The Detective as Author: Narrative and Deduction in Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin Stories

Abstract: This paper will analyse the modes of the detective fiction genre by choosing to examine the three C. Auguste Dupinstories penned by Edgar Allan Poe. As one of the progenitors of detection in fiction as we know it today, Poe introduced myriad constructs, chief amongst them the key role of ratiocination. Through the lens of the author function as adumbrated by Michel Foucault, this paper will explore the extent to which Dupin’s encounter with the intricate complexities of deduction may be parsed through the discursive practice of the author as a potential investigator. As Poe depends on many examples of acuity and observational perspicacity in the manner in which he builds his detective’s character and actions, it will be fruitful to mount a challenge as interrogator of both the textual fabric and the architectonics of écriture which a discerning reader may comprehend in a binding of the author’s function as giving status to a text. The aim will be to sound whether Dupin’s inferences which helpedlay the foundation of enigma and investigation may actually help synthesize apperceptions of the detective as author andactor in his own case(s).