What is the purpose of the narrator’s discussion of analysis?

The narrator discusses analysis to introduce what makes Dupin’s mind so brilliant. Instead of following his logic down set paths, in the same way chess is generally played according to very set strategies, he assesses the individual characteristics of each situation. He approaches investigations like a good whist player, who must analyze the psychology of their opponents on top of taking mathematical odds into account. Dupin both looks at the logic of the situation and its individual characteristics, which means he’s never stymied by the unusual.

Why is Le Bon arrested for the murder?

Le Bon is arrested for the murder seemingly because he is a convenient scapegoat. The newspaper that announces his arrest notes that there was no clue in particular that incriminated him. However, Le Bon accompanied Madame L’Espanaye from the bank with 4,000 francs. The police, seeing this, apparently decide that Le Bon had motive to murder the women for the money. The police’s arrest of Le Bon demonstrates their inability to think analytically. They arrest Le Bon based on who the most obvious perpetrator of such a crime would be without regard to its unique particulars.

What is the significance of the shrill voice?

The shrill voice helps alert Dupin to the murderer’s true identity as the orangutan. Every single person who hears the shrill voice identifies it as being another language, and always a language that they have never heard before. The sheer number of languages the witnesses mention, and the complete lack of agreement between them suggest to Dupin that the reason why no one recognizes the language is because it isn’t human.

How does Dupin conclude that the murderer escaped through the window?

Dupin realizes that the window is the only possible means of egress. First, he rules out other escape routes. He knows the murderer is not a spirit, and therefore could not have disappeared. There was no possible way for the murderer to get down the stairs without having been seen by the multitude of witnesses. However, even though the windows appear to have been impossible to open, the fact remains that windows can and do open, as a rule. He thus concludes the police must have been wrong about the windows.

Why does the murderer murder Madame L’Espanaye and Mademoiselle Camille?

The orangutan, being an animal, does not have a true motive for the murder. Instead, having observed the sailor shaving with a straight razor, he was attempting to mimic the human behavior he saw. Unfortunately, with no true understanding of what shaving was, the orangutan’s attempt at copying the behavior with Madame L’Espanaye could only have a tragic result. After slitting Madame L’Espanaye’s throat, the resulting blood upset the orangutan, causing him to lash out, killing Mademoiselle L’Espanaye in the process. The extreme brutality of the murder appears senseless because it was.

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