Reason, Revenge, and Ruin: Masculinity Unraveled in Poe’s Dupin, Montresor, and “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Date of Award
5-1-2025
Degree Name
M.A. in English
Department
Department of English
Advisor/Chair
Bryan Bardine
Abstract
Edgar Allan Poe’s fiction does not simply depict masculinity — it dissects it, exposing its contradictions and fragility. This project examines how Poe constructs and deconstructs masculinity through the figures of C. Auguste Dupin, Montresor, and the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” each of whom enacts a distinct, performative version of male identity. Drawing on Judith Butler’s theory of gender as performance, the study argues that Poe anticipates modern understandings of masculinity not as essence but as unstable enactment. Dupin asserts power through reason and detachment, Montresor through silence and calculated revenge, the narrator through obsessive control that unravels into confession. Through close readings of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Purloined Letter,” “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” this study explores how Poe’s male characters model competing and collapsing performances of masculinity. While previous scholarship has examined Poe’s narrative and psychological complexity, this project offers a sustained focus on masculinity as a site of crisis. Poe’s fiction ultimately suggests that when masculinity is performed too perfectly, it begins to dismantle the self it was meant to protect.
Keywords
American Literature, Gender Studies, Literature
Rights Statement
Copyright 2025, author.
Recommended Citation
Alzahrani, Abdulrahman, "Reason, Revenge, and Ruin: Masculinity Unraveled in Poe’s Dupin, Montresor, and “The Tell-Tale Heart”" (2025). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 7511.
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/graduate_theses/7511
