My attempt to analyse Man of the Crowd

This is a very tough one. I haven't read a coherent interpretation of this short story anywhere and so it's more a collection of ideas that I've read somewhere or that I came up with myself than a genuine analysis let alone a coherent interpretation.

- time: chronological, narration time shorter than narrated time (the narrated time stretches out over a couple of hours, whereas the story is narrated only on a few pages)

- mode: narrative, internal focalisation

- voice: first person narrator, homodiegetic; the narrator is probably unreliable (he mentions that he has just recovered from a serious illness and that he is in a peculiar mental state)

- synopsis: The narrator who has just recovered from an unspecified illness, is sitting in a London hotel, reading the newspaper and observing "the promiscuous company in the room." Gradually his interest shifts to the people on the street. As it is getting dark outside, he starts to describe different groups of people walking on the street and keeping them appart by certain characteristics. He starts with respectable persons, "noblemen, merchants, attorneys, tradesmen [and] stockjobbers" and then turns to the less respectable men (and women) frequenting the street. The later it gets, the "darker and deeper [the] themes for speculation" become. After he has considered the least respectable people, his attention his captured by an old man walking by. This old man gives rise to associations with the fiend for the narrator. In fact, he is so fascinated by this old man that he feels inclined to follow him through the dark streets of London. He does so for a while, following him through a populated square, a busy bazar and one of the more disrespectable quarters of London until they again reach the street of the Hotel where the narrator resides. All the way through, the old man seems to be disoriented, wondering about aimlessly and not knowing where to go next. The narrator finally concludes his narrative with the statement that "[t]his old man [...] is the type and the genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone. He is the man of the crowd.

- symbols: dagger and diamond

- attempt of an analysis (or rather bits and pieces): As I have stated above, there is, as far as I know, no coherent interpretation of this short story, maybe apart from the explanation of one critic who believes the tale to be one of Poe's hoaxes. This critic asserts that the narrator in his peculiar state of mind is simply following some random old man not realizing that he is nothing but an old drunkard. One might add, when following this line of interpretation, that the reader is following Poe through the story in a similar way, namely not realizing that Poe is pulling the reader's leg. Personally, however, although I know that Poe often did perpetrate such hoaxes, I don't think that it is one of them. Maybe one can gain some understanding of the tale when considering some of the themes and motives of the short story. First, there is the theme of illness mentioned in the story and one might wonder if it was a physical or a mental illness from which the narrator is recovering. Then, there is the motif of reading: At the beginning of the story, the narrator is reading the newspaper, but then proceeds to reading people; first the people frequenting the streets (without considering them as individuals, though, but rather as types) and then he tries to read the old man whom he, however, fails to read. Another theme obviously is that of the city. The thronged streets with all different kinds of people, though none of them displaying any signs of individuality. This picture that Poe paints of the city seems to be very similar to how expressionists more than fifty years later depicted the city- as an anonymous, crime ridden moloch. In fact I have read that many expressionistic artists were influenced by Poe's work in general and, more specifically, by "Man of the Crowd". As I have just indicated, crime (and poverty) is another theme in Poe's tale. The old man wears a dagger and a diamond, the dagger obviously is a symbol for crime and the narrator also expicitely refers to crime in connection with this man (he refers to him as "the genius of deep crime"). Poverty is indicated by the filthy and ragged clothes that the old man wears, but also by his going into this quarter of London "where every thing wore the worst impress of the most deplorable poverty". From the fact that the old man personifies both, crime and poverty, one could infer that Poe wanted to indicate a connection between the former and the latter. Another train of thought would again focus on the narrators peculiar state of mind and his unreliability. There are critics that have claimed that the old man actually is a doppelgaenger of the mentally deranged narrator. A clue for such a reading would be the narrator's assertion that he was "with my brows to the glass" when he spied the old man. Earlier in the text it is said that the panes of the window were smoky. They might thus work like a mirror and the narrator is seeing is own face when looking out of the window. He would then consider the dark side of his own soul and the pursuit of the old man might only be a metaphorical journey through the narrator's own mind. The places that he and the old man visit would than reflect the narrator's own fears and concerns.


I think that's all I can think of for now. I know it's not really systematic and no coherent interpretation, but maybe it gives some food for thought for other people who are also reading this story and wondering what it is about. I might post something about some of Poe's other short stories in the next couple of days. (Man, this was the longest forum post that I've ever written anywhere :D)

Cicero