The story is divided into two parts. In the first part, Monsieur G —— , Prefect of Police in Paris, visits Dupin
Why was the purloined letter stolen?
A letter from the queen's lover has been stolen from her boudoir by the unscrupulous Minister D—. D— was in the room, saw the letter, and switched it for a letter of no importance. He has been
blackmailing
the queen.
Who stole the letter in the purloined letter?
Three months ago, someone stole a letter from Madame X. She is offering a large amount of money to anyone who can return the letter to her. “We know that her husband's political enemy,
Mr. D'Arcy
, stole the letter.
So he waltzes over to D—'s house for a friendly little visit, wearing green glasses to hide his eyes. He sees the letter, disguised as another letter,
in an organizer box hanging from the fireplace
.
How did Minister D conceal the letter from Monsieur G?
While
reading it she was interrupted by the entrance of a person from whom she wanted to conceal the
letter. She placed it on a table, at which point Minister D entered. He immediately noticed the letter, recognized the handwriting, observed the recipient's behavior, and thus deduced her secret.
How did Dupin restore The Purloined Letter?
When he goes back the next morning to retrieve it, he also arranges for someone to make a commotion outside the window while he is in the apartment.
When the Minister rushes to the window to investigate the noise
, Dupin replaces the stolen letter with a fake.
What is the moral of The Purloined Letter?
In Poe's short story ”The Purloined Letter,” one of the themes is
that the truth is often hidden in plain sight
. The detective Dupin is on a quest to find a stolen letter and realizes that it's so difficult to find because it's right out in the open.
How long is purloined letter?
The average reader will spend
0 hours and 21 minutes
reading this book at 250 WPM (words per minute).
Why is The Purloined Letter so important?
Even if the story were not still interesting reading, “The Purloined Letter” would be of prime historical importance for it
establishes the method of psychological deduction
, the solution of the most obvious place, and the assumption that the case that seems simplest may be the most difficult to solve.
What is the conflict in The Purloined Letter?
The conflict in The Purloined Letter involves
the necessity of finding the stolen letter and returning it to its rightful owner before it is too late
….
What does purloined mean in The Purloined Letter?
“Purloined,” basically means, “
stolen
.” The Oxford English Dictionary's definition for “purloin” is more precise: 2. a. To make away with, misappropriate; to steal, esp. under circumstances which involve a breach of trust; to pilfer, filch.
Where did the minister hide the stolen letter?
The Minister anticipated the methods of the police, and therefore did not hide the letter anywhere he knew they would look. Instead he decided to use subterfuge and hide the letter
in plain sight
where he knew the police wouldn't see it.
Why does everyone in the story The Purloined Letter seem so uninterested in what the letter actually contains?
The men involved in the story would have understood that
it would not be socially acceptable to
inquire into the specific contents of a letter that was probably sexual in nature. No matter how interested they might really have been, they would been expected to tiptoe around the subject matter and not be curious.
How did Dupin find the letter?
Dupin spotted it
in a card holder when he first paid a visit to the Minster
, thinking that he would have disguised the letter in such a manner. During this visit, Dupin purposely left his snuffbox behind so that he would have an excuse to return.
Why does Dupin replace the real letter with a facsimile?
He wanted to make sure that no one but Dupin would know that
the real letter had been recovered
. If Minister D- realized that the letter had been taken, he might inform somebody else, and that person might inform yet another person.
How did Dupin solve the crime?
In both “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter,” Dupin works outside conventional police methods, and he uses his distance from traditional law enforcement to explore new ways of solving crimes. … In “The Purloined Letter,” Dupin solves
the theft of the letter by putting himself at risk politically
.
