1986 - mysteries we reread, mysteries of rereading. poe, borges, and the analytic detective story....
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Mysteries We Reread, Mysteries of Rereading: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story;
Also Lacan, Derrida, and JohnsonAuthor(s): John T. IrwinSource: MLN, Vol. 101, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1986), pp. 1168-1215Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2905715.
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7/24/2019 1986 - Mysteries We Reread, Mysteries of Rereading. Poe, Borges, And the Analytic Detective Story. Also Lacan,
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Mysteries
We
Reread,Mysteries
of
Rereading:
Poe,
Borges, nd
the
Analytic
Detective tory;Also Lacan,Derrida,
and
Johnson*
John
.
Irwin
I
Let me
startwith a simple-minded
question:
How does one write
analytic
detective fiction
s
high
art when
the genre's basic
struc-
ture,
ts central narrativemechanism,
eems to
discourage
the
un-
limitedrereading associated
with
serious writing?
That is,
if
the
point
of an analytic
detectivestory s the
deductive solution
of
a
mystery,
ow does the writer
keep
the achievement
f that olution
from
exhausting
the reader's
interest
n
the story?
How
does he
writea work that can be reread by people other than those
with
poor memories?
use the term
"analyticdetectivefiction"
here
to
distinguish
he genre invented
by Poe
in
the Dupin tales of the
1840s
from
stories
whose main character s
a detective
but whose
main concern
is not analysis
but adventure, stories
whose true
genre
is less
detective
fictionthan
quest
romance,
as
one of the
masters
of the adventure
mode, Raymond
Chandler,
implicitly c-
knowledged
when he
gave
the name Mallory
to an
early
prototype
of his
detectivePhilip
Marlowe.
For
Chandler,
theprivate
nvesti-
gatorsimplyrepresents plausible formofmodernknight-errant.
*
A
shorter
version
of
this
essay
was delivered
at the
annual
meeting
of the
Poe
Studies
Association
in
1981
at
the
kind invitation
of Kent
Ljungquist
and
Ben
Fisher.
The
essay
s
part
of a
book entitled
The
Mystery
o
Solution:
oe, Borges,
nd
theAnalytic
etective
tory resently
eing completed.
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7/24/2019 1986 - Mysteries We Reread, Mysteries of Rereading. Poe, Borges, And the Analytic Detective Story. Also Lacan,
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M
L
N
1169
In his essay
"The
Simple Artof Murder,"
he says that
a detective
story s
the detective's
adventure
n
search
of a hidden
truth, nd
it would
be no adventure if
it did not
happen to a man fit for
adventure."' The emphasis
in Chandler's remarks, s
in his fiction,
is on the
detective's
haracterand his adventures,
withthe revela-
tion of
a hidden truth imply
ervingas a
device to illuminate he
former nd motivate
the latter.
But in the pure analytic
detective
story he
matter s
otherwise.As a character,
Dupin is
as thin s the
paper
he's printed
on. As for his adventures,they
mountto little
more than reading
newspaper
accounts of the crime
and talking
with the Prefect of police and the narrator n the privacyof his
apartment.
What gives
the analyticdetective
genre
its special ap-
peal
is that
quality
which the Goncourt brothers
noted on
first
readingPoe. In an
1856 ournal
entry heydescribed
Poe's stories
as
"a
new literary
world"
bearing
"signs
of
the
literature
of the
twentiethentury-love
givingplace to
deductions
.. the nterest
of the storymoved
fromtheheart to the
head. ..
from he drama
to the solution."2Preciselybecause
it is a genre
that
grows
out of
an
interest
n
deductions
and
solutions rather than
in
love and
drama,theanalyticdetective tory hows ittle nterestncharacter,
managingat best
to produce caricatures-those
monsters f idio-
syncrasy
rom Holmes to Poirot.
In
its purest form
t
puts
all
its
eggs
in
the basket
of
plot,
and a specialized
kind of
plot
at that.
The problem
is that this basket
seems to be one that
can be emp-
tied
in
a singlereading.
Related
to this
difficulty
s
another.
If
the
writerdoes
his work
properly,
f
he
succeeds
in
buildingup
a sense of
the mysterious,
of
some
dark
secret
or intricately
nottedproblem,then he
has to
face the fact that there simplyexists no hidden truth or guilty
knowledge whose revelation
will not
seem
anticlimactic ompared
to
an antecedent sense
ofmysterynd the
infinite peculativepos-
sibilities
t
permits.
Borges, one
of
the
contemporary
masters
of
the
analyticdetective tory, cknowledges
this difficulty
n his
tale
"Ibn
Hakkan al-Bokhari,
Dead
in His
Labyrinth."
He says
thatone
of
his characters,
"steeped
in detectivestories,
thought
that the
solution
of
a mysterys always
less impressive
than the mystery
itself."3
ut if
in
the analyticdetective
tory he solution
s
always
in some sense an anticlimaxthat in dissipatingthe mystery x-
hausts
the story's
nterest for us,
an interest
n
speculative
rea-
soning
which the
mystery mpowers,
then
how does one
write
his
kind
of
story s a serious,
that
s,
rereadable, literary
orm? How
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1170
JOHN
T. IRWIN
does one
both present
theanalytic olution of
a
mystery
nd at
the
same timeconservethe sense of the mysterious n which analysis
thrives?
Given
the
predictable
economy
of a critical
essay,
I think
the
reader is
safe in assuming that
if
I
didn't consider
Poe's
Dupin
storiesto
be, on theone hand,
archetypes
f
analytic
detective
fic-
tion, and
on
the
other,
serious literary
works
that demand
and
repay rereading,
there
would be
no
reason
for
my evoking
at
this
length the
apparent
incompatibility
f
these
modes
and thus the
writer's roblem
n
reconciling
hem.
All
of which
brings
me
to
the
task of uncrumplingthatmuch crumpled thing"The Purloined
Letter"
to consider the way
that
this
problem
of a
mystery
with
a
repeatable
solution,
a solution that
conserves
because
it
endlessly
refigures)
he
sense
of the
mysterious,
ies at the
veryorigin
of the
analyticdetective tory.
II
My approach to "The Purloined Letter"will be along what has
recently ecome
a well-worn
path.
I
want to look
briefly t three
readings
of the story hat
form a cumulative series
of
interpreta-
tions, each successive
reading commenting
both on the story nd
on
the previous reading(s)
in the series.
They areJacques Lacan's
"Seminar
on
'The
Purloined Letter'" (1957), Jacques
Derrida's
"The Purveyor
of Truth" (1975),
and Barbara Johnson's
"The
Frame
of
Reference:
Poe, Lacan, Derrida" (1978).
Each of these
essays presents
a
lengthy, omplex
argument
n
which "The Pur-
loined Letter" is treated as a pretext,which is to say, read as a
parable
of
the
act of
analysis.
However,
I
am not
so much inter-
ested
here
in
following
he
convolutions
of
their ndividual argu-
mentsas in isolating
thread that runs throughall three, clue
to
conduct us through abyrinthine
assages. And that
thread is the
position
that
each essay
takeson what we might all
the numerical/
geometrical
tructure f the
story.
Let us begin
with
Lacan. He says
that the
story
onsists
of
"two
scenes,
the
first
f which
we
shall
straightway
esignatetheprimal
scene, and by no means inadvertently,ince the second may be
considered its repetition."4
he
first
r primal scene
takes place in
"the
royalboudoir" p.
41), the second
scene in "the Minister's
f-
fice"
p. 42).
And
according
to Lacan, each of these scenes
has
a
triangular
tructure: ach is
composed
of "three
logical
moments"
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M
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1171
(p. 43)
"structuring
hreeglances,
borne
by three
subjects,
ncar-
nated
each time
by different
haracters":
The
firsts a glance
hat ees
nothing:he King
nd
thepolice.
The second,
glancewhich ees
that
he firstees
nothing
nd de-
ludes tself
s to
thesecrecyf
what t hides:
theQueen,
then heMin-
ister.
The
third ees
that
he
first wo
glanceseave
what hould
behidden
exposed
to whoeverwould eize
t: theMinister,
nd finally
upin.
(p.
44)
Thus in the
royalboudoir,
the
King does not
see the
incriminating
letterwhich the Queen in her haste has hidden in the open,
leaving
t with ts address uppermost
n
plain
sight
on a table.
And
the
Queen, seeing
that theKing
doesn't see
the
letter,
mistakeshis
blindness
for the letter's
oncealment,
thus
eaving
herselfvulner-
able
to
the
Minister
who sees
both
the
King's glance
and the
Queen's
and
realizes that
the letter can
be seized before
the
Queen's
very eyes
preciselybecause
she
dare
not do anything
o
attract he King's
attention
o it.
Similarly
n
the second scene,
at
the Minister's
residence,
the letter,
having
been turned
inside out
and readdressed
in a female hand,
is once again
hidden
in
plain
sight
n a
card
rack
on
the mantelpiece.
And this time
the
police,
who
have searched
the
Minister's uarters
repeatedly
without
no-
ticing
the letter,represent
that first
glance
which sees nothing;
while the Minister,
who mistakes he
blindness
of the
police
forthe
concealment
of the letter,
epresents
he second
glance,
and Dupin
represents
the third glance
that sees
what the
first wo miss, .e.,
that the letter
hidden
in
theopen
is
his for the
taking.
The
figure
who participates n both these triangularscenes is the Minister,
and his
shifting
rom the position
of
the
third
glance
in
the initial
scene
to
that
of the second
glance
in
its
repetition
xhibits hespe-
cial
vulnerability
o
self-delusion,
o a
blind
spot,
which the
posses-
sion
of the letter
onveys.
Consider,
now,
Derrida's
critique
of
this
reading, keeping
in
mind
that
n his
essay
"The
Purveyor
of Truth" Derrida
is moti-
vated less
by
an interest
n Poe
or
"The
Purloined Letter"
than
by
a
desire
to score
points
offLacan.
As
Johnson
points
out,
Derrida,
in
a lengthy ootnote ohis bookPositions,ketches heargument hat
will
become
"The
Purveyor
of
Truth" and cites
in this context
Lacan's
multiple
"actsof aggression"
gainst
him
since the
publica-
tion
of
De la
grammatologie
n
Critique
n 1965.5
Obviously,
Derrida
takes
the case
of "The
Purloined Letter"
for one
of
the
same
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JOHNT. IRWIN
reasons
that Dupin
did-the Minister once
did Dupin
"an evil
turn" (Poe, 3: 993)
at Vienna,
and Dupin sees the
affair of the
letter s an opportunity o geteven. The witof Derrida's essay ies
in the waythat t uses
Lacan's
reading of "The Purloined
Letter"
against
itself,
for
if
Lacan
believes
that with
his
interpretation
f
the story
he has, as it were, gained
possession
of
Poe's
"Purloined
Letter,"
has made its
meaninghis own, then
Derrida
will howhim
that the
possession
of that letter,
as Lacan himself
pointed out,
brings
with t a blind spot. In
his essay
Derrida setsout to repeat
the encounter
betweenDupin
and the Minister
withhimself
n
the
role of Dupin and Lacan in the role of theMinister.
Derrida
attacks Lacan's reading
of the story
on a
variety
of
points,
but the one that concerns
us has to do
withLacan's notion
of
the triangular
structureof
each of the two scenes
in
the tale.
Derrida
agrees thatthe story onsists
f two
scenes, butnot the
two
on which Lacan focusses.He
points out that
the scene
in
the royal
boudoir
and
the subsequent scene
at the Minister's
residence
are
two
narrated
scenes
within the
framing
rtifice
f
the
story,
but
that the
story tself onsists of
two
scenes
of narration-the
first
scene being the Prefect's nitialvisit to Dupin during which the
Prefect
recounts
the events in the royal
boudoir, and the second
scene
being the
Prefect's ubsequent
visitduring
which
Dupin
re-
counts
the events
at the Minister's
residence.
While the narrators
of
the
two
narratedcenes
n
the royal
boudoir
and at
the
Minister's
residence are respectively
he
Prefect nd Dupin,
the narrator
of
the
two
scenes f
narration t
Dupin's lodgings
s
Dupin's
unnamed
companion.
Thus,
according
to
Derrida,
Lacan reduces
the four-
sided structure
f the scene of narration-what
Derrida calls "the
scene of writing"-to the three-sided structureof the narrated
scene
"by overlooking
the narrator's
position,
the narrator's
n-
volvement
n the
content of
what he
seems
to be
recounting."6
n
ignoring
the presence of the
narrator of
"The Purloined Letter,"
Lacan cuts "a
fourthside" out of the
narrated figure "to leave
merely riangles" p.
54). And he does this,
ays
Derrida, precisely
because as a psychoanalyst,
acan
projects
upon Poe's story
the
structure
f the
Oedipal triangle
n his
desire
to
read "The
Pur-
loined Letter"
as an allegoryof psychoanalysis
r
"an allegory f
the
signifier"Johnson,p. 115).
Now since
in
his
critique
of Lacan's
interpretation
f "The
Pur-
loined Letter" Derrida aims
to
get
even
with Lacan by being
one
up
on
him,
and since
Lacan
in his
reading
of the numerical
struc-
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M L N
1173
ture of the tale has
already
played the numbers
one, two,
and
three the
tale is composed
of two scenes,
the second
of which,by
repeatingthe triangular tructure f the first, reates a sameness
or oneness between
the two),
then being one up on
Lacan means
playing
the next open number
(four);
and that is what Derrida
does
in
arguing that
the
structure
f
the scenes
is not triangular
but quadrangular.
However, whether Derrida
arrives
at this qua-
drangular
structure y
adding one
to threeor bydoubling two s
a
problematicpoint,
a point on
which Johnsonfocusses
n her
cri-
tique
of
Lacan's and Derrida's
readings
of the tale's numerical
structure.
As Johnson
notes,
Derrida objects to
the triangular
structure
which Lacan sees
in the repeated scenes
because
this tructure, e-
rived
from the Oedipal triangle,
represents
n Derrida's opinion
a
characteristic sychoanalytic
ttempt
to dismiss or absorb the
un-
canny
effects f doubling,
a doubling
which
Derrida
maintains
s
everywhere
present
n
the tale. Doubling tends,
of
course,
to be
a
standard element
of the analyticdetective
tory,
n
that the usual
method
of
apprehending
thecriminal
nvolves he detective's ou-
blingthe criminal's thoughtprocesses so as to anticipatehis next
move and
end up
one jump
ahead of
him.
And,
of
course,
the
numberassociated
with
doubling
is usually
four rather than two,
for
what
we refer
o as
doubling
is
almost
always plitting
nd dou-
bling.
Which
is
to
say,
the figure
of the
double externally
dupli-
cates
an
internal
division
in
the protagonist's
self
(but with the
master/slave olarity
f thatdivision
characteristicallyeversed),
o
thatdoubling tends
to
be a structure
f four
halves problematically
balanced across the
inner/outer
imit
of
the self
rather than
a
structureof two separate, opposing wholes. Thus in the first
Dupin
story, The
Murders
in
the
Rue Morgue," the
narrator
ays
thatwhile observing
Dupin
in the exercise
of
his "peculiar
analytic
ability,"
e entertained
the
fancy
f a
double
Dupin-the
creative
and
the
resolvent"
n
accordance
with "the old
philosophy
of the
Bi-Part Soul"
(2:
533).
And in "The Purloined
Letter" the Min-
ister,
s both
poet
and mathematician,
s represented
s havingthis
same dual
intellectual
power.
In matchingwits
with the
Minister,
Dupin
first
doubles
the Minister's thought processes-a
mental
operation that Dupin illustrates by telling the story of the
schoolboy
who
always
won at the game
of
even
and
odd-and
he
then replays,that is, temporally
doubles,
the scene
in which
the
Minister
originally
eized the letter,
but with himself
now
in
the
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JOHN
T. IRWIN
Minister'srole, thus shifting
he
Minister
nto
the role
played by
the Queen in
the original event
and
evoking
the
destabilizingre-
versal-into-the-oppositenherent n doubling.
As
Johnson notes, Derrida thinks that "the problem with
psy-
choanalytical
triangularity .
.
is
not that it contains the wrong
number of
terms,but that t
presupposes the possibility f a suc-
cessful dialectical mediation and
harmonious
normalization,
or
Aufhebung,f
desire. The three terms
n
the Oedipal triad enter
into an
opposition whose resolutionresembles the syntheticmo-
ment of a Hegelian dialectic" p.
122). But that syntheticmoment,
thatsuccessfuldialecticalmediationofdesire, s preciselywhat the
uncanny
destabilizing ffect
f
doubling constantly ubverts,
or n
the Oedipal
triangle each of the
three positions functions s one
pole
of
a
mutually
constitutive
pposition
with one
of
the other
positions nd thus each position s
subject to being reversed
nto
ts
opposite.
There
exists
n
the Oedipal
triangle, hen,
no
privileged
position that
s above
or
outside the uncanny effects f
doubling,
no
exempt,
objective position
fromwhich
to mediate
or
regularize
the
subjective
nteraction f
the other
two
positions.
As withDerrida's reading ofLacan, the witof Johnson'sreading
of
Derrida
lies
in
the
way that
she
doubles
Derrida's own
insights
back upon
themselves o make them
problematic.Thus in dealing
with
Derrida's attempt to be one
up
on Lacan
by
playing the
number four
to Lacan's three,Johnson assimilatestheir
opposed
readings
of
the numerical structure
f
the tale
to
thegame of even
and
odd,
the
game
which
Dupin
proposed
as an illustration
f
the
way that
one doubles the thoughtprocesses of an
opponent
in
order to be one
jump
ahead
of
him.
Derrida
opts
for a
quadran-
gular structure, hat s,he playstheeven numberfour, norder to
evoke the
uncanniness, the oddness
of
doubling; while
Lacan opts
for
a
triangular structure
by playing
the odd number
three,
in
order to
enforce theregularizing
or
normalizing ffect
f the dia-
lectical
triad.
In
this game of even and
odd,
Derrida
and
Lacan
end
up
as
reciprocal opposites,
as
specular
doubles
of
one another:
Derrida
asserts
the
oddness of
evenness,
while Lacan affirms he
evenness
of
oddness.
Given
the
destabilizing
reversal-into-the-op-
posite inherent
n
doubling, Johnson
sees the
opposition between
Derrida's and Lacan's interpretations s an "oscillation" between
the
former's
"unequivocal
statementsof undecidability" nd the
latter's
ambiguous assertions
of
decidability" p. 146).
As to
Johnson's
own
position
on
"The
Purloined
Letter,"
her
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M
L
N
1175
reading of
Lacan and Derrida is meant
to freeher fromhaving
to
take a position
on thenumerical structure
f the tale,
or
more ex-
actly, o free her fromhavingto take a numerical ositionon that
structure. he does
not intend,
forexample, to play the
next open
number
(five); for since
she has reduced Lacan's
and Derrida's
readings
of the numerical structure
of the story
to the specular
game of even and odd,
there
exist only
two numerical
positions
that one can take on
that structure-even
or odd-and
these,
Johnsoncontends,have
already been
played byDerrida
and
Lacan
without nyclear conclusion.
Johnson's
strategys to call into
ques-
tion the whole concern
withnumbers.
At
one point
she
asks,
"But
can what is at stake here reallybe reduced to a mere numbers
game?",
and a bit later
she answers,"Clearly,
n
these questions,
the
very
notion of a number becomes problematic,
nd the argu-
ment
on the basis of numbers can
no longer be
read literally"p.
121). As
Johnson sees it, taking a position
on thenumerical
struc-
ture
of
the tale means,
for Lacan and Derrida,
taking
numerical
position,choosing
a number,
but that means playing
the
game
of
even and odd, the game
of
trying
o be one
up
on a
specular,
an-
titheticaldouble. And playing that game means endlessly re-
peating
the
structureof "The Purloined
Letter"
in which
being
one up inevitably eads
to being
one down. For
if
the structure
created
by the repeated scenes
in the tale involves doubling
the
thought
processes of one's opponent
in
order
to use
his own
methods
againsthim-as Dupin does
with he
Minister, s Derrida
does
with
Lacan,
and as
Johnson
does
with Derrida-then
the
very
method
by
which one
outwits
one's opponent,
by
which
one
comes
out
one up
on
him,
is the same method
that
will
be em-
ployed against oneself by the next player in the game, the next
interpreter
n the series,
in
order
to leave the
preceding inter-
preter
one down.
Is it
possible,then,
to interpret
The Purloined Letter"
without
duplicating
in
the interpretive
ct thatreversal-into-the-opposite
inherent
n
the mechanism
of
seizing
the letter s
that
mechanism
is described
n
the tale?
Is it
possible
to
generate
an insightwithout
a
blind
spot
in
it,
a flaw that allows the
insight ubsequently
o
be
turned
against
itself?
Clearly,
the desire
for such an invulnerable
insight s at work nJohnson'sessayand accounts forthe at times
disconcerting
evel of self-consciousness
which she tries
to main-
tain
regarding
her own methodological
stance,her
own critical s-
sumptions.
For
Johnson
the refusal
to take a numericalposition
on
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1176
JOHN
T. IRWIN
the
structure
f the
tale,
i.e.,
to
play
the next open
number,
s
an
effortto avoid the game of tryingto be one up by adding the
number
one to
the opponent's
numerical
position,
s Derrida does
in playingthe
number
four to Lacan's
three; for that game
will
simply
turn into an oscillation
between
even and odd running
to
infinity.
ut is
it
possible
forJohnson
to avoid
becoming
involved
in this numbers
game
simply
by refusing
to choose
a
specific
number
with
which to
characterize the
geometrical/numerical
structureof
the tale?
Doesn't
the
very
form of her essay-as
a
critique
of
Derrida's
critique
of Lacan's
reading
of "The
Purloined
Letter"-involve her in thenumbersgame? In situatingher essay
as
the third
n a series
of three critical readings, Johnson
places
herself
n that
thirdposition
which,
n
the structure
overning
he
wandering
of the purloined
letter,
s
the position
of maximum
n-
sight,
but
also the position
n whichthe observer
s
subject
to
mis-
taking
his
insight
oncerning
the
subjective
nteraction
f the
other
two
glances
for an
objective
viewpoint
bove such
interaction.
And
indeed,
how are
we to describe
the relationship
betweenJohnson's
interpretation
nd those
of Lacan
and Derrida?
Are
they
inked
n
a triangular tructure n which Lacan and Derrida face off as an-
tithetical oubles,
whileJohnson,
by
refusing
to become
involved
in
the game
of even
and odd,
occupies
a
position
of
"successful
dialectical mediation"
above
them,
a
Hegelian
synthesis
f their
positions?
Or are they
involved
in
a
quadrangular
structure
n
which Lacan
and
Derrida
are reciprocal
halves
of one
pole
of a
mutually
onstitutive
pposition (i.e.,
the pole
of
trying
o be one
up
on
a
specular
double),
while
Johnson
occupies
the other
pole
of
this
opposition
by
doubling
back Lacan's
and Derrida's
methods
against them in order to avoid this game of one up? Indeed,
Johnson's
final
comment
on
her
own methodology
invokes the
image
of
Derrida's
quadrangular
frame:
". . .
my
own theoretical
'frame
of reference'
s precisely,
o a very
arge
extent, he
writings
of
Lacan and
Derrida. The frame
s thus
framed
again
by
part
of
its content;
the sender again
receives
his own message
backward
from
the receiver"
p. 146).
Johnson's
essay
is at odds
with
itself,
s
she is the
first o ac-
knowledge. Indeed,
it is precisely
her strategy
o present
the op-
posed aspectsof her essay-such as itsexplicitrefusal,on theone
hand,
to
take
a numerical position
on
the
structure
of the tale,
coupled
with ts implicit
ssumption,
on the other
hand, of
a
nu-
merical position
in
representing
ts
own relationship
to the
two
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M L
N
1177
earlier
critical essays,
a numerical
position
that reinscribes
the
question
of a triangular
versus
a quadrangular
structure resent
n
the tale-precisely her strategy o presentthese opposed aspects
of her
essay
as
an aporia,
as
a trope
of
undecidability
not unlike
theone
which
Paul de
Man
describes
n the
passage
Johnson
uses
as
the epigraph
to
her
book
The Critical
ifference,
he
book
whose
finalchapter
is her essay
on Derrida
and
Lacan.
In thatepigraph
de
Man evokes
the
aporia
between
grammar
nd
rhetoric y
citing
as
an
example
the case
in which Edith
Bunker asks
her
husband
Archie
fhe
wantshis
bowling
hoes
laced
over
or laced
under-to
which
the
irascible
Archie
replies,
"What's
the
difference?"
In
termsof grammarArchie's replyasks forthe differencebetween
two alternatives,
ut in terms
of rhetoric
his
reply
means
"What-
ever the
difference
s,
it's
not important
nough
to make a
differ-
ence
to me."
De Man remarks,
"The same grammatical
pattern
engenders
two meanings
that
are mutually
exclusive:
the
literal
meaning
asks
for the
concept
(difference)
whose
existence
is de-
nied
bythe
figurative
meaning"
(Johnson,
p. v). It
is
in
this
same
vein
thatJohnson
at
the
end
of her essay,
after
having
described
the opposition between
Derrida's
and
Lacan's
positions
as "the
oscillation
between
unequivocal
statements
f
undecidability
nd
ambiguous
assertions
of decidability,"
oncludes,
"'Undecidability'
can
no more be
used as the
last
word
than 'destination'.....
The
'undeterminable'
s
not opposed
to the determinable;
dissemina-
tion' s
not
opposed
to repetition.
f
we
could be sure
of the differ-
ence
between
the determinable
and
the
undeterminable,
he
un-
determinable
would
be
comprehended
within the determinable.
What is
undecidable
is
whether
a
thingis decidable
or
not" (p.
146).
Now
what are we
to make
of these
words?
By
which mean
not
just
what do these
words say
grammatically
but what
do they
convey
rhetorically,
or what purpose
are they being
said
in
this
context.
thinkthe key
ies
in
Johnson's
statement
hat
"
'Undeci-
dability'
an
no more be used
as
a last
word than destination.'
At
the
point
she
says
this,Johnson
s nearing
her
own
destination,
he
end
of
her
essay,
and is
faced
with the
formal
requirement
of
saying
a last
word
and thus
with
the
question
of
whether
a last
word can be said in the oft-renewedcritical discussion of "The
Purloined
Letter."
Having
to say
a last word,
she
says
in effect,
"The last
word is
thatthere s
no last
word." This type
of
statement
which
says
one
thing
grammatically
nd means
its
opposite
rhetor-
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1178
JOHNT.
IRWIN
ically occurs
again and again
in her essay. As we noted,
it
is
the
strategy
t work whenJohnson refuses
totake a numericalposition
on the structure
of the tale at
the same time that she
implicitly
assumes
a numericalposition
n
relation
to the
two
earlier
critical
readings
which her own essay retrospectively
roups into a series
along with tself.
t
is
at work
again
when
she turns Derrida's
in-
sightson doubling
back upon
themselves
o
tell Derrida
that t is
impossible
to be one up on his specular
double
Lacan, forthough
what she says on a grammatical
evel is that
t
is impossible
to
be
one
up
in
such
an
encounter,
the rhetorical
ffect
f
her statement
is to leave her one up on her specular double Derrida. And this
strategy
s at
work once
again
when
she decisivelyconcludes,
"What is undecidable
is
whether thing
s decidable
or not."
These
instances of an aporia
between grammar
and rhetoric
occur
in
statements
hat
are
in one
way
or
anotherself-reflexive,
statements
hat
are
themselves
ncluded
in
the class
of
things
to
which they refer.
A
simple example
of such a self-including
tate-
ment would
be the sentence
"All
statements
containing
seven
words
are
false." Preciselybecause
the sentence
s itself statement
made up of seven words, we are facedwith paradox: ifthis tate-
ment is
true, t is false,
and
if
it is false,
t
is
true. Similarly,
n
an
aporia
between grammar
and rhetoric we
are
faced,
as de
Man
notes,
with
single grammatical
pattern hatengenders
two mutu-
ally
exclusive meanings. By very
reason
of the fact
that
they
n-
clude
themselves
n
the class of things
to
which
theyrefer,
these
statements ouble
back upon themselves
nd exhibit
hat
uncanny
reversal-into-the-opposite
nherent
n doubling. One
thinks n this
connection
of
Russell'sparadox.
Distinguishing
etween
two kinds
of classes (thosewhich do not include themselves s membersand
those
which
do),
Russell calls
the firstclass "normal"
and the
second
"non-normal" and he
then doubles back
upon
itselfthis
distinction etween
nonself-including
nd
self-including
lasses
by
asking
whether
the
class
of
all
normal lasses
s a normal
or a non-
normal
class. By definition
the
class of
all normal lasses
ncludes
within
tself
ll normal classes. Consequently,
f t
is
itself normal
class,
it must
be
included
in itself.But self-inclusion
s the distin-
guishing
haracteristic
f a non-normal lass. The classof
ll "normal
classes"s, then,a conceptwhose form nd content re at odds: the
conceptinvolves,
n the one
hand, a formalnotion
of
class
s abso-
lutely
nclusive,
which is to
say,
as
ultimately
elf-inclusive,
hat s
contradicted,
on
the
other hand, by
the content, by
the
specific
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M L N 1179
definition fthe "classes"which
the former s to include completely
within tself.As a result the class of all normal classes is normal
only
f
t
is
non-normal, nd non-normal
only if it is normal.
Part
of the infinite
fascination of paradoxes
of self-inclusion
s, of
course, thatthey eem to reflect
n the facing
mirrors f language
and
logic
the mysterious ature
of self-consciousnesss that
which
seeks
to
include whollywithin
tself n exactrepresentation
f
that
which by itsvery essence cannot
wholly nclude
itself.
At the very
startof her essay Johnson
sets the tone for
all the
self-including tatements hatare
to followwhen she remarks
hat
in Poe's tale,Lacan's reading,and Derrida's critique, it s the act of
analysiswhich
seems to occupy the center
of the discursive
stage,
and the act
of analysis of
the act of analysiswhich
in
some
way
disrupts that centrality.
n
the
resulting asymmetrical, byssal
structure,
o
analysis-including
thisone-can
intervene
without
transforming nd repeating
other elements
n
the sequence,
which
is thus
not
a
stable sequence,
but which
nevertheless
roduces
cer-
tain regular effects" p.
110).
The
key phrase,
of
course,
is
"no
analysis-including
this
one." It has about
it
the
briskAmerican
qualityof Mark Twain's "No general statement sworth damn-
including this one"-a general
statement
worth a damn
only
if
general
statements
aren't
worth a damn.
The
very
fact that
Johnson
makes
an
analytic
tatement
hat ncludes
itself,
which s
to
say,
an analysisof her own
analysis,
n
the sentence
mmediately
following
her
statement hat
it
is
the act
of
analysis
of
the
act of
analysis
that skewsanalysis
n
Poe, Lacan,
and Derrida is her way
of
announcing her strategy
t the start. t
is not thatJohnsonwill
do
anything
different
n her essay from what Lacan and
Derrida
have done in theirs. ndeed, it s notclear that he thinks hat ny-
thing
different an be
done at thispoint inasmuch as
Lacan
and
Derrida have already replayed
the
structure
f
the tale
in a critical
registerby
acting out the game
of even and odd in their
opposing
positions.
What
will be different
n
her
version
s
that these posi-
tions
will
be repeated
with a
complete
awareness
of
their mplica-
tions,
a total critical self-consciousness
hat
aims
to
create an
in-
sight
without blind
spot;
for
what
s at
issue here
is
not so much
whether
one's critical
rgument
is
logically
true
or
false,
or
one's
readingof the tale perceptiveor dull, but whetherone's interpre-
tive stance
is
methodologically
self-aware
or methodologically
naive.
In
itstranslation rom
fiction o criticism, he project
of ana-
lyzing
the act
of
analysis
becomes
in
effect
he
program
of
being
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1180
JOHNT.
IRWIN
infinitely elf-conscious
bout self-consciousness.
Or put
another
way, if the structurethatwe find in "The Purloined Letter" in-
volves doubling
an opponent's thoughtprocesses
in
order to
turn
his
own methods
againsthim,
then
the onlydefense
against
having
the
same strategy epeated
againstoneself
by the
next player s
to
produce
an insight
or take
a position
that is already
self-con-
sciously
doubled back upon
itself,
s is the case
with the type
of
self-including
statement
that says one thing
grammatically
but
conveys ts opposite
rhetorically.
or a position
thatknowingly
n-
cludes
itself
nd itsopposite
seems
to leave no ground
on
which t
can be undermined.
III
The
commitment o
an increasingly
elf-conscious
nalytic
posture
that animates this
cumulative
series
of
interpretations roduces
at
last
a
kind of intellectual
vertigo,
not uncharacteristic
ide-effect
of
thought
about thought-the
rational
animal
turning
n
circles
to catch itself
by
a tale
it
doesn't
have.
And
certainly
no one en-
joyed creatingthis vertiginous ffectmore than did Poe, an effect
that he imaged
as dizziness
at the edge
of
a vortex
or on
the
brink
of
a precipice.
That the
giddy,
self-dissolving
ffect
of
thought
about
thought-what
Johnson
calls the
"asymmetrical,
byssal
structure"
f
analyzing
the act
of
analysis-forms
the
continuing
theme
of
the Dupin
stories
s
announced
in
the
opening
sentence
of the first ale,
"The
Murders
in
the
Rue
Morgue."
The
story
begins
with he narrator's engthy
refatory
emarks
n
the
nature
of
the analytical power,
remarks that
conclude
by presenting
the
detectivestoryas a "commentaryupon the propositions ust ad-
vanced" (2:
531). But those
prefatory
remarks
start
with
this
curiousproposition:
"The
mental
featuresdiscoursed
of as
the an-
alytical
are,
in
themselves,
but
little
susceptible
of
analysis" (2:
527).
Now
inasmuch as this statement
nitiates he narrator's
own
brief
nalysis
of the
analytical
power,
t s self-reflexive:
s an
ana-
lytic
tatement
bout the
non-susceptibility
f
analysis
to
being
an-
alyzed,
the statement s
included
in
the class
of
things
to which t
refers,
but
what
the
statement ays
in
effect
s
that
analytic
tate-
mentscannot wholly nclude themselves. n analyzingthe act of
analysis,
self-conscious thought
doubles
back
upon
itself to dis-
cover
that it
cannot
absolutely
coincide
with itself.
This
insight
about the
nature of
thought is,
of
course,
at least
as
old in our
tradition
s the
philosophies
of
Zeno
and
Parmenides
and as new
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M
L
N
1181
as
G6del's
proof
and
Borges's
(and
Carroll's
and Royce's)
map
of
natural
size.
It is
the
paradoxical
insight
hat
f one considers
the
act of
thinking
nd
the content
of thoughtas twodistinguishable
things-as
it
seems
one
must
in
dealing
with
self-consciousness,
withthought
that is
able
to
represent
tselfto itself,
ble
to
take
itself
s its own
object-,
then
the
attempt
to
analyze
the
act
of
analysis,
o include
wholly
he
act
of thinking
within
he context
of
thought,
will be
a
progression
of
the order
n +
1 to
infinity.
Which is
to say
thatthere
willalways
be one
more
step needed
in
order
to
make
the
act of
thinking
coincide
with the content
of
thought.
Since
the
self-including
esture
of analyzing
the
act
of
analysis
involves
doubling
back
in
whichself-consciousness,
ttempting
o
be absolutely
even
with
tself,
inds
that
t is
originally
nd
essen-
tially
t
odds
with
itself,
t is
not surprising
that Dupin,
in
illus-
trating
he
way
thatone
doubles
the
thoughtprocesses
of an
oppo-
nent,
gives
as
an example
"the
game
of evenand
odd'"
(3:
984).
In
this
game
"one player
holds
in his
hand
a number"
of
marbles
"and demands
of another
whether
that number
is even
or
odd.
If
theguess is right, heguesserwinsone; ifwrong,he loses one" (3:
984).
Dupin
then
tells
the
story
f an eight-year-old
oy
who
was
so
good
at this
guessing
game
that he
won all
the
marbles
at
his
school.
The boy's
"mode
of
reasoning"
involved
"an
identification
of the reasoner's
intellect
with that
of
his
opponent"
(3:
984),
and
thisdoubling
of the opponent's
thought
processes
was achieved
by
a
physical
doubling
of
his
appearance.
The boy explained
to
Dupin:
"I
fashion
the
expression
of my
face,
as accurately
s pos-
sible,
in
accordance
with
the
expression"
of the
opponent
"and
thenwaitto see whatthoughtsor sentiments rise in mymindor
heart,
as
if
to match
or correspond
with the expression"
(3:
984-85).
The
narrator
comments
that
"the
identification
f
the
reasoner's
intellect
with
that
of his opponent,
depends,
. . .
upon
the accuracy
with
which the
opponent's
intellect
s
admeasured"
(3:
985);
and Dupin,
agreeing
withthisobservation,
dds that
"the
Prefect
and
his
cohort
fail so
frequently,
irst, y
default
of
this
identification,
and,
secondly,
by
ill-admeasurement,
or
rather
throughnon-admeasurement,
f
the
intellect
with
which
they
are
engaged. They consideronlytheirown deas of ingenuity; nd, in
searching
for
anything
hidden,
advert only
to the
modes
in
which
they
would
have hidden
it
... but
when
the
cunning
of the
indi-
vidual
felon
is diverse
in character
from
their
own,
the felon
foils
them,
of
course.
This
always
happens
when
it is above
their
own,
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1182
JOHNT. IRWIN
and veryusuallywhen it
is below. They
have no variationof prin-
ciple in their nvestigations"3: 985).
Now
what s goingon here? Dupin cannot
be the close
reasoner
that
he
is
reputed
to
be
and not realize that what he
has ust said
undermines
his use of the
game of even and odd as an
illustration
of
the way
one doubles the thought processes
of an
opponent in
order to be
one up on him. Firstof all,
if"the identificationf the
reasoner's intellectwith
thatof his opponent, depends,
. .
.
upon
the accuracy with which
the opponent's
intellect s admeasured,"
then
t
cannot
be that the
Prefect nd his men fail, first,
y default
of this dentification, nd, secondly,by ill-admeasurement, r ...
non-admeasurement,"
for if the identification ollows
from ad-
measurement, the Prefect's
firstfailure would have
to be in ad-
measuring
the
opponent's
intellect.And
if
the reason
that
the Pre-
fect
and
his
men fail
so
frequently
n
this admeasurement
is that
"they
onsider only their
own deas of ingenuity," hat
they re
un-
able
to imagine or conceive
of
the
workings f a mind
"diverse n
characterfrom their own"
(always the
case when the level
of
the
mind
is above their own
and usually
the case when it is below),
then is there anythingthat occurs in the rest of Poe's tale that
would
lead
us to
believe
this observation
of
Dupin's
about the
reason for
the Prefect'sfailure?
Whichis to say, f the
Prefect nd
his men
can
only catch felons
whose mindsare similar
o theirown
and
if
what
they need
in
this case is the ability
to
imagine
the
workings
of
a
mind
radically
different
rom
their
own, thendoes
Dupin's method of outwitting
he Minister
provide us
with
ny evi-
dence that this
ability
o imagine
a mind radicallydifferent rom
one's own
really exists?
n fact, sn't all of the tale's
emphasis on
the resemblance between Dupin and the Minister,on their pos-
sessing
the same dual creative/resolvent
ower, partof a plot line
in
which Dupin outwits he Ministeronly
because their
minds are
so much
alike? Isn't
it
precisely
because
the
Minister
has hidden
the letter
t
his residence
in the
same way
that the Queen
hid it
n
the royal
boudoir-by turning
t over and leaving
it out in the
open-that Dupin already
knows where to look for the letter
when he visits he Minister?
And
doesn't
Dupin recover the letter
by replaying
the same scenario by
which
the Minister
originally
stoleit?
Isn't
all this
simply
a
device
to make
us realize
that
t
is
impos-
sible
to
imagine
or
conceive
of a mind whose
workings
re radi-
cally
different
romone's
own?
We
don't have
any
directaccess
to
another's
thoughts.
Our ideas
of
the
workings
f another
person's
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M L N
1183
mind may be derived
from
what thatperson says or does or tellsus
he is thinking, ut our ideas of another'smind are stillour
deas, a
projection that we make of another mind's othernessto one's own
based
on
the only immediate experience that
one's
mind has
of
psychic therness, he self's original othernessto itself, hatdiffer-
ence
that
constitutes
personal identity.
In
his
story
"Morella"
(1835) Poe quotes Locke's definitionof personal
identity
s
"the
sameness
of
a rational being" (2: 226).
But
one
immediately hinks,
"Sameness as
opposed
to
what?" For
in
differential
erms,
t
makes
no
sense
to
speak of the rational being's continuing ameness with
itself nless there s also a sense in whichthe rationalbeing is con-
tinually different from itself. In "Morella" Poe says,
"Since by
person
we
understand
an
intelligent
ssence
having
reason,
and
since there is a consciousness which
always accompanies thinking,
it
is
this
consciousness
which
makes every
one to be that
which
he
calls himself'-thereby distinguishing
im
fromother
beings
that
think,
nd
giving
him his
personal identity" 2: 226).
It
is this dif-
ference
of
thought
from
tself-which Poe evokes
here
as the dif-
ference between
thinking
nd "a consciousness which
always
ac-
companies thinking"-that enables therationalbeingto recognize
its
sameness
with itself
and thus recognize its difference
from
others, distinguish tself
from
otherbeings that think."
t
is
pre-
cisely
because the self's
thought
of another mind's otherness
to it
reflects heothernessof thought o itself hatthe effort o
imagine
the
thought processes
of an
opponent produces
a
specular,
anti-
theticaldouble
of the
self,
the self's
own
projection
of
psychic
dif-
ference. And
consequently,
for
all that "The Purloined Letter"
purports
to
be about
the
way
in
which one effects
an
identifica-
tion of the reasoner's intellectwith thatof his opponent," it is in
fact about that
psychic
difference
which
permits thought
to
be
identifiedwith
tself, hat difference
which
constitutes elf-identity
but which
prevents thought
from
ever
absolutelycoinciding
with
itself, ndeed, which constitutes self-identity recisely because
t
preventsthought
from
being absolutely
even with
tself.And
it
is
this
difference,
this condition
of
self-conscious
thought'sbeing
originally
nd
essentially t odds
with
tself,
hat Poe evokes at the
very
start
of
the
Dupin
stories
when
he
says
that the "mental fea-
tures discoursed of as the analytical are, in themselves,but little
susceptible
of
analysis."
As
is
often
the case
in
his fiction, oe, using the picture
anguage
of
radicals,
emblematizes this latent
meaning
on
the level of ety-
mology, level
to which
he explicitly irectsour attentionn "The
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1184
JOHNT. IRWIN
Purloined
Letter" when he has Dupin,
in arguing
against those
who equate
analysiswithalgebra, remark,
If a term
s of
any
im-
portance -if words derive any value from applicability-then
'analysis'
conveys algebra'
about as
much
as,
in Latin, ambitus'm-
plies ambition,'
religion'
religion,'or
homines onesti,' set of honor-
able men" (3: 987). Since
in each of
these examples an English
word
has
a meaning different
rom
hat
of
its
Latinroot,the nfer-
ence
seems
clear:
in "The Purloined Letter"
"if
a term s
of
any
importance,"
we should submitthat
termto philological
nalysis o
see
if
the
root from which it
derives
has
different
r
additional
meanings compared to its English form, meanings
that might
alter, reverse,
or
deepen the significance
f
the
passages
in
which
these wordsappear.
Let me
apply this principle
suggestedby Dupin's
remark
to two
interlocking
airsof words in the tale.
On
his first isit, he
Prefect
introducesthe affairof
the letter
ike this: "The fact s, the busi-
ness is very imple indeed,
and
I make
no
doubt that
we can
manage it
sufficiently ell ourselves;
but then
I thought Dupin
would like
to hear the details
of
it, because
it s so excessively
dd."
To whichDupin replies,"Simple and odd" (3: 975). Dupin's em-
phatic repetition
f
the
words is meantto
fix
them
n our minds so
that ater
when he describes
the game
of
even
and odd,
we hear
the echo and
link
the
pairs.
And
to
make sure that
we don't miss
the connection,Dupin, immediately
fter
mentioning hegame
of
even and
odd, says,
"This
game
is
simple" (3: 984).
Simple,
even,
odd-what
are their roots?
The
word
"simple"
comes
from the Latin simplex,meaning "single,"
"unmixed,"
"un-
compounded."7
The word
"even" derives
fromthe Anglo-Saxon
efne,
meaning "flat," "level," and ultimately rom the Indo-Euro-
pean base *im-nos-,
meaning
"what is the same,"
and containing
the
adverbial
base
*im-,
meaning
"just
like" (p. 503).
The
word
"odd" derives
from
the
Old Norse
oddi,meaning a "point
of land,
triangle,
hence (from the
third
angle)
odd
number" (p. 1017).
Three words and at the
root of each a number-simple,
single,
one; even, things ust alike,
two;
odd, a triangularpoint
of land,
three.
nd these
three words
are
grouped
into two
pairs-simple/
odd,
even/odd-that contain,
as
it
were,
four
syntactic
laces
be-
tween them which the threewordsfillby havingone of the words
repeated. The doubling
of the word "odd"
links the two
pairs;
it
gives
them their element
of
sameness, evoking
that
condition
of
being
at odds
with
tself,
hat
differencewith
tself,
which consti-
tutesthe sameness
of
a
rational
being
(a
condition
of
being
at
odds
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M
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1185
with tself
hat
is most clearly
perceived
when
thought
tries
to
be
absolutely
ven
with tself).
The
three words-both through
their
meaningsand throughthewaythattheyare paired and linked-
are
an emblem
of the
numerical structure
hat
governs
the
tale,
which
s to say,
of the
numerical
steps
or geometrical
patterns
hat
self-consciousness
oes
through
n
trying
o analyze
itself.
Dupin
says that
the
game
of even
and
odd is simple,
and
throughout
the
Dupin stories
Poe associates
simplicity
with
the
highest,
purest
form
of ratiocination.
t
is
in
this
vein that
Dupin
suggests
to
the
Prefect
n his
first
isit hat
"the
very implicity"
f
the affairof
the
letter
constitutes
ts oddness:
"Perhaps
the mys-
tery
s a littletoo
plain
..
. A
littletoo
self-evident"
3:
975).
And
laterDupin
says
thatthe
Minister,
n
hidingthe
letter,
would
be
driven,
as a
matter
of
course,
to
simplicity,
f not deliberately
n-
duced
to it as a matter
of choice" (3: 989).
As
in
that "game
of
puzzles
... played
upon
a map"
(3:
989),
the Minister
would
choose a hiding
place
that
would "escape
observation
by
dint
of
being
excessively
obvious,"
relying
on
the fact that
"the
intellect
suffers o
pass
unnoticed
those
considerations
which
are too ob-
trusively nd too palpably self-evident"3: 990). But what is that
simple
thing
whose
very
simplicity
makes it
so
odd,
that
thing
which s so mysterious
ecause
so obvious,
hiding
out
in the
open
"immediately
eneath
the
nose
ofthe
whole
world" 3:
990)?
What
but self-consciousness,
hat condition
of
being at odds
with tself
that constitutes
he sameness,
the
singleness,
he simplicity
f
a ra-
tional
being?
By
definition
numberis odd
ifwhenthe
number is
divided
by
two,
there is a remainder
of
one.
And by
that definition
he
first
odd number is three. In that simple game of even and odd in
which self-consciousness
analyzes
itself,the
question
inevitably
arises as to whether,
when the
mind's
desire to
be
absolutely
ven
with tself s divided
into
the mind's
essential
condition
ofbeing
at
odds
with
tself,
he one
that s
always
eftover
is the same as
the
number one
that precedes
two, that is,
the same
as that
mythic,
original,
undivided
unity
prior
to
all
paring/pairing.
r
put
an-
other
way,
when
the
mind tries to
make the act of thinking
oin-
cide absolutely
with the content
of thought
only to
find that
there
is always one more step needed to achieve this coincidence, s the
infinite rogression
that
resultssimply
the
mirror
mage,
the an-
tithetical
ouble,
of a
Zenonian
infiniteregression
which,
by
di-
viding
a
quantity
n
half,
then dividing
the half
in
half,
then di-
viding
the
quarter
in
half
and so on
to
infinity,
eeks a
lower
imit,
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1186 JOHNT. IRWIN
a part that cannot be halved again,
a thing so small that,
being
indivisible, t represents n undivided unity,
n originalone? Poe
is
too good both as philosopherand philologistnot to knowthatthe
simple thing that s
self-consciousness ould never
be as
simple
as
that. Indeed,
if
the mind were ever
able to make the
act
of
thinking nd the contentof thought coincide
absolutelyso that
there was no difference
between
them,
then
self-consciousness,
that self-identityonstitutedby thought's
differencefrom itself,
would simply go
out like a light. Such an
undifferentiated ne
would be indistinguishable from zero.
Though
the
root
of the
word "simple," the
Latin simplex,means "single,"
"unmixed,""un-
compounded," the
roots of the word simplex-the Latin words
semel,
meaning
"once," "a single time," nd plico,meaning
"to fold,
fold
together"8-
make
it
clear that to be
unmixed or uncom-
pounded
does not mean to
be
undifferentiated.
or
in
thepicture
language of these radicals we
can
see that
a thingwhich s single-
fold
is something-like
a sheet of
paper,
a letter-that
in
being
folded
a
single
time s doubled back
upon
itself.
That
the
mage
of
self-consciousness
s
a
simple
fold
doubling
an inscribed surface
back on itselfwas in Poe's mind when he plotted the folding/re-
folding
of
the
purloined
letter
an
be inferredfrom
n 1845
poem
on
folding money
called "Epigram
For Wall Street"
attributed
o
him:
I'll
tell
you
a
plan
for
gainingwealth,
Better hanbanking,
rade
r
leases-
Take a banknote
nd fold
t
up,
And then
you
will
find
yourmoney
n
creases
This
wonderful lan,
without
anger
r
loss,
Keeps your ash nyourhands,wherenothingantroublet;
Andevery
ime hat
you
fold
t
across,
'Tis as
plain
s the
ight
f the
day
that
you
double
t
(1: 378)
The infiniteprogression
implicit
n
the analysis of the
act
of
analysis
s
evoked at
the
end
of
"The
Purloined Letter"
with
the
revelation f Dupin's revenge on the Minister,
or
this
ttempt y
a
mastermind
o get
even
with
his specular double
clearly ervesas a
figure
of
the
analytic
mind's attempt t mastery, ts attempt
o be
absolutelyeven with tself.Knowingthat the Minister would feel
some
curiosity
n
regard to
the
identity f
the
person
who had
outwitted
him"
(3:
993), Dupin
leaves
him a
clue
by
substituting
for the
purloined
letter one
containing
a
quotation
from
Cre-
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M L
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1187
billon's Atree
opied
out
in
Dupin's
own
handwriting,
hand
with
which the Minister"is well acquainted" (3: 993). In signinghis
deed,
Dupin marks
it as revenge,
whichis to
say, he insures
that
theMinister
will nterpret
his actions
not simply
s thepaid
inter-
ventionof a
gifted mateur sleuth
or
a duel ofwitsbetween
two
of
the
cleverestmen
in Paris,
but as a repayment
for the evil
turn
which
the Ministerdid Dupin
at Vienna. For I
take t that
thesatis-
factionof revenge
requires-except
in those
cases where
it is
car-
ried
out on a
substitute-a
moment
of revelation n
which theob-
ject
of revenge learns by
whom, and
forwhat, he is
being paid
back,a pointthat Poe underlinesbyhavingDupin choose hisquo-
tation-signature
rom ust such
a revelatorymoment
in an eigh-
teenth-centuryevenger's
tragedy.
And yet
fromwhat
we knowof
the Minister
t is
inconceivable that
once he
learned of Dupin's
revenge
he would
let the matter rest
there-and equally
incon-
ceivable that
his double would
not
know this.For though
it
might
seem that
with
Dupin's
revenge
the score
between them
s even at
one
apiece (one
bad turn
at
Vienna repaid
by one
bad
turn at
Paris),
iftheMinister
llows
Dupin's trick o
go
unanswered,
then
Dupin will have had the last turn; and as proverbialwisdom as-
sures
us,
the
last
wordor
the
last augh
is
not
ust one
word or
one
laugh
like any
other. The power
to say the
last word
or have the
last laugh, the power
to bring
a
series
of reciprocal
actions
to
an
end,
like the power
to
originate,
nvolves
he
notion
of
a
one
that s
simultaneously
more than one. Consequently,
we are
left
with
the
paradoxical
situation
n which
Dupin's
outwitting
f the
Minister
will constitute n eveningof
the score
between them at
one apiece
only
if
the Ministerdoes
not allow Dupin's
trick
o
end
the
series,
does not allow it to be that one last turnwhich in its finalitys
always
more than one. It is not so
much
thatone bad
turndeserves
another as thatone bad
turn
demands
another
f
t s to be
experi-
enced as simplyone
turn.
All
of
which
emphasizes
the mutually
constitutive
ontradictoriness
f seekingtoget
evenwith specular
double
by
being
neup
on him.
In using theaffair
f the etter
o even an old
score,
Dupin gives
up
his
"objective,"
fourthposition
as an
apparently
disinterested
observer
of the
triangular
tructure
f
King,
Queen,
and
Minister
described
by
the
Prefect n order to insert himselffor personal
reasons into the
third
position
of an analogous
triangle
n which
the
police
and
the Minister
occupy
respectively
the
first and
second
positions.
Similarly,
n
describing
this
triangular
tructure
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7/24/2019 1986 - Mysteries We Reread, Mysteries of Rereading. Poe, Borges, And the Analytic Detective Story. Also Lacan,
22/49
1188
JOHN
T.
IRWIN
in
which
Dupin
shifts
he
Minister
from the
third
to the
second
position,Lacan would himselfappear to occupy an "objective,"
fourth
position
as
a
disinterested
observer
outside
the
triangle.
Yet to a
supposedly
more
objective
observer