the gold bug: a critique by kaushal desai
DESCRIPTION
Edgar Allan Poe's short story, 'The Gold Bug' is an interesting story and I try to give my review about it.TRANSCRIPT
The Gold Bug:
A Critique
Kaushal Desai
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar University
Department of English
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Gold Bug
Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-49) - American poet,short-story writer, and critic who is best knownfor his tales of ratiocination, his fantastical horrorstories, and his genre-founding detective stories.Poe, whose cloudy personal life is a virtuallegend, considered himself primarily a poet. Gold-Bug (1843) - William Le Grand discovers a mapwhich leads to hidden treasure. “The Gold-Bug”was an early detective story that helped toestablish the wider category of the mystery story.
Tales of Mystery and
Imagination
Study of his
Theme
Death
Mystery
DetectiveRelief
Murder
Legrand
painting of
Bug
Some important phrases
He draws a picture of a Bug , narrator says that the image looks like a skull.
The Gold Bug is not a real creature but combination of two creatures.
Legrand feels insulted-inspects his own Drawing, locked it into a drawer.
Strange man Mr. Legrand who seemingly goes crazy after being bitten by a bug thought to be made of pure gold.
Narrator-Legrand go on
expedition.
Jupiter visits the narrator and asks him to return to Sullivan’s
Island.
Along with The Golden Bug tied to a string deep in the island's
wilderness.
They find a tree in which
Legrand orders Jupiter to climb with the Golden
Bug in tow.
There he finds the
Skull and Legrand
tells him to drop
the bug through
one of the eye
sockets.
From where it
falls, they dig.
They find treasure buried by the
infamous pirate-Caption Kidd.
Narrator estimated it’s worth-about fourteen million
dollars.
Jupiter
Poe’s depiction of the African
Servant Jupiter-considered
stereotypical and racist from a
modern perspective.
Jupiter is depicted-
superstitious, lacking in
intelligence that he can not tell
his Left from his Right.
Conclusion
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Gold Bug” is
often included amongst the short list of
detective stories by Poe, is not technically
detective fiction because Legrand withholds
the evidence until after the solution is given.
Nevertheless, the Legrand character is often
compared to Poe's fictional detective C. And
the discovers the phenomenon of The Gold
Bug
Discussion Questions1. Comment: As in "The Premature Burial," the first half of "The Gold
Bug" creates what is
2. in hindsight an extremely misleading atmosphere.
3. What is Jupiter’s role in the story?
4. Were you surprised that Legrand found treasure? What was your
opinion of Legrand and
5. the narrator at the early part of the story?
6. How does Poe establish an atmosphere of fear and suspense in this
short story?
7. Poe often uses unreliable narrators in his stories. Discuss the
narrator and protagonist in
8. The Gold Bug.
9. Is this a detective story? Why or why not? If not, how could you
make it one?
