ABSTRACT
Edgar Allan Poe analysis, therefore, specifically refers to the motivations and psychology of humans. Homosexuality has psychological and symbolic meanings in Poe’s fictive world that complement the story’s major themes. Perhaps Poe’s most obvious allegory of the final unity of male and female is the masculine “Monos” and the feminine “Una” in “The Colloquy of Monos and Una.” Poe’s basic esthetic principle, unity of effect, rests upon his fundamental ontological belief that emotions guided the reason—and even that emotions were truer than reason. The primary effect of Poe’s tales of ratiocination is, of course, a delight in analysis—or, at least, a seeming delight in a seeming analysis. Dupin believes that breaking-and-entering, theft, gruesome mutilations and murders might well be committecl for a few pieces of new linen worth a few francs—but not for psychotic sexual drives. In the conclusion of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” Edgar Allan Poe wrote several metaphors which challenge the reader.
