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1.1 Background of the Study
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue", recognized as the first modern detective story in the world, is a short story by Allen Poe published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. In a letter to friend Dr. Joseph Snodgrass, Poe said the theme of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" was the exercise of ingenuity in detecting a murderer.
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" established many tropes that would become common elements in mystery fiction: the strange but brilliant detective, the bumbling sheriff, the first-person narration by a close friend. Poe also describes the police serving as a foil to the detective. Poe biographer Jeffrey Meyers sums up the significance of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue": "[it] changed the history of world literature."（Meyers,1992: 35）
Many scholars concentrate on the ration and detective ability of Dupin in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue". The psychological factors and the death of the women are also topics already researched by scholars. But the research on the image of Ourang-Outang, the murderer, is quite rare. So this paper will make a further analysis on the image Ourang-Outang.
1.2 Literature Review
1.2.1 Previous Domestic Studies on Poe and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
At present, there are few monographs on Poe domestically. He Muying published on Allen Edgar Poe in 2003. Ren Xiang published Literary Choice during the Time of Culture Crisis-- Exploration on Allen Poe and Detective Fictions in 2006. Zhu Zhenwu published Analysis on Fiction of Allen Poe in 2008. All the monographs mentioned above are about fictions instead of poems.
However, there is a large number of thesis paper based on Poe, including his poems, fictions as well as literary criticisms. Some famous poems of Poe are major theme of the research of Poe’s poems, such as “The Raven”, on which the researches cover a range of symbolism, theme of death and gothic style, etc. Thesis on Poe’s fiction is still a major part. The researches vary from the theme of Poe’s short story to the exploration of Poe’s fiction at a certain background.
Most researches focus on the common metaphors in Poe’s works and the animal images in some poems or fictions. The former regards animal image as a major part of common metaphor in Poe’s work and analyzes its relations with the theme of fiction, like Ge Jihong’s “Analysis on Metaphors in Allen Poe’s Work” (1999). The later stresses animal image on some certain representative work of Poe, like Feng Jia’s “Analysis on Metaphors of the Black Cat of Allen Poe”(2014).
Animal image plays a significant role in Poe’s work. Selected from the description of reality, those animal images reflect his own situation, which are also the resistance of his life. Ning Limei (2012) does a research on the relations between animal image and characters in Poe’s work in order to demonstrate the mental world and emotions of them in her article “Analysis of Animal Image and Its Metaphorical Meaning in Edgar Allen Poe Works”. Also Lv Jiani(2014) analyzes different metaphors including animal image in her article “Animal Image of Poe’s Gothic Fictions”.
In the article of "Analysis of the image in Allen Poe’s gothic novel", Wei Ping Ling (2012) surrounds on the image of color, animals and houses. Wei takes many examples to analyze the functions of the images, the red wine (red blood) drunk by Rowena that brings Ligeia back, the one-eye black cat Pluto, etc. These images polish the plots and phenomenon of Poe’s novel and endow them with horror and mystery. But the shortcoming is Wei does not analyze these images in a deep degree nor make conclusion for each image.
Poe’s view on abolition is another study focus. In the article “Shaver, Georges Cuvier and Abolitionism in "the Murders in The Rue Morgue"”, Zhang Hu (2013) confirms his point that the theme of the story is "no abolitionism" through the clue of shaver, Georges Cuvier’s article as well as Poe’s life experience and his essay published. He lists Cuvier’s explanation for the word Ourang-Outang—rational beast, and the reality that the black is so good at shaving and even can run into rich class by shaving, to support the Ourang-Outang is an implication of the black people. Hu also mentions a part of Poe’s critical essay,“he loves him (the black), because he is his”. (Zhang ,2013:51) However, Hu does not make further analysis on the detailed relation between "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and abolitionism.