser gives an example of a similar occurrence which links the contemporary private-eye,

Tamara Hayle (created by Valerie Wilson Wesley), to Sam Spade. His explanation is as follows:

In a recently published interview, Wesley reveals that she has Tamara drive a

Volkswagen Jetta to acknowledge her debt to Sue Grafton, whose detective,

Kinsey Milhone, drives a VW Jersey...Milhone herself is based in Santa Teresa,

the same southern Californian town where Ross MacDonald’s series character,

Lew Archer, operates. The name of MacDonald’s detective, in turn, clearly refers

to Sam Spade’s partner Miles Archer, who takes a bullet in the heart early in

Hammett’s classic hard-boiled novel. (21)

Though that intricate chain of connections might appear overly analyzed and pointless, it does prove, at least in the case of Wesley, that authors within the genre often find ways to emulate or pay homage to past authors which they admired.

Finally, MacDonald adds one more thing to Darker than Amber that is a-typical of the

Dupin stories: social commentary. Throughout the novel, McGee comments on different aspects of American society, be it race relations when he’s trying to get information from Noreen,

Vangie’s maid, or his almost comical aside on the reasons people take cruises at the end of the season. While all of these novels have featured aspects of American culture, MacDonald is the first to spend a significant amount of time meditating on them. Not only do Poe’s stories lack social commentary, but as Saltz noted, he may have purposely shied away from it. MacDonald, however, is writing in the middle of the 1960s. Subjects that had once been taboo were being thrown out into the open, and readers of that era may have very well found a book strange that glossed over such significant cultural events.

Usher 39

Walter Mosley: Detective Fiction and Racial Commentary

However, thirty years after Darker Than Amber, Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series appeared on the shelves and offered readers more social commentary intertwined with detection, though in Mosley’s case, that commentary was almost always racially driven. Although it was written in the mid 1990s, the fifth Easy Rawlin’s novel, A Little Yellow Dog, is set in 1963. It is important to note that, unlike the previously discussed novels, this novel was not written during the era it represents. While Mosley, who was born in 1952, did grow up during the ‘60s, writing during the ‘90s, he would have been forced to rely on his memories as an eleven-year-old boy or the experiences of others. This could have had an effect on the way culture is represented in the novel. For example, readers would expect a novel set in the early 1960s to be influenced by a variety of movements and events: the civil rights movement, Vietnam, religion, the Cuban

Missile Crisis, etc. Mosley, however, chooses only one cultural issue: race. It is highly probable that for Mosley, racial discrimination during this period was the most important and prominent issue, because even as a small child, this conflict would have affected him on a daily basis.

This cultural situation requires that the main character and detective figure, Easy

Rawlins, must, on top of trying to solve three murders, cope with the social constraints on

African Americans at the time, and “deal with the responsibilities of fatherhood and the dilemmas of ethical decisions” (Landrum 177). Mosley shies away from long explanations regarding race relations, instead using short, loaded statements within Rawlins’ mind. At the very beginning of the novel, as Rawlins is being confronted by his superior, he describes the look on the man’s face as “a white man’s stare that set off an alarm in my southern heart” (Mosley

17). This underlying feeling of inferiority and fear drives the tone of the novel. Usher 40

In keeping with the last four novels examined, Easy resides in a city, Los Angeles, and like three of those four, is harassed by the police. This harassment, however, comes not from his role as a nosey private eye, but from his accidental involvement in the crimes and his status as a working class African American. Easy, like McGee, becomes involved in the case simply because he is in the wrong place at the wrong time. The morning that Easy sleeps with Idabell

Turner, a teacher at the school, a man who appears to be her husband is found dead on the grounds. The element of the double comes into play here because the man is actually her husband Holland’s twin brother. Not only were the two men twins, but Holland chooses to dress just like Roman, which is what helps create the initial chaos and confusion at the beginning of the novel. When Holland is also found murdered, the real mystery begins. Easy is drawn into a world of blackmail and drugs, and barely makes it out alive.

The next element borrowed from Poe’s list, the least likely culprit, doesn’t come into play until one of the final scenes where Easy reveals to Idabell’s friend, Bonnie Shay, that he knows she killed Holland. She has been an unwilling participant in the brother’s smuggling scheme, and Holland has raped her. Unlike Spade and McGee, however, Easy doesn’t turn her over to the police. His code, the code of the street, doesn’t require that he act on his knowledge, and unlike Marlowe, he doesn’t feel as if he’s been corrupted. Finally, Easy also has a borderline sidekick in the form of Raymond “Mouse” Alexander. Mouse, however, doesn’t fit Poe or

MacDonald’s definition of the sidekick. While Mouse is certainly a loyal companion, he doesn’t serve to make Easy look better. He’s very simply the muscle, or his bodyguard. This change further supports the idea that Poe’s elements are altered to fit the given situation and culture. In the 1840s, Dupin needed his sidekick to chronicle his stories of detection and inflate his brilliance and as a successful white male in the 1960s, McGee just needed a partner to pull off Usher 41 his very “Thou Art the Man” inspired scheme. Easy, though also living in the 1960s, is a lower class African American male located in a bad neighborhood, and needs protection so he can survive long enough to solve the mystery.

The Television Detective

Although novels like Mosley’s have been the staple of detective fiction in many ways, the middle of the twentieth century saw the development of a new detective: the television sleuth. Though this may have been unimaginable to Poe, detective authors writing within the last seventy or eighty years have definitely had to take other media into account. Interestingly enough, some of the detective classics that are so well remembered today were actually made into movies4, raising the question, do the fans really remember the book, or is it all about the movie? In the preface of their book, The Detective in American Fiction, Film, and Television,

Jerome H. Delamater and Ruth Prigozy note that “the earliest filmmakers recognized the appeal of the detective and his milieu, and the screen developed definitive versions of, for example, Sam

Spade, Philip Marlowe, and Lew Archer” (xi). It is important to note the word “versions” in the previous statement. While Spade and Marlowe were depicted on screen in theatrical versions of their respective novels, the movies made slight alterations to both plot and character, and because

Humphrey Bogart portrays both men in the originals, one might argue Spade and Marlowe lost their previously discussed uniqueness. However, due to the large numbers of detective movies, either stand alone or based on a novel, this paper will only analyze a small, very representative, selection of television series.

4 Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, Walter Huff, and Travis McGee have all appeared on the big screen, and with the release of The Raven on April 27, 2012, several of Poe’s detective stories have been brought back to life as well. Usher 42

While detective fiction on television has its distinct characteristics, one can still see “in any survey of the detective...in television... a pattern similar to that of literary predecessors: a classic hero who becomes parodied to some extent and subverted as the genre evolves”

(Delameter and Prigozy 83). One of the most popular early detective series was Perry Mason which began in the late 1950s. While critics of detective fiction, both in novel and film, have often attacked the genre’s tendency to lean towards formula, Perry Mason’s creator, Erle Stanley

Gardner, thrived on formula. Though he was well aware of the threat of redundancy, J. Dennis

Bounds notes in his essay “Done to Death?: Formula and Variation in Perry Mason,” that although Gardner “did not want any stale ideas in his series, [he] resorted, book after book, episode after episode, to a formula that was quite recognizable. Audiences expected to see a similar program each week” (Bounds 123). Bounds goes on to quote another critic of the genre,

Thomas Schatz, who said “producers of a formula must constantly ‘vary and reinvent’ the formula while not forsaking the combination of key elements that made the formula popular in the first place” (124). This idea is key: formula must be reinvented to keep audiences interested, but there are several elements of the genre which cannot be omitted, though they may require some alterations. Schatz’s observation is key when discussion Poe’s influence. Poe’s elements are still required in some variation, but the addition of contemporary elements to his original formula is based on the novel or show’s audience, which in turn means those decisions are controlled by culture.

A prime example of this theory can be seen in Murder, She Wrote, a series which began roughly two decades after Perry Mason graced the screen. Jan Whitt compares the protagonist of this series, Jessica Fletcher, to Poe’s Dupin, saying that both detectives were superior to the police because they never forgot “the simplicity of the thing,” which is what Dupin faults the Usher 43

Parisian police with in “Purloined.” Whitt goes on to create a list of four similarities between

Fletcher and Dupin, which boil down to the detective’s need for a sidekick, the standardized process of ratiocination, the presence of dullard cops, and the detectives’ consistent brilliance and powers of deduction (113-114).

As seen in the previously analyzed novels, the detective’s need for a sidekick is one such element that can be altered, but must almost always be present. Both Fletcher and Dupin “must reveal new discoveries that take place in an internal stream of consciousness, [and] a narrator or friend standing in as listener is necessary organically. The reader/viewer must rely on spoken language as well as reconstructed scenes for understanding” (118). Again, this goes back to

Poe’s unnamed narrator. Without a friend to explain his process to, and therefore forced to serve as the narrator, Dupin wouldn’t have been able to control which parts of his ratiocinative process were immediately available to the reader, thereby running the element of surprise and severely undermining the superior brilliance of the detective.

Finally Whitt helps to explain why audiences may be drawn to series with such predictable formulas, arguing that “the predictable formula assures the viewer of the possibility of order in a chaotic world and of the importance of emotion as a balance for the technical expertise involved in processing clues” (120). Like the readers of the hard-boiled novels who wanted realism but still craved stories that made them believe in justice and clean resolutions, so too did the readers and viewers of detective fiction in the 1970s and ‘80s, who were trying to cope with the Vietnam War and scandals like Watergate, want to feel as if crime could be conquered. While Poe’s readers may have had somewhat similar feelings–their focus as mid- nineteenth century Americans more internal and focused on the rising tension regarding slavery– contemporary detective series viewers are trying to cope with the much larger idea of global Usher 44 injustice, and also seek validation that their world is not a place governed by injustice and chaos.

The fluidity of Poe’s formula easily allows for the small changes in subject and the detective character that help provide this type of comfort to contemporary viewers, all the while remaining true to the heart of the original stories.

Angel: The Hard-Boiled Detective in Television

Since the days of Perry Mason and Murder, She Wrote, the detective genre in television has broken up into a variety of subgenres, much like the detective novel did after the Sherlock

Holmes novels and stories. One unique example of this movement can be seen in the series

Angel, a spinoff of the popular Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which began in 1999 (Riley 916). In his article, “From Sherlock to Angel: The Twenty-First Century Detective,” Brendan Riley dubs

Angel “a particularly self-conscious tweak of the hard-boiled detective” (908). To put some perspective on that label, one must understand the premise of the show. The show is named for its protagonist, Angel, a vampire cursed with a soul. While Angel has moved to Los Angeles in an attempt to mope in peace away from his former lover, Buffy (the vampire slayer), he is immediately approached by a man named Doyle who encourages him to go into the business of helping the less fortunate. When his old friend Cordelia arrives in town, she convinces him to turn his hobby into a business, and Angel becomes a self proclaimed private-eye of the underworld.

Like Spade and Marlowe, Angel finds himself “uncovering more and more mysteries” as opposed to the classic detective novel with one criminal thread that ties up nicely in the end.

Citing Cawelti, Riley also notes that the hard-boiled detectives often find that their investigations, which usually begin with the lowest levels of society, lead straight to the highest. Usher 45

This is certainly true for Angel, who as the seasons progress, traces more and more crimes and criminals back to the underworld law firm, Wolfram and Hart. Also in keeping with the hard- boiled characteristics, “Angel succeeds by hard-headed determination more than logic”. Angel’s world is messy. He doesn’t have the time to sit down and explain how each clue led him to the next. Instead, he uses the few clues he’s given, applies his gut instinct, and works the case from there. This series is also a great example of the film style of the hard-boiled movies known as

Noir. The majority of the scenes take place at night, which Riley notes is partially part of the genre and partially “the protagonist’s fiery aversion to daylight”. He cites “a bar, a prostitute stepping into a car, a woman holding a gun, people running down alleys, and several quick shots of punches, [and] doors being broken” as evidence (Riley 909, 916, 917, 918).

Riley also points out a variety of elements which he traces back to the hard-boiled detectives, which, as discussed, were originally taken from Poe. Angel is set in Los Angeles, one of the biggest cities in the U.S., which fits perfectly into the idea that urban settings bring about widespread crime which creates the need for the private eye. In addition, “Angel operates at odds with the police, simultaneously patrolling and hiding the demon underground” (917), which brings in Poe’s dullard cops. In this situation, not only are the police ineffective and at odds with

Angel’s methods, as with Spade and Marlowe, but like Poe’s police, they are also completely naïve, never understanding the game that is truly afoot (Riley 917).

Where Angel begins to take on the appearance of contemporary detective fiction and shy away from both the classic and hard-boiled formulas is in the element of the sidekick. As previously discussed, the hard-boiled detectives never have such a luxury, and for Dupin, the sidekick is merely present to inflate his brilliance. Angel has several sidekicks, though they are more aptly described as colleagues. Riley notes that “unlike the sidekick narrators of Usher 46 ratiocinative detective stories (such as Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes mysteries...), Angel’s associates figure prominently in the resolution of each week’s mysteries” (919).

Individual vs. Team Detection

This abrupt change in the genre leads Riley to ask an important question: “If the detective relies heavily on his team not just to gather clues, but to solve the mystery, does he still reinforce the rugged individualist at the heart of the genre?” While it may be too bold to say it

“reinforces” the individualist, the team atmosphere of contemporary detective television is still very representative of the heart of the genre. Again, it all comes down to cultural differences. In

Poe’s era, police departments were new, and it is doubtful that he ever saw the formation of task forces to deal with high profile cases or certain types of crimes: his detective was a one-man show, and that’s what the culture of the time required. In today’s society, the idea that one detective would take on a case solo is unthinkable. Even if a detective was willing to work a case without a team or partner, he or she would still be forced to communicate with a myriad of specialists (such as forensic scientists) in order to make the case, which again, takes away from the idea of the full-service detective who can work completely on his or her own.

Holmes’ Imperfect Decedents

Even so, contemporary detectives are still very reflective of the early detective. In a piece titled “TV’s Damaged Detectives are Sherlock’s Children,” Hinson Hal notes that “there is an eccentric new generation of crime fighters in prime time – brilliant, obsessed, and if not dysfunctional, then at least very damaged. They are modern descendants of the detective story’s greatest hero, Sherlock Holmes.” So, while tracing these detectives all the way back to Dupin, Usher 47 who only appeared in three stories, may be challenging, linking them to Holmes, who is inherently linked to Dupin, is much easier.

For example, while Dupin seems to know something about almost everything, the reader never sees him attempt any scientific experiments to make discoveries on his own. Holmes, however, thrives on discovery. According to Panek, police in the late nineteenth century were forced to rely on the guaiacum test to determine the presence of blood. Though apparently accurate, the test could not determine the source of the blood. A test of that caliber would have

“to wait until Paul Uhlenhuth in 1900 invented the test that Conan Doyle forecast more than a decade earlier, the precipitin test that could distinguish between human and animal blood”

(Panek 46). So, not only was Doyle drawn to more scientific explanations, probably due in part to his medical background, but he was willing to do the necessary research to use the science to

Holmes’ advantage.

Hal sums up the idea of the detective as scientist, saying “the artist and the scientist are mixed in roughly equal portions. Though they may use luminal and micro spectrophotometers instead of a magnifying glass, they share their predecessor’s encyclopedic knowledge and masterly powers of observation.” While this side of the detective tradition is celebrated and envied, Hal claims that contemporary detectives have also inherited the less desirable Holmes’ characteristics: “his obsessiveness, his mood swings and his tendency toward solitude and depression.” It is important to note, however, that when these traits are displayed by Holmes, they are a mark of genius, not of emotional damage as is often seen in contemporary detective shows. Hal cites four shows as evidence: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Law & Order:

Criminal Intent, Crossing Jordan, and Monk. The first three all have main detectives who have experienced some form of childhood trauma, while Monk is dealing with the murder of his wife, Usher 48

Trudy. These are the experiences, Hal says, that drive these detectives to detect. The reason behind the change from genius to damaged goods is debatable. Doyle’s readers are never privy to Holmes’ childhood, so technically, it is impossible to say whether or not his eccentricities were influenced by trauma. Another possible explanation is that today’s detectives are designed to be more relatable to their viewers. American culture calls for realism and denies the existence of perfection, so it only makes sense for contemporary detectives to have experienced the exact same traumas as their peers.

Beginning with Monk, Hal inserts portions of an interview with the show’s executive producer, Andy Breckman, who “admitted that he did more than borrow a detail or two from

Conan Doyle” when creating Monk. In fact, he claims that all three of the show’s main characters are based on Doyle’s character list: Monk is Holmes, his nurse is Watson, and the police captain is Scotland Yard’s Lestrade (Hal). What makes Monk unique is that its detective,

Adrian Monk, is extremely obsessive-compulsive and suffers from nearly every phobia known to man. Tony Shaloub, the actor charged with portraying the grief stricken OCD detective, said

“For decades,... the networks have been so obsessed with making sure that the characters on their shows were likable and sympathetic, so much so that audiences have gotten bored with them”

(qtd. in Hal). Though television detectives may have only become extremely dysfunctional and eccentric within the last decade or so, Poe may have keyed into this idea that normal is boring over a century before, as Dupin would have certainly been considered outside the norm for his readers.

Hal’s discussion moves to CSI next, (a police procedural) and examines the lead forensic scientist, Gil Grissom, who creator Anthony Zuiker describes as a person who “keeps chocolate- covered ants and grasshoppers in his refrigerator and, as a rule, is more comfortable with dead Usher 49 bodies than live ones” (qtd. in Hal). Grissom is the empirical scientist, whose famous phrase,

“assume nothing,” shows his lack of trust for humanity and his faith in the physical evidence. In a great showing of how all detectives are at least somewhat related, Hal states that “if Grissom is

Sherlock Holmes in a lab coat, then [Law & Order: Criminal Intent’s] Robert Goren is Holmes in a black leather jacket.”

Goren, who is described by the show’s creator, Rene Balcer, as “Sherlock Holmes meets

Bob Dylan,” according to Hal, is dysfunctional because of his family’s history with mental illness. Goren harkens back to the era of the hard-boiled detective5, playing the game in a less polished, but no less effective manner. It would seem that Crossing Jordan is very similar in this way, with the biggest difference being the gender of the detective. Jordan Cavanaugh is a woman, but she possesses a myriad of traits almost exclusively given to men. Like Monk,

Cavanaugh is haunted by the murder of her mother, and this leads her to become isolated, and occasionally, make rash decisions (Hal). This may be one of the most important points to emphasize about the contemporary television detective: that they are imperfect, but they represent society as a whole. D’onofrio sums it up, saying “because of all we’ve gone through as a society, I think that the only heroes you can get away with now are the imperfect heroes” (qtd. in Hal). Each of these detectives has experienced trauma in their past, and are dealing with difficult personal situations in their present, just like their viewers. The contemporary American wants a hero, and when the costume laden super heroes are not enough, they turn to the only

“average Joe” who has the power to enact change in a chaotic world: the detective.

Examining the Current: NCIS

5 Ironically enough, the episode set to air the night Hal’s article was published was said to “feature Olivia D’Abo as a university professor who’s a cross of Holmes’s nemesis, Moriarty, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, Sam Spade’s murderous lover from ‘The Maltese Falcon’” (Hal). Usher 50

The hit television show NCIS is a prime example of this theory, but also proves that the new, imperfect detectives are still related to Poe’s creation at the base. The show centers on a team of NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) Special Agents who are called on to solve the murders of Marine and Navy personnel. The team is led by Special Agent Leroy Jethro

Gibbs, a former Marine and the father figure of the group. His team consists of former Israeli

Mossad agent, Ziva David, former Baltimore cop, Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, and computer wizard and MIT grad, Special Agent Timothy McGee. Outside of this immediate realm of colleagues, the show also features a forensic scientist, Abby Scuito, and a medical examiner, Dr. Donald (Ducky) Mallard.

Although Gibbs is constantly supported by this team of uniquely qualified individuals, there is no question that Gibbs is the most respected member of the team, and certainly seen as the most brilliant when it comes to piecing together a crime. Oftentimes, when his team members ask how he knows something or why he’s following a certain lead, he responds that he’s following his gut. While Dupin may have referred to it as ratiocinative talent, the process of

Gibbs’ following his gut and Dupin’s trusting his mind to connect the dots properly aren’t really all that different. Even if the Gibbs/Dupin connection seems a bit of a stretch, there is no way to argue against Gibbs as a contemporary version of a hard-boiled detective, which has already been shown to support Poe’s formula.

In the last two episodes of season 3, Hiatus Parts 1 and 2, Gibbs experiences extreme amnesia as the result of a bomb blast. This amnesia sets Gibbs back over a decade. While his team knows about his three previous failed marriages, it isn’t until this episode that they discover that before those three, he was married to a woman named Shannon and had a daughter named

Kelly. While Gibbs, a Marine sniper at the time, was serving in Kuwait, Shannon and Kelly Usher 51 were murdered for testifying in a murder trial. Overcome with grief, Gibbs travels to Mexico and assassinates his wife and daughter’s killer. The experience changes Gibbs into a hardened, distant person, causing him to view the world in a fairly pessimistic way. Even so, he still has hope, which is why he has created a numbered list of rules, which are often synonymous with his moral code. That, coupled with his grief, caused by the dark, drug-infested underbelly of society, (which keeps him from being able to maintain his subsequent marriages) and his tendency to ignore authority and act independently from others qualify him for status as a hard- boiled detective.

The similarities between NCIS and hard-boiled detectives are not the only ways in which the show reflects Poe’s original formula, however, as the series consistently relies on the elements of the least likely culprit, wrongly accused, and villain above suspicion, and occasionally employs the locked room mystery and worthy opponent. In Sins of the Father

(season 9, episode 10), Tony’s father is implicated in the murder of a reservist. Found drunk behind the wheel of the car containing the man’s body, Mr. DiNozzo is unable to remember anything about the events leading up to the body’s discovery. As the team unravels more clues related to the victim’s business deals, they realize that Mr. DiNozzo has been framed, recreating the incident of the wrongly accused found in “Thou Art the Man.”

Baltimore, season 8 episode 22, serves as an example of the wrongly accused, the least likely culprit, and the villain above suspicion. When Tony’s former Baltimore PD partner,

Danny Price, is murdered, the evidence all points to the Port-to-Port (P to P) killer, a serial killer who has consistently stayed one step ahead of NCIS (P to P can also represent the element of the worthy opponent). After noticing that one detail of P to P’s M.O. (modus operandi, or procedure) is wrong, the team realizes that they’re looking for a copy cat, and that P to P has Usher 52 been wrongly accused. Deciphering a cryptic message left on his answering machine, Tony realizes that his partner’s murder is directly linked to the last case they worked together. The team discovers that Tony’s former police chief has murdered Price to keep him from talking and revealing his part in a series of crimes. Because society expects police chiefs to be upstanding citizens with a strict sense of morals, the corrupt officer falls under the category of villain above suspicion, which in turn also labels him as the least likely culprit.

The element of the double also makes an appearance in several episodes, most notably

Double Identity from season 7 episode 17. A lieutenant believed to have gone MIA in

Afghanistan is found shot in the woods. The man, who is in critical condition, is rushed to the hospital, and there the team discovers that the lieutenant has two wives; one pre-MIA and one post. The double is also seen in Bounce (season 6 episode 16) when the team arrives at the scene of the crime (a hotel) only to discover that the room was registered to an Anthony DiNozzo and the receptionist’s description matches that of Tony. While this moment of the double is short lived (the imposter quickly reveals himself), it still serves to cause an initial moment of chaos similar to the situation at the beginning of A Little Yellow Dog.

Finally, the very first episode, Yankee White, is a good example of how contemporary detective fiction can employ, and in some ways update, the idea of the locked room mystery. In this episode, a naval officer dies while on Air Force One. Though it soon becomes clear to

Gibbs that the officer was murdered, he is at a loss to prove how someone was able to poison the man while Air Force One was in the air. Not only would it be difficult to get away with a crime unseen on the President’s jet, but because the jet was in the air, the murderer, if on board, would have had no opportunity to escape and flee the scene. So, in this instance, Air Force One itself serves as the perfect location for a locked room mystery. Usher 53

Although Gibbs and Dupin are separated by 162 years, it is obvious that NCIS is indebted to Poe for a variety of reasons. Of the eleven major elements Poe invented, all but the armchair detective is seen on a fairly regular basis, because although the cipher doesn’t appear on a piece of parchment, it is represented through technology. McGee consistently hacks into varying computer systems, which is quite analogous to cracking a cipher. Due to the importance of computers in the everyday life of the contemporary American, it seems clear that the cipher’s subtle shift to fit in with current culture was to go digital.

There is no denying that the genre has experienced a number of changes and alterations.

The lone wolf sleuth has now become the leader of a team of detectives and the almost callus and overly analytical ratiocination has morphed into a more realistic representation of American life, substituting unattainable perfection with realism and a sense of morals. Today’s detectives are tempted at every turn, forced to solve high profile cases while dealing with personal problems and traumas, and required to think in terms of building a case for the court system, not their personal satisfaction. Advancements in science means that there are both new ways to kill and new ways to detect, which Poe, who used his time period’s limited knowledge of science to his advantage, would surely have found intriguing (Panek 85).

It is important to note that all of these changes are representative of one thing: contemporary culture. In its most basic form, Poe’s formula requires a brilliant detective and his sidekick, and usually includes a least likely culprit, villain above suspicion, locked room, dullard cop, cipher, double, or armchair detective (or any combination thereof). The novels and shows discussed within this paper have all of these elements, but they have been altered to fit the society for which the author was writing. Twenty-first century readers and viewers are bombarded daily with stories of crime, and often with stories of corruption within the nation’s Usher 54 police departments. Their world is one of chaos, and the formula of detective fiction shows them how chaos can be conquered with a logical solution and a neatly wrapped conclusion. They have seen too much to believe in and depend on C. Auguste Dupin, instead preferring the imperfect detective who makes up for his lack of knowledge of computer programs, blood spatter patters, and DNA analysis (because he/she usually has a scientist sidekick to fill in the blanks) with determination and morality. Edgar Allen Poe’s detective world is still with us today, it is just hidden beneath the layers of cultural and societal influences that audiences have come to expect.

Though one could attempt to claim that these elements just arise naturally from mystery, and that

Poe has been given too much credit, it seems more likely that Gibb’s rule #39 is in play: There’s no such thing as coincidence. Usher 55

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