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Edgar Allan PoeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The unnamed narrator is the story’s protagonist and is defined mostly by his sense of curiosity and all-consuming fascination. His intense interest in understanding other people drives the story’s plot as he chases the old man through the London streets day and night, recounting the different people and environments he encounters and attempting to solve the mystery surrounding the old man.
In his first-person account, the narrator presents himself as an outside observer, alienated from the rest of society. He has been isolated from others for a long time due to an unspecified illness, and even when he is able to rejoin society he chooses to sit alone in a café and observe other people instead of interacting with them. Through the narrator’s outsider status, Poe highlights the Anonymity of City Life: the narrator can exist amongst the crowd while remaining solitary and anonymous.
Furthermore, the narrator imagines that his outsider status gives him a special ability to understand and interpret others. Thus, as he observes the crowd outside, the narrator imagines himself an acute observer of human nature, someone who can read people’s true intentions and characters in their faces. This suggests that he feels superior to the people outside.
By Edgar Allan Poe
A Dream Within a Dream
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Annabel Lee
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Berenice
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Hop-Frog
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Ligeia
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Tamerlane
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The Black Cat
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The Cask of Amontillado
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The Conqueror Worm
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The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
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The Fall of the House of Usher
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The Gold Bug
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The Haunted Palace
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The Imp of the Perverse
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The Lake
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The Masque of the Red Death
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The Murders in the Rue Morgue
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The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
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The Oval Portrait
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The Philosophy of Composition
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