October Nightmares IV #11: Edgar Allan Poe Special (Part 1) - The Masque of The Red Death (1842) & The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)

There are three main things to note about horror author Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849). Firstly, he looks like an English Lit teacher who is a bit too touchy-feely. Secondly, his death was as mysterious as the contents of his own works. And thirdly, he is among the most influential horror writers of all, time. He even influenced H.P. Lovecraft - you know the horror writer who influenced everyone else.

Poe, whose works touch upon the mystery, gothic, horror, supernatural, and even proto-sci-fi genres, is such a staple of dark fiction that this list would be nothing without him. He stands over the pantheon of horror like a brooding spectre. He's the goths' equivalent of Jesus.

So put on your cravat, grab your cane, and get out your little notebook of poems dedicated to the Mistress of Death -  none of which are influenced by this Poe guy you never heard of, but who you wish well anyway - and let us delve into the man's gloomy oeuvre.

The Masque of the Red Death

"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."

In The Masque of the Red Death, the selfish Prince Prospero has sealed himself and 1,000 other nobles in his abbey in order to escape a plague which is ravaging the land. This gruesome plague, The Red Death, is laying waste to the population and making them resemble Cohaagen from Total Recall after he is exposed to the atmosphere of Mars. Prospero and the other nobles don't care, however, as they are content to simply wait out the plague in luxury. Bastards.

The Prince throws a lavish masquerade ball one evening, just to really be a complete dick about the whole situation. During the party Prospero happens upon a mysterious figure wearing a bloodstained shroud and death mask. Fearing some uninvited nerd has managed to find a way into his cool party for cool people, Prospero chases down and confronts the figure. To his and his guests horror, however, they discover there is nothing under the robe except for the Red Death itself. Everyone contracts and succumbs to the disease. I've been to parties like this - usually it's the food.

This is one of my favourites of Poe's. It's well within his remit, as it is more mysterious than a the brooding hunk who keeps to himself that you get at every high school. Just what is the Red Death, exactly? The story is also certainly one of Poe's more accessible pieces. Narratively, it's quite straightforward, and the writing is surprisingly easy to decipher. Anytime I didn't understand what Poe was on about when he was trying to describe the aristocrats' party, I just assumed it was some rich person thing and moved on.

Originally, TMOTRD was published with the subtitle 'A Fantasy' and there are certainly fantastical elements to the text. Poe invokes Prospero, a sorcerer from The Tempest who specialises in illusion. Certainly Poe's Prince utilises artifice and illusion to imagine a fortress safe even from death itself. Prospero certainly has unusual taste, which adds to the pervasive strangeness of the text. Poe's elegant, overwrought style is perfected suited for combining the gothic and fantasy:

"There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments...delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."

You can either take the story as a literal fantasy, or as some kind of allegory for how we cannot escape death. Roger Corman's excellent 1964 film with Vincent Price confuses matters. There are Deaths of other colours. And the Red Death itself becomes an actual character - some kind of avenger who seeks only to save the peasants from the tyranny of the rich. Not unlike how Jeremy Corbyn pictures himself whenever he gazes into the mirror.


The Murders in the Rue Morgue

 "The extent of information obtained; lies not so much in the validity of the inference as in the quality of the observation."

Ugh. Do you know what the twist in this one is? I'm just going to throw it out there straight away. It's a fucking murderous orangutan. An orangutan. One which was so spooked after it was caught attempting to shave that it turned to murder. For fuck's sake Poe, this was part of my degree. Reading this...thing technically cost me money.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue is one of Poe's C. Auguste Dupin stories, which are wildly considered to among the first detective fiction - long before Sherlock, Poirot, and Marple. You know, the sort of stories concerning self-appointed detectives who solve crimes because they're rich and nosey enough to have the free time.

What's a shame about this story is that the set-up is actually fairly good. Dupin investigates a the inexplicable double murder of Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter at their home. Ok, colour me intrigued. The murders are savage: the mother's head falls off when the body is moved and the daughter is stuffed up the chimney. Sounds good. And to compound matters, the door is locked from the inside. Well, this is looking promising; oh wait, the killer is a fat ginger monkey.

Not only this, but the story is also a massive slog to get through. Whereas The Masque of the Red Death had a certain flow to it, which matched the unfolding mystery, Murders is just a word soup. Look at this section of the OPENING paragraph:

"The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles." 

What the protagonist (not Dupin) is in effect saying here, and during the subsequent three paragraphs, is that clever people like to think about things in detail. Yeah, well, I can pull off an atomic wedgie. Egghead. The point is to explain ratiocination, the process of extreme deductive reasoning, which makes sense, but then Poe goes on to have Dupin demonstrate his mental prowess and explain how it works.

I find this sort of thing extremely pretentious. Detectives with neigh superpowered abilities of deductive reasoning who act like massive dickheads, and then have everyone suck them off when they explain how, in obsessive detail, they worked everything out. It's wanky. It's weaponised autism is what it is.

Poe's Dupin also appears in The Mystery of Marie Rogêt and The Purloined Letter, fellow tales of ratiocination and mystery with cool titles. Those other two stories are decent reads. This one is just Poe being an arse: "I've got this brilliant mystery of a serial killer offing women on the streets of Paris: but you're probably too stupid to work it out".

Yeah, whatever Poe. At least I didn't marry my 13-year-old cousin.

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