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Man of Crowd

The document provides context and analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Man of the Crowd". It summarizes that the story follows an unnamed narrator who observes an odd old man in London and becomes obsessed with figuring out his identity. The narrator spends the evening following and observing the man but is unable to determine what crime he may have committed or his reasons for constantly wandering through crowds. The document analyzes themes of curiosity, loneliness, and individuality in urban settings explored in the mysterious story.

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242 views11 pages

Man of Crowd

The document provides context and analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Man of the Crowd". It summarizes that the story follows an unnamed narrator who observes an odd old man in London and becomes obsessed with figuring out his identity. The narrator spends the evening following and observing the man but is unable to determine what crime he may have committed or his reasons for constantly wandering through crowds. The document analyzes themes of curiosity, loneliness, and individuality in urban settings explored in the mysterious story.

Uploaded by

zainab
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Man of the Crowd

Edgar Allan Poe


Writer’s Introduction
• An American writer, poet, editor, and literary
critic.
• Best known for his poetry & short stories & tales
of mystery
• One of the proponents of short story as a genre
• Pioneer of detective fiction & science fiction
• He earned his living by writing & led a difficult life
• The characters of his stories are identical of Poe
About the Story
• Epigraph: a phrase, quotation, or poem that is
set at the beginning of a document
• It serve as a preface to the work; as a
summary; as a counter-example
• Also functions for comparison or provides the
context
• The Man of the Crowd: Quote of a French
Philospher Jean De La Bruyère
• Translates as: This great misfortune, of not
being able to be alone.
Cont…
• An unnamed narrator with an unnamed illness
is sitting in an unnamed coffee shop in London
• Feels happy to see a crowd outside
• Contemplates how isolated people think they
are despite crowded by so many people
• Categorizes different types of people:
• Clerks’ group, passengers’ group & merchants’
group
• They are either noble or wholly otherwise
• The narrator shifts telescope to an idiosyncratic old
man in his 70s & zooms him in
• He finds him short, thin & feeble
• The old man is wearing ragged & filthy clothes
• The narrator chases the man out
• The narrator takes a round of city chasing him
• The narrator confronts him next evening and
concludes: the man is the type & genius of a crime
• Why? Due to inscrutability and inability to leave
the crowds
Analysis
• Narrator has a monomaniacal obsession:
partial insanity in a sound mind
• A disease in which the mind is deranged in
dealing with some facts but normal in other
• The narrator’s obsession is with the old man
• That is why the narrator is unable to
categorize him
Cont…
• Lack of clarity
• Why he is haunted by old man is not known
• The reasons of old man’s wanderings are not
known
• He might be searching his lost friend or escaping
the memory of a crime committed
• The narrator & the old man are the two sides of
the same person
• The reader is supposed to unfold the secret
Cont…
• What crime he has committed is unknown
• The possibility of a criminal behavior can be
implied owing to the presence of a dagger
under his cloak
• The story has the qualities of a haunting
gothic tale
• Theme of Guilty knowledge: human nature is
so that they run to & from guilty knowledge
• The man in the street is a criminal at heart
Themes
• Curiosity
• Loneliness
• Relation b/w man & crowd (society): sense &
feeling of being strange among the many
• Puzzle for the loneliness and society
• The epigraph gives a vision of social life &
interaction
• Detachment & self-centeredness: Nature of
urban relations
• People in big cities are doomed to be surrounded
by other people day after day. They are followed
by other people, even if they don’t realize that.
Cont…
• Lack of communication in city life: the narrator
throughout the story does not speak to
anybody
• Individuality: in a crowd one looses one’s
individuality & becomes no one
• City’s description is only at night: it gives a
dark & gloomy image of a city
• Lack of care & concern for each other: the city
is described as a place of poverty & crimes
• Art of hiding: the old man
Story is Mystery
• Some books don’t permit themselves to be
read. Likewise, some people are also like
secret books, they don’t permit themselves to
be known
• The Man of the Crowd is a reflection of our
own shadows. We chase ourselves throughout
the life

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