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The Eye that Sees and the Voice that Speaks: Narratology and the Mysteries of Edgar Allan Poe

By Roger Hobbs

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Chapter One Chains of Focalization in Edgar Allan Poe

Oppositional Models?

Focalization, Gerald Prince writes, is “the perspective in terms of which the narrated

situations and events are presented; the perceptual or conceptual position in terms of

which they are rendered” (Prince, Dictionary, 31). But within this apparently rather

simple idea, dozens of varieties of theories about the inner function of narrative

perspective have cropped up.

Gerard Genette's theory of focalization involves three supertypes and a myriad of

subtypes which he used to classify perspective within arbitrary units of text (Narrative

Discourse). Mieke Bal's theory involves adding chains of focalization to fabula-sujet

theory (“Focalization”). William Nelles develops concepts of focalization that involve

each of the five senses (Frameworks). Manfred Jahn emphasizes different kinds of

perception based whether they were a priori or a posteriori the actual physical senses

(“Windows of Focalization”). Rimmon-Kenan expands the term to include various

mental functions, including ideology and emotion (Narrative Fiction). Chatman even

tries to radicalize the distinction between the narrator and the focalizer (“Characters and

Narrators”). But all of these concepts have one objective: to trace the lines of perspective

through a story in an effort to understand how they work.

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The main battlefield is over the misty and ill-defined role focalization plays next to

narration. Theorists tend to fall into one of two camps: those who base their theories on

Gerard Genette and those who base their theories on Mieke Bal. In the following few

segments, I will lay forth arguments from each side, and present their merits and

shortcomings. I will start with Genette and Bal themselves, and then discuss the various

theories and critiques that have been employed by each side.

The camps are alike in many ways. Both draw the same distinction between internal and

external focalization. Both admit fixed, variable, and multiple focalizations. Both are

interested in what characters see versus what narrators tell. Both have answers for the

problems of free direct discourse, subjective analepsis, and nondiegetic acts of

perception. Both allow for multiple kinds of homo- and heterodiegetic focalization. All

in all, both camps discuss the same problems.

The theories differ along theoretical grounds. For Genette, focalization is a refinement of

terminology. For Bal, it is a fundamental operation between fabula and sujet. Genette's

followers prefer a tighter definition of focalization, and Bal's followers prefer a looser

one.

Manfred Jahn even goes as far as to claim that “every narratologist has to decide for

himself or herself […] whether to stick to Genette's or Bal's model” (Jahn, Focalization,

102). I disagree with the assumption that Bal and Genette's models are so fundamentally

different that everyone must pick a side. They are based on each other, after all, and both

theories have reconcilable differences. After I have summarized the battle between these

two camps, I intend to take useful elements from each theory and apply them to the

focalization of Edgar Allan Poe's story, “The Purloined Letter.” This is not an attempt to

create some sort of grand theory of focalization, certainly. I am merely taking from these

theories á la carte according to what, in my estimation, are valid, legitimate, and

reasonable advancements in the application of the concept. This is not only an attempt to

create a new analytical model, either. The theories still have individual validity; I have

merely done what I have to in order to make the fullest possible use of the idea available.

I am studying the general notion of focalization, after all, not one side or the other.

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As Poe wrote in his introduction to “The Murders of the Rue Morgue,” “as the strong

man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into

action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles” (Poe, “Murders,”

141, emphasis in original). In order to find where Poe's chains of focalization start, I too

will first have to disentangle them. This is where the analyst really shines-- in the

challenge a text or theory presents to its understanding and, ultimately, its use. In the

following chapter, I will start with a history, move into a critique, and end with an

application.

Genette's System Arguably, focalization first came to the forefront of narratology because of a section in

Gerrard Genette's 1983 book-length essay Narrative Discourse. In his chapter on mood,

Genette makes a simple and important distinction that kick-starts the idea. He notes,

when reviewing previous literature on the subject, that most works regarding the issue of

narrative perspective

suffer from regrettable confusion between what I call mood and voice, a confusion between the question who is the character whose point of view orients the narrative perspective and the very different question who is the narrator – or, more simply, the question who sees? And the question who speaks? (Genette, Narrative Discourse, 186, emphasis in original)

Here, Genette points out what he perceives as a lack of technical terminology which can

make the distinction between perspective and narration. Theorists must make, to

summarize his argument, some distinction between the act of choosing the words in a

narrative (narration) and the act of experiencing or owning the perspectives those words

portray (focalization). There must be some filter by which the infinite amount of

information that a narrative could portray is pared down to what a narrative can portray

and eventually down to what it does portray. In order to do this, Genette sets forward a

simple typology of perspective filters, and, avoiding “the too specifically visual

connotations of the terms” (189), chose the words focalization and narration to describe

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it.

Genette's typology presented three main categories with several subcategories each.

They were: (1) nonfocalization, (2) internal focalization, or (3) external focalization. The

first category applied to narratives whose narrator or authorial voice was “so indefinite,

or so remote, [or] with such a panoramic field […] that [the narrator] cannot coincide

with any character” (Revisited, 73). The second one applied to a narrative whose

“restriction of field” (Discourse, 189) came from within the narrative diegesis: for

example, the thoughts, feelings and perceptions of a first person character-narrator, such

as the little girl from Genette's favorite example, What Maisie Knew. The third covered

narratives whose viewpoint came from outside the diegesis, but without unlimited scope.

These were the type of novels “popularized between the two world wars by Dashiell

Hammett's novels, in which the hero performs in front of us without our ever being

allowed to know his thoughts or feelings” (190). The most common example of this kind

of focalization is Hemmingway's short story “The Killers.” The reader looks at the

characters from the outside, but with a limit.

Of course, by “who sees?” and “who speaks?” Genette did not solely refer to the

difference between talking and seeing. He referred to the much broader difference

between narrating and perceiving, which, later narratologists took to mean all of the

senses and faculties, not merely sight. Various theorists have since expanded the

definition, from including the other four human senses (William Nelles) to exploring

how narrative perspective works in hypothetical language (David Herman), and even

how focalization works through “cognitive, emotive, and ideological orientation”

(Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction, 71). Genette's typology did what other perspective

typologies could not; it provided language for discussing perspective without being

caught in the jargon of narration. This one simple innovation launched focalization in the

direction of becoming, in the words of Manfred Jahn, “an independent module of the

narratological system” (Jahn, “Focalization,” 97).

Bal's System

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The biggest reformer and critic of Genette's typological system, and by far the most

rebuked in turn, came two years later, in the person of Dutch theorist Mieke Bal. In her

1985 essay “The Laughing Mice,” Bal attempted to expand Genette's concept in three

important and highly controversial ways.

First, Bal reduced what was, in Genette's Narrative Discourse, a three-part system for

describing focalization (internal, external and zero) into a two-part system containing the

possibility of only internal and external focalization. The purpose of this change was

theoretical rather than practical: since “perception […] is a psychosomatic process, [it is]

strongly dependent on the position of the perceiving body” (142). Or, since the writer

must put his narratorial “camera” somewhere, even if he is omniscient, he will always

somehow limit the information he shares with the reader according to the choices he

makes of the things to show. Zero-focalization is not a useful distinction to make

because its difference from external focalization is an arbitrary degree of distance.

According to Bal, there is always some viewpoint expressed in any narrative.

Second, Bal tried to re-frame focalization as a narrative operation that was fundamental

to her construction of the fabula and sujet. For Genette, focalization was nothing more

than “a selection of narrative information with respect to what was traditionally called

omniscience,” or, in the case of fiction, “completeness of information” (Genette,

Revisited, 74, emphasis in original). It had little to do with narrative operations. Bal

turned it into something much bigger. She incorporated it as an essential part of her

narrative theory. Focalization became the essential step between a fabula and a sujet. The

logic was sound. As Bal argued, “whenever events are presented, they are always

presented from within a certain vision” (Bal, Narratology, 142, emphasis added). If this

was so, every unit of text should, it follows, be focalized somehow and to some extent. If

this is so, then focalization is suddenly on equal ground with narration. Both are

narrative operations: they transform the fabula first into the sujet (through focalization)

and then into the narrative instance (through narration). This is a much bigger and much

more formal view of focalization than anyone had tried before.

Third, Bal added the idea of “chains of perception,” or, what Genette rather witheringly

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called it in his critique, “focalization in the second degree” (Genette, Revisited, 76,

emphasis in original). A chain of perception is an instance where a focalizer focalizes

someone who is in turn focalizing someone else. In short, a character who sees that

someone sees. This idea stemmed from the maxim that “every narrative statement

includes a focalizer (character) and a focalized (character)” (Genette, Revisited, 72). If a

nondiegetic narrator is talking about a man taking a walk, for example, the narrator is the

focalizer who is focalizing the man taking the walk. But if one were to add another layer

to it, say, a nondiegetic narrator is talking about a man taking a walk who is watching a

woman take a walk, dejected and alone, then the narrator is focalizing the man, who is

focalizing the woman, who is taking a walk. Hence there is focalization of the second

degree and a 'chain' of perceptive acts. This is an important distinction to make if the

reader wants to determine whose point of view “dejected and alone” comes from. Who

thinks that? Who sees that? Bal's most famous example of this theory comes from an

Indian bas-relief:

At the upper left, the wise man Arjuna is depicted in a yoga position. At the bottom right stands a cat. Around the cat are a number of mice. The mice are laughing […]. It is a strange image. Unless the spectator interprets the signs. The interpretation runs as follows. Arjuna is in a yoga position and is meditating to win Lord Siva's favor. The cat, impressed by the beauty of absolute calm, imitates Arjuna. Now the mice realized they are safe. They laugh. […] Following the chain of events in reverse, we also arrive at the next one by perceptual identification. (Bal, Narratology, 144)

At the first layer of focalization, the tourist looks at the bas-relief. At the second layer,

the tourist sees that the cat sees the wise man. On the third layer, the tourist sees that the

mice see the cat seeing the wise man. In order to construct a fabula of these separate

events, Bal argues, the reader must “follow the chain of events in reverse” (mice, cat,

wise man) and recognize the perceptive switches involved in in this reconstruction.

Problems with Bal

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There was no bigger critic of Bal's first change than Genette himself. In Narrative

Discourse Revisited, Genette admits that in external focalization, the focus of a narrative

is situated “at a point in the diegetic universe chosen by the narrator, outside every

character” (Genette, Revisited, 75). However, he argues that in zero focalization the

focus of the narrative is from a point in the diegesis so remote or so variable that

specifying that location does not yield any helpful information. Genette does not deny

Bal's claim that the only difference between external and zero focalization is a matter of

narrative distance, but he claims that to reduce focalization to just two types (internal

and external) is to collapse a helpful distinction. Some text just is focalized so distantly

that there is nothing to be gained from locating its external focalizer. For example,

consider Poe's introduction to his study of interior decoration, “The Philosophy of

Furniture:”

The Italians have but little sentiment beyond marbles and colors. In France, meliora probant, deteriora sequunetur – the people are too much a race of gadabouts to maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a delicate appreciation, or at least the elements of a proper sense. The Chinese and most of the eastern races have a warm but inappropriate fancy. The Scotch are poor decorists. The Dutch have, perhaps, an indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain, they are all curtains – a nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish. The Hottentots and Kickapoos are very well in their way. The Yankees alone are preposterous. (Poe, “Furniture,” 364)

There is nothing to be gained from calling this passage “externally focalized” because the

viewpoint from which the narrator speaks is so very distant that it is indeed impossible to

locate. Where is this focalizer who is capable of viewing Italian, Chinese, Russian,

Dutch, Spanish and American living quarters all at the same time? He does not exist.

And as to the claim that the author must always focalize his text to some degree, Genette

argues this is exactly what separates verbal communication from visual: “unlike the

director of a movie, the novelist is not compelled to put his camera somewhere; he has

no camera” (Genette, Revisited, 73) Although Genette admits that the distinction

requires a certain amount of “nonchalance” towards external versus zero focalization,

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the latter category is still useful. “The two types of focalization cannot be confused,

unless the author has constructed (focalized) his narrative in a manner that is not only

incoherent, but chaotic” (75).

Bal's second change was eventually dismantled by W. Bronzwaer in a short critical note.

Bronzwaer focused on Bal's claim that “the relation between the sign [...] and its contents

(the fabula) can only be established by mediation of an interjacent layer, the 'view' of the

events” (Bal 144-146). Bronzwaer used the following diagram to describe Bal's model:

Narrative Text [Instance]

Narration

Story [Sujet]

Focalization

Fable [Fabula]

(Bronzwaer 193)

By doing so, he implicitly compared it to the traditional model that has been used by

formalists and modal narratologists for years:

Story (Sujet)

Narration

Fable (Fabula)

Whereas the traditional model only had two layers, the fabula and the sujet, which were

related by the function of narration, Bal's system has three layers related by two

functions. In the traditional model, a story begins as a series of events that occur within a

diegetic world, usually obeying some rule of chronology or causality, but not

necessarily. Then, when narrated, the order or experience of these events change. The

narrator adds prolepsis, analepsis, fantasy, perspective, motive, emotion, et cetera, et

cetera. Bal's changes fundamentally alter this paradigm. The story still begins as a

fabula. It is then subject to focalization: the author picks the narrative “views” which are

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to be expressed. This is where proplepsis and analepsis come in. It then becomes a sujet,

which is the same as before, except now the sujet needs to be further transformed

because it doesn't yet consist of words-- only views. The sujet has to be turned into a

narrative instance through narration, which is now when the author picks the particular

words that make the story. The narrative instance is the actual physical object, such as a

book. The sujet is the way the book is told. The fabula is its contents. The idea is that

there can be many detective stories, but only so many from the perspective of C. Auguste

Dupin, and only one story beginning with “At Paris, just after dark...” (Poe, “The

Purloined Letter,” 281). For Bal, focalization “is assigned its precise role in her

narratology: it denotes the transformations which the fable undergoes in order to become

a story” (Bronzwaer 194). This, as Bronzwaer notes, is preposterous. This system “lends

the concept of focalization a communicative meaning” (194) which the notion of

focalization cannot tolerate. Essentially, Bal gives the focalizer the ability to make actual

narrative choices that interfere and overlap with the ability of the narrator to narrate.

Continuing from a previous example, to whom do the words “dejected and alone”

belong? If a narratologist were to go along with Bal's theory, these words would belong

to the second focalizer, which, in this example, is the second man taking a walk. But

wait, that can't be right-- that man is not the narrator. He is not allowed, in this model, to

make actual communicative choices. They can't be his words, because he doesn't have

the power to choose words. That choice doesn't occur until one step down the chain,

when the narrator turns the sujet into the narrative text. So the narratologist is left with a

hard situation. Either the focalizers makes all narrative and linguistic choices and the

narrators merely take dictation, or the focalizers make no linguistic choices and are

subject entirely to the opinions of the narrators. Bronzwaer explores both possibilities,

but comes to the conclusion that Bal's model is both inadequate and unnecessary for

explaining focalization because it divides communicative power in a way that it cannot

be divided.

Finally, Genette also took issue with Bal's idea of focalization of the second degree. In

his estimation, a text was the thing focalized or not. The character or object actually

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doing the focalizing (the focalizer) wasn't structurally important. If, for example, a

mystery story with an otherwise externally focalizing narrator were to dip briefly into

one of his character's thoughts through the use of italics, the narratologist would be

presented with two linguistic units. Take, for example, a segment of Stieg Larsson's

novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo:

Kalle Blomkvist – she remembered his nickname and suppressed the urge to say it out loud – suddenly looked serious. (Larsson, The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, 332)

For Genette, there are two possible readings of this. The sentence, if taken as a whole, is

externally focalized. That external focalizer closely follows the movements of one of the

character's faces. The narrator is close by in the diegesis, and, but not quite any one

particular person. However, if taken in parts, the sentence is almost entirely internally

focalized. Kale Bolmkvist is free direct discourse. Lisbeth Salander thinks those words.

Between the full stops, the narrator dives into her thoughts. She “remembered” the

nickname Kalle. Finally, although the reader doesn't actually see through her eyes, we

understand her opinion. Bolmkvist looks serious. Bal's attempts to fold instances of

focalization into other instances seemed silly to Genette. In order to maintain its

plasticity as a theory, Genette reasoned, focalization must be limited to particular units of

text and the application of the term must not “become a catechism with a yes-or-no

answer to check off for each question, when often the proper answer would be that it

depends on the day, the context, and the way the wind is blowing” (Revisited, 74).

Problems with Genette

Despite Genette's argument to the contrary, though, there is something to be gained from

following Bal's chains of focalization in the “second degree.” For example, how is one

supposed to explain a text which has a sujet which is only different from the fabula

because of a series of related focalizations? In Bal's example involving the wise man, the

cat and the mice, focalizing different units of text is not useful enough: the image is a

bas-relief, after all. It cannot be divided into narrative parts. In this case, the only way to

understand the focalization within the story, or, as it may be in this case, the very story

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itself, is to use Bal's arithmetic method:

EF-[CF (mice)]- [CF (cat)]-[CF (wise man)]-np

In this method, there are two basic units. EF, short for external focalization, and CF,

short for character focalization. So an external focalizer, say, the narrator, who focalizes

a character (a woman) who is in turn focalizing another character (a man) would look

like:

EF- [np CF (“woman”)]-[ np CF (“man”)]

In addition, Bal drew a distinction between character focalization that is either

perceptible or non-perceptible (p or np). This distinction allows the narratologist to make

the distinction between perceptible focalzing acts (a man looking at a woman) and acts

that aren't acts of perception but focalizations of the mind (a man dreaming,

hallucinating, fantasizing, or solving a puzzle). So in the wise man example, all acts of

focalization are labeled p. The tourist who understands the story sees the mice, the mice

see the cat, the cat sees the wise man. If a narratologist were to stick wholly to Genette's

system and ignore chains of focalization entirely, he or she would certainly be able to

locate acts of focalization and narration in this text, but they wouldn't be helpful. The

story that fundamentally relates the three images in the bas relief would remain

unintelligible.

Also, perhaps Genette was too orthodox in his defense of zero-focalization, too.

Although it seems clear that zero-focalization is a useful distinction from exterior

focalization, there is little to be gained from a narratological model that requires its

adherents to play fast and loose with the rules and approach the text with Genette's now

infamous “nonchalance” (Revisited, 75). Genette's criticism still stands: a three-typed

model is still better than a two-typed model. This in part why William Nelles suggested

that the phrase “zero-focalization” be replaced instead by “free focalization,” as in the

phrase “free direct discourse,” because its not that a zero-focalized passage has no degree

of focalization, but rather that the passage's focalizer is never in one place long enough to

be locatable. The narrator moves the focalizer “freely” and in an unlimited and

sometimes unstructured manner. Considering the passage from Poe's essay on furniture

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again:

[…] The Chinese and most of the eastern races have a warm but inappropriate fancy. The Scotch are poor decorists. The Dutch have, perhaps, an indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain, they are all curtains – a nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish [....] (Poe, “Furniture,” 364)

If we go with Genette only, there is no focalizer, and the narrator isn't really giving us a

“view” of anything, he is merely doing his job-- narrating. But Genette's concept of

“zero-focalization” doesn't quite fit this passage. Clearly someone experiences the “warm

but inappropriate fancy” Poe ascribes to the Chinese. To invoke one of Genette's biggest

defenders, “The narrator can – and indeed must – 'focalize' if no character does”

(Chatman, “Characters,” 203). Focalization is not really optional: if we want the utility of

the term as applied not only to seeing and hearing but feeling and thinking, we must

admit that nothing can be expressed without some sort of view. “Free focalization” is a

much more accurate term. Poe has written a freewheeling and panoramic passage that

fits neither external focalization nor internal. His focalization is present, but free. So, to

touch back on Bal's algebraic notation for a moment, a narratologist might describe Poe's

text as:

FF (narrator)-np

Because he is freely focalizing (FF) in his narrator's voice, when a character is not in fact

present, nor any other focalizer, in the diegesis.

Problems with Both Bal and Genette

Even though free focalization can easily be added to Bal's chains of focalization, Bal's -p

and -np distinction might not fit as well. Poe's stories are crafted from complex webs of

focalization and narration, and not all of that focalization comes in the easily packaged

forms of sensual focalization. Poe's narrator doesn't perceive, with his eyes or any of his

other senses, any of that furniture. In this case, we should substitute Bal's theory of -p

and -np with Manfred Jahn's rather similar concept of online and offline perception.

Whereas Bal's -p and -np primarily dealt with the difference between perception of

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things that a person within the diegesis would argue as “real” and things a person in the

diegesis would describe as “fake,” Jahn dealt with the problem at its source. His subtypes

dealt with kinds of “perception” based on where they come from relative to the

focalizer's mind: from the inside (a priori) or from without (a posteriori). To Jahn, an

online perception comes from one or more of the primary senses, i.e. when a character

sees, touches, smells, hears, “olifactizes,” or does some other thing regarding the senses.

These things come from outside the mind. An offline perception comes from inside the

mind of a character or focalizer, with little or no input from the immediate diegesis.

Things one “perceives in recollection, vision, hallucination, and dream” (Jahn,

Focalization, 99). These “perceptions” are a priori the scenes.

This distinction solves two problems with Bal's p and np system. First, without this

distinction, it would be difficult if not impossible to understand how subjective

analepses, or, colloquially, flashbacks, work (Jahn, “Windows,” 248). Consider again the

sentence from The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo: “Kalle Blomkvist – she remembered his

nickname and suppressed the urge to say it out loud [...]” (Larsson 332). Any

narratologist would identify the middle part of the sentence, “she remembered his

nickname,” as internal focalization. But it is ambiguous whether “remembering” is really

an act of perception-- it doesn't actually “see” anything. It might be an act of cognition.

So Bal might describe this sentence as:

EF-[np CF (Lisbeth)]-p

Since there is no other character who can perceive Lisbeth's memory. But that's not right.

The nickname “Kalle Blomkist” isn't non-perceptible, nor is it strictly non-perceived-- it

just isn't being perceived actively right now by anyone other than Lisbeth. It isn't quite

perception and it isn't quite not. It is much more accurate to use Jahn's new term, offline,

because it doesn't pass judgment over “remembering” as perception or non-perception.

The character is subjectively re-experiencing an event that occurred previously. A better

way to put it might be:

EF-[off CF (Lisbeth)]-off

This term allows for a whole slew of questionably perceptive but definitely focalizing

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activities important to unwinding perception in Poe's stories: characters must be able to

remember, dream, and discover in addition to seeing, feeling, smelling, tasting, and

touching.

Second, online and offline perception are terms that allow for a wider definition of

“focalization,” than -p and -np would allow. Aside from just “remembering,” which is

ambiguously perceptive, what if a narratologist wanted to use, for example, Rimmon-

Kenan's definition of focalization which includes decidedly non-perceptive activities

such as thinking and feeling? Bal includes among -np only objects which are non-

perceptible to one or more other characters, and includes among -p only objects when

there is “another character present that can also perceive the object” (Narratology, 153).

While this is a great distinction for describing a situation in which one character knows

something another character doesn't (like in a suspense story), it is not so great for

describing a narrative that moves freely between multiple character's thoughts, feelings,

perceptions, and deeds, especially when the things being “perceived” are not really

“perceived” but rather deduced simultaneously. Ideally, for a narrative like “The

Purloined Letter” in which a half dozen characters are all trying to outwit each other all

at the same time, it would be much better to use a term that could manage to express acts

of shared focalization without limiting those acts of focalization to diegetic sensual

perception. Neither Bal nor Genette's theory can do this alone.

The Purloined Perspective

Mieke Bal was the first to use the metaphor of the “chain” to describe different degrees

of focalization, and I find the metaphor appropriate. Each focalizing instance forms a

link that joins with another link. In order to reconstruct the narrative, the reader must

follow the chain from one link to the next, without losing track of any links, lest the

whole chain fall apart. In The Purloined Letter, there are three significant chains of

focalization. The first chain involves the characters in the immediate present diegesis:

the narrator, Dupin, and the police Prefect. They are the only characters who appear

directly, and the only characters with the power of direct discourse. The second chain

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involves characters focalized by Dupin and the Prefect in the near analeptic past. These

characters include Dupin (again), the Prefect (again), and a government Minister.

Finally, the third chain involves characters focalized by the Prefect in the distant

analeptic past, including a gentleman of royal standing, who has sometimes been referred

to as the “King,” a lady of royal standing, who has sometimes been called the “Queen,”

and the Minister. In the interest of conducting an analysis of the story in the simplest and

clearest manner possible, I will first construct the story's three chains of focalization

separately, and then link them only after they have been completely constructed. I will

also deal with the story's first scene separately from its second scene. These chains, as

Poe's narrator might suggest, must be disentangled before they can be analyzed.

In constructing these chains, I will use Bal's arthmetic system for tracing focalization,

Manfred Jahn's idea of online and offline perception, Rimmon-Kenan's idea of

conceptual, ideological, and analytic focalization, and Genette's concept of multiple,

variable, and fixed internal focalization. I do this in part to show how these theories can

be used together, and in part because I believe this way is the most complete and

accurate way of tracing the effect of focalization in the story.

In the first chain of the first scene, Poe introduces the reader to his three main characters:

the narrator, who we shall call “Edgar,” as not to confuse his function as narrator with his

function as focalizer, C. Auguste Dupin, an esteemed detective, and Prefect G-, a royal

policeman. The Prefect arrives in a dramatic fashion:

We had been sitting in the dark, and Dupin now arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down again, without doing so, upon G.'s saying that he had called to consult us, or rather to ask the opinion of my friend, about some official business which had occasioned a great deal of trouble. (Poe, “Purloined,” 281)

Within the first the first six sentences, Poe has already created a significant chain. The

first link, so to speak, is our narrator Edgar, who is watching Dupin. The second link is

Dupin himself, who sees the police Prefect. The police Prefect in turn sees Dupin and

Edgar, having come into the apartment for the purpose of seeking their council over a

certain story (the next link) he will then relate. So the whole chain might look like:

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on CF (“Edgar”)-[on CF (Dupin)]- [off CF (Prefect)]

Both “Edgar” and Dupin perceive the minister visually and aurally, while the Prefect's

vision is unimportant. He is focalized only, and occupies the lowest part of the chain. He

is offline because the things he perceives, that is, the story he is about to relate to Dupin

and “Edgar,” is still in his head. His low status in the focalization chain is even cause for

his ridicule. Dupin proceeds to insult him again and again for his lack of perception:

“Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing that puts you at fault,” Dupin says (282).

In the second chain of the first scene, the Prefect relates to Dupin and “Edgar” the

immediate events that occasioned his arrival. He has been tasked by a royal of high

standing (the “Queen”) to procure a certain letter that had been purloined from her by

Minister D-. He has been searching the apartments of the Minister for weeks, without

uncovering the letter or any sign of its existence. He describes his search:

My first care was to make through search of the Minister's hotel; and here my chief embarrassment lay in the necessity of searching without his knowledge. Beyond all things, I have been warned of the danger which would result from giving him reason to suspect our design. (284)

Here, the Prefect describes the events of the near past and the necessity that the Minister

remain unaware of the events as they occur. In this case, it might be better to use Mieke

Bal's -p and -np notation, because it is better than Jahn's online and offline distinction at

portraying imbalances in narrative perception. The Prefect sees what the Minister does

not. So:

CF (Prefect)- [p CF (Minister)]-np

The Prefect searches the apartment inch by inch with “the fine long needles you have

seen me employ” (286) careful not to emit a single sound so that he and his men may

remain undetected. His perceptive advantage (he sees that the Minister does not see)

briefly gives him narrative status.

Finally, in the third chain of the first scene, the Prefect describes to Dupin and “Edgar”

what events occurred in the distant past that started the chain of events that brought him

to their house. The Minister, he relates secondhand through memory, purloined a letter

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that, if disclosed “to a third person, who shall be nameless [the “King”], would bring in

question the honor of a personage of most exhausted station [the “Queen”]” (283). This is

offline character focalization. He is perceiving events from memory having only been

told about them. But the narrative chain does not stop there. The story the Prefect relates

is possibly the most involved set of acts of focalization in the entire story:

During [the letter's] perusal [the Queen] was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of the other exalted personage from whom especially it was her wish to conceal it. After a hurried and vain endeavor to thrust it in the drawer, she was forced to place it, open as it was, upon a table. […] At this juncture enters the Minster D-. His lynx eye immediately perceives the paper, recognizes the handwriting of the address, observes the confusion of the personage addressed, and fathoms her secret. After some business transactions […] he produces a letter somewhat similar to the one in question. […] in taking leave, he takes also from the table the letter to which he had no claim. Its rightful owner saw, but, of course, dared not call attention to the act, in the presence of the third personage who stood at her elbow. (283-4)

What remarkable acts of vision! In this text, there are four focalizers and five acts of

vision. First, the temporary character-focalizer, the Prefect, focalizes the the Queen,

through Rimmon-Kenan's function of memory. The Prefect is offline because he is

remembering. However, he is also p. Even though he is perceiving something that

neither Dupin or Edgar are privy to, he has total knowledge of the situation. In his

recollection, the Queen sees the King. She is aware that he is watching and indeed

watching herself, so she is online and p. The King sees the letter, but doesn't understand

what it means. He is online and np. When the Minister enters, the chain begins to branch

because there are then two characters focalizing multiple subjects. The Minister sees the

Queen, and not only immediately sees with his “lynx eye” that she is distressed, but also

immediately deduces the nature of the letter from the address and handwriting alone. In

this act of vision, he is online and p. He also sees the King, and deduces that the King is

still offline and np. When the Minister switches the letter, the Queen sees what he does.

She focalizes the Minster and remains online and p, but is powerless to stop him without

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drawing the King into an act of vision that will both turn him online and make him

focalize the letter. In arithmetic notation, the whole scene looks like this:

F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 off p CF (Prefect)- [on p CF (Queen)]- [off np (King)] [on p CF (Minister)]- [off np (King)] [on p CF (Queen)]- [off np (King)] [on p (Minister)] In order to understand the story, all the reader has to do is follow this chain. The Prefect

sees the Queen. The Queen sees that the King does not see. The Queen also sees the

Minister. The Minister sees that the King does not see. The Minister also sees the Queen.

The Queen sees that the Minister sees her, but also sees that the King does not see, and is

therefore powerless. This branching effect is essentially Genette's idea of variable

focalization translated into Bal's arithmetic method. The focalization moves from

character to character, with sometimes the same character making two relevant glances.

The focalization alternates not randomly, but according to the chain.

Compared to the last chain, the first chain of the second scene is extremely simple.

Dupin and Edgar are once again sitting alone in their library when, once again, the

Prefect barges in. This chain is similar the first chain of the first scene. When Dupin

declares that he has acquired the purloined letter and will sell it to the Prefect for 50,000

Francs,

The Prefect appeared absolutely thunder-stricken. For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed starting from their sockets […] (289)

This time, instead of our narrator-focalizer Edgar focalizing Dupin who focalizes the

Prefect, our narrator-focalizer focalizes the Prefect who focalizes Dupin:

CF (Edgar)-[on CF (Prefect)]-[off (Dupin)]

This chain puts Dupin in an extremely high position of authority. While the two other

men are stuck gaping absurdly on (Edgar is “astounded” and the Prefect is

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“thunderstruck”), Dupin alone has the privilege of being offline. In this chain, offline

perception is implicitly compared to online perception, with understanding (an offline

form of focalization) being the ultimate goal. Dupin analyzes, while the Prefect can give

only “vacant stares” (289).

In the next chain, Dupin explains to Edgar the process by which he deduced the location

of the purloined letter. He does this through a series of anecdotes, which are a form of

offline perception. To take the most famous one, the anecdote about the boy who is very

good at playing an “even or odd” guessing game:

The game is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is even or odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses one. (290)

Here Dupin narrates, but drops all focalization whatsoever. He does not describe a

particular instance of the game, but how the game might be played between any two

people. He speakers of nonspecific “players.” There is no camera, so to speak, looking

upon them. Dupin's metaphor, then, looks like:

FF- off np

The narrator is imagining this example (offline), but not a particular example (free

focalization), and the example he recalls cannot be seen by any other person (np).

Indeed, no one can see it. He has focalized the instance so remotely that he might as well

not be focalized at all. However, this perspective distance allows the narrator to freely

compare the nature of the game to the nature of the situation at hand. “It is merely,” the

example ends, “an identification of the reasoner's intellect with that of his opponent”

(291).

In the final chain, Dupin explains how he was able to actually acquire the missing letter.

Interestingly enough, this segment of the story is in fixed focalization. We see through

Dupin's eyes and knows what Dupin knows. Dupin relates how, equipped with his

signature pair of green spectacles, he called upon the Minister one morning as if by

accident. Poe goes to great length to emphasize the eyes. “I complained of my weak

eyes,” (296), “at length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room […]” (297), “no sooner

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had I glanced at this letter [...]” (297). Once again, Poe returns to purely online acts of

perception. This is not more apparent then when Dupin actually snatches the letter out

from the Minister's hiding place:

While thus engaged, however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately beneath the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of fearful screams, and the shoutings of a mob. D-- rushed to a casement, threw it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped to the card-rack, took the letter, [and] put it in my pocket. (298)

In this manner, Poe manages to put the Minister in the lowest position possible. He is

literally at the bottom of the chain of the entire story.

CF (Dupin) – [on CF (Minister)] – on

Not only is he at the bottom of the chain of perspective, but he is also online. All three

chains in the second half of the story have one thing in common: being online is a bad

thing. This is no exception. The cunning Minister is distracted not by a mind game or a

puzzle or a battle of wits, but by a simple physical musket shot which causes him to run

to the window and “look out.” He is undone by an actual act of vision, not a mental one.

There is no lower status Poe could put him in-- when all the chains from both halves of

the story are combined, he ends up dead last.

When all the chains from both halves of the story are put together, Poe's narrative project

becomes clear: there is something undeniably interesting, something quite seductive,

about having to follow these chains of vision to the start. Poe challenges the reader to see

not only the text, but to perceive it offline-- to think about it, analyze it, and make

deductions about it. But what about the chains themselves? What do these chains

accomplish, and what do they mean?