30 pages • 1 hour read
The Man of the Crowd
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Themes
Crime and Anonymity of City Life
In the story, the anonymity that comes along with living in a crowded city is often associated with crime and vice. The narrator’s pursuit of the old man takes him into areas of the city that are home to “the most desperate crime” (Paragraph 19) and where “wretched inebriates” flood the streets (Paragraph 20). The prevalence of crime and vice among the anonymous crowds suggests the darker sides of humanity thrive in an environment where it is easy for individuals to blend in and remain unknown.
This idea is reflected in the narrator’s description of the old man as Mephistophelean, as hinted at by his reference to the German painter Moritz Retzsch (1779-1857), who illustrated Goethe’s Faust (1808). The narrator’s observation that Retzsch “would have greatly preferred [the old man] to his own pictural incarnations of the fiend” (Paragraph 14) is a darkly humorous way of saying the man looked more demonic than a demon. In Faust, Mephistopheles is a demon who tricks Faust into making a deal with the devil. Mephistopheles is known for his cunning and playing upon human weaknesses, such as ego and greed. These are the same characteristics the narrator sees in the crowd of self-important businessmen, pickpockets, gamblers, and sex workers who are either driven by or trying to take advantage of these vices. The fact that the old man represents a demonic agent of Satan raises him to the level of an archetype, which the narrator expresses by describing him as “the type and genius of deep crime” (Paragraph 20).
This “man of the crowd” (Paragraph 20) suggests that urban anonymity is in itself criminal. The old man’s diamond and dagger inspire intrigue about the possibility of past or future crime, but he never commits a crime in the story, nor is he confirmed to be a criminal. As an early version of the literary detective, the narrator pursues his criminal, but catching him proves fruitless. The fact that the narrator classifies the old man as a man of the crowd rather than simply a man in the crowd suggests that the old man is almost a piece of the crowd himself: He is at home in the anonymity the crowd provides, and this is what, according to the narrator, makes him the most terrifying type of criminal.
Unknowable Secrets
“The Man of the Crowd” begins and ends with a discussion of a book that “does not permit itself to be read” and the idea that “some secrets . . . do not permit themselves to be told” (Paragraph 1). While the book itself does not figure into the story’s plot, the narrator’s discussion of it foreshadows the importance of Unknowable Secrets as one of the story’s major themes.
In Gothic fiction, these secrets often have to do with illicit or socially unacceptable behaviors. A secret society, for example, might contain individuals intent on causing mischief, which develops a sense of paranoia around a protagonist and a potential member who could upset the status quo. Secret histories containing lost information and secret, shifting identities also emphasize the importance of truth and the genre’s need to reveal it. If such secrets are revealed, they highlight the crime, vice, and abuses of power that exist in the world of the story, and sometimes the world outside of it. In “The Man of the Crowd,” instead of revealing the secret of the old man’s identity, Poe relies on the mere suggestion of the man’s illicit behavior to build tension and fear. Because the secret remains unresolved, the secrecy itself becomes more unsettling than any crime.
The most obvious secret in the story is the identity of the old man. Despite the narrator’s relentless pursuit and observation, which lasts at least 24 hours, he is unable to learn anything of the old man’s personality, history, or occupation. When he finally looks into the old man’s face, the narrator can only conclude that, like the book he mentions at the beginning of the story, it is unreadable. Despite the protagonist’s desire to uncover information about the old man, never once does he approach or interact with him, suggesting that the protagonist’s own secret identity is more important than discovering the truth.
In fact, the narrator’s constant urge to speculate outward rather than reflect inward emphasizes his need to avoid self-exposure. His obsession with crime and vice, as well as his interest in the more unsavory members of the crowd, raises the question of whether the narrator might be harboring secrets and details of his own history from the reader. It has been said that individuals are most like the people they surround themselves with. If this is the case, the protagonist’s interest in crimes may reflect his own behavior. Perhaps he is not a detective at all, but someone inclined to stalk and pursue others simply for the thrill. The mystery the protagonist pursues consequently shrouds him in his own mystery, as he withholds his identity to avoid accepting and admitting to his own unseemly conduct.
The Complexity of the Human Mind
A common theme in Poe’s work is The Complexity of the Human Mind. By portraying the darker and more mysterious side of human nature through disturbed characters who are often murderers (such as the narrators of “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado”), Poe questions whether human nature can ever fully be understood. Similarly, the old man and the narrator in “The Man of the Crowd” have mysterious personalities and motivations that represent the difficulty of deciphering the workings of human psychology.
The narrator thinks he can easily understand human nature through observation. As he looks out the window of the café, he attempts to understand how each person fits into society and admits that he “could frequently read, even in that brief interval of a glance, the history of long years” (Paragraph 12). Yet his reasoning is not always logical. For example, he states that he could always identify gamblers by “a more than ordinary extension of the thumb in a direction at right angles with the fingers” (Paragraph 9). This arbitrary conclusion suggests that he believes there are physical traits by which one can identify individuals’ vices, showing that his judgement of others is superficial.
The narrator is confronted with the limits of his own insight when he sees the old man for the first time and observes the “absolute idiosyncrasy” of his face (Paragraph 13). His impression of the man develops “confusedly and paradoxically” (Paragraph 13), suggesting that the narrator’s usual strategies do not work in this instance. After following the man for an entire day and failing to learn more about him, the narrator finally concludes, “It will be in vain to follow; for I shall learn no more of him, nor of his deeds” (Paragraph 20). This realization extends into a sense of failure; once the protagonist accepts that he cannot determine the old man’s true nature, he gives up his observational techniques and pursuits, recognizing the impossibility of his original goal: to learn the mind's secrets.
Access to a character’s mind proves no more effective than their clothing for understanding a person’s true nature, as the narrator’s unreliability contributes to the mystery surrounding his own psychology. Because there is reason to question the narrator’s “peculiar” perception of the world (Paragraph 12), his mind remains a mystery. Even though the first-person narration seems to provide access to the narrator’s thoughts, it is impossible to tell whether these thoughts are based on a reliable perception of the world. In this way, Poe suggests that neither the narrator’s visual observations nor the reader’s observations of the narrator’s thoughts can provide full insight into human nature.
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By Edgar Allan Poe
