50 pages • 1 hour read
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
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Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
Reading Check
1. Which two games does the narrator compare in the beginning of the story?
2. Which two words does the narrator use to describe “a double Dupin”?
3. According to Dupin, what does the Parisian police force lack?
4. What evidence from the crime scene indicates to Dupin that the murderer’s motive was not burglary unless “the perpetrator [was] so vacillating an idiot” in his attempt to commit the crime?
5. Why does Dupin leave an advertisement in the Le Monde?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Who is Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin? Describe the narrator’s recollection of their first meeting and summarize Dupin’s background.
2. Which news story dominates the Gazette des Tribunaux? Summarize the type of articles that the newspaper publishes regarding this story and how the narrator and Dupin respond to the articles.
3. How does Dupin summarize his understanding of the case to the narrator? Identify the three points that he makes and the conclusions he deduces from the evidence.
4. Who does Dupin believe committed the murder? How does he deduce this?
5. Summarize the sailor’s story. What is the fate of the murderer?
Paired Resource
The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1986)
- Director Jeannot Szwarc’s 1986 film adaptation of Poe’s story
- Relates to the themes The Power of Rationality, Social Isolation Through Transience, and Language as a Social Barrier
- Does Szwarc’s adaptation take any liberties with Poe’s text? If so, how?
Recommended Next Reads
“The Mystery of Mary Rogêt” by Edgar Allan Poe
- Poe’s 1842 short story, the sequel to “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” is based on the details of a real murder.
- Shared themes include The Power of Rationality and Social Isolation Through Transience.
- Shared topics include Dupin as a detective and Parisian murders.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Doyle’s 1892 short story collection follows Detective Holmes and Doctor Watson as they solve mysteries in 19th-century London.
- Shared themes include The Power of Rationality, Social Isolation Through Transience, and Language as a Social Barrier.
- Shared topics include deductive detective work, a mystery-solving duo, and the setting of a 19th-century metropolis.
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on SuperSummary
Reading Questions Answer Key
Reading Check
1. Chess and whist (Page 2)
2. “[T]he creative and the resolvent” (Page 4)
3. A method (Page 15)
4. Bags of gold were left at the crime scene in the L’Espanaye house. (Page 25)
5. Because he wants to catch the owner of the Ourang-Outang, whom he believes to be a sailor (Pages 28-29)
Short Answer
1. Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin is a young man from “an excellent—indeed of an illustrious family,” but, due to a “variety of untoward events,” is now living with a smaller income, with books as his main source of a pleasurable expenditure. Due to his love of books, the narrator meets Dupin in a bookstore and eventually invites Dupin to move in with him at his residence. (Page 3)
2. The narrator and Dupin read about the gruesome murders of Mademoiselle Camille L’Espanaye and Madame L’Espanaye, a mother-daughter pair who rarely left their abode on Rue Morgue. While the initial article covers the horrific crime scene in extensive detail, the following days’ articles focus on various interviews with neighbors and witnesses. After following the story, Dupin is particularly interested in viewing the crime scene himself, and the pair go together to the women’s apartment. (Pages 8-16)
3. After visiting the crime scene, Dupin shares his thoughts with the narrator the following day. First, he determines that, based on the nature of the murder, the deaths of the mother and daughter were not a murder-suicide and there must be an outside party. Second, Dupin acknowledges the interesting point that the different witnesses, who represented an array of nationalities and languages, were unable to understand the language of the perpetrator. Third, Dupin notes that the exit of the perpetrator must have been through a window, although the witnesses’ testimonies claim they did not see anyone exit; however, while it was possible to enter and/or exit this way, it would be “very extraordinary.” (Pages 18-24)
4. After discussing the three notable observations from the crime scene, Dupin shares his thought process with the narrator that the murderer must not have been human. He then shares a passage describing the Ourang-Outang mammal, allowing the narrator to see the possibility that this murder was in fact committed by an animal. (Pages 27-28)
5. The sailor shares that he originally retrieved the Ourang-Outang from Borneo, where he was able to keep it in a cage in his apartment in Paris, until the creature, attempting to mimic the sailor’s shaving routine, escaped. The Ourang-Outang stormed L’Espanaye’s apartment, attempting to mimic the act of shaving on her and killing both women in a frenzy. The narrator notes at the close of the story that the Ourang-Outang was located and sold to a local zoo. (Pages 32-34)
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