Quiz

Questions

1. How does the story begin?
2. What ironic observation about the brain does the narrator start with?
3. What players does the narrator think about?
4. What kind of mind does the chess player have?
5. How does a whist player differ from a chess player?
6. What does the chess player need in order to work out what to do?
7. Why's the whist player better than the chess player?
8. Who does the narrator introduce the reader to near the beginning of the story?
9. Where does the narrator meet Monsieur Dupin?
10. What habit do Dupin and the narrator develop while living together?
11. What do the narrator and Dupin do when the sun sets?
12. What do the narrator and Dupin like to do to people around them while walking the streets at night?
13. What does Dupin brag about while making conclusions about people?
14. Who does Dupin call a "very little fellow"?
15. What character does Chantilly act as?
16. What response did Chantilly get to his acting as Xerxes?
17. What did the narrator think about Chantilly's performing as Xerxes?
18. What happens when the narrator runs into the fruiterer?
19. What does Dupin observe the narrator doing after the accident with the fruiterer?
20. What is stereotomy?
21. What does Dupin see the narrator doing as they start walking up Lamartine, where the city is experimenting with a new pattern for paving stones?
22. What does Dupin reason that the narrator will do now that he's started thinking about the mechanics of cutting things into smaller pieces?
23. Who does Dupin assign the idea of "atomies" to?
24. Who was Dr. John Pringle Nichol?
25. What does Dupin think will be the next logical step in the narrator's train of association after thinking about Epicurus and atoms?
26. What does Dupin suppose the narrator will look up at, having moved focus from ancient to modern science?
27. What Latin line is Chantilly's change of name (discussed by the reviewer) compared to?
28. What does the Latin line "Perdidit antiquum litera prima sonum" translate to?
29. Why does Dupin think the narrator has been thinking about how short Chantilly is?
30. What headline do Dupin and the narrator come across in the newspaper one night?
31. What woke up the people living in the Quartier St. Roch at around 3 a.m.?
32. Where are the screams coming from in the Quartier St. Roch?
33. How do eight or ten local guys pry open the front door of Madame L'Esplanaye's apartment?
34. What do the neighbors hear when the screams stop?
35. What do the neighbors find when they get inside Madame L'Esplanaye's apartment?
36. What item is sitting on a chair in Madame L'Esplanaye's apartment?
37. What's on the hearth in Madame L'Esplanaye's apartment?
38. What items do the neighbors find on the floor of Madame L'Esplanaye's apartment?
39. Where do the neighbors find Madame L'Esplanaye's daughter's body?
40. What indicates that Madame L'Esplanaye's daughter has been strangled?
41. Where do the neighbors discover Madame L'Esplanaye's body?
42. What happens to Madame L'Esplanaye's head when the neighbors try to pick the body up?
43. What does Pauline Dubourg say about Madame L'Esplanaye and her daughter's relationship?
44. How did Madame L'Esplanaye make her living, according to a rumor?
45. Who did Pierre Moreau say he had seen at the house?
46. Who does Isodore Muset believe the gruff voice belongs to?
47. What does Isodore Muset think that the gruff voice said?
48. Who does Isodore Muset think the shrill voice belongs to?
49. Who does Mr. Odenheimer think the shrill voice belongs to?
50. What does Jules Mignaud testify that Madame L'Esplanaye did on the third day before her murder?
51. What does Adolphe de Bon say he did after Madame L'Esplanaye withdrew money from the bank?
52. Who does William Bird say that the shrill voice didn't belong to?
53. What do four witnesses later reveal about the room where they found the daughter's body?
54. Who does Alfonzo Garcio say that the shrill voice belongs to?
55. What does Alberto Montani say that that the speaker of the gruff voice was doing?
56. Who does Alberto Montani say that the shrill voice belongs to?
57. What do all the witnesses agree about the chimneys?
58. What does Paul Dumas say could have injured Madame L'Esplanaye so badly?
59. Which of the witnesses did the police arrest?
60. Why does Dupin argue that no one can say the case is impossible?
61. Why does Dupin believe that the police get results?
62. What does Dupin say about being in your thinking?
63. Why does Dupin feel obliged to get Le Bon off the hook for the murders?
64. How does Dupin get permission to visit the house on the Rue Morgue?
65. Why does Dupin say that the murders seem beyond solving?
66. Who does Dupin say he's waiting for, who will reveal what happened?
67. What does Dupin hand to the narrator to stop the mysterious person from leaving whenever he or she arrives?
68. Why does Dupin reason that it wasn't murder-suicide?
69. What does Dupin find when he examines the windows?
70. How does Dupin reason that there's no motive for the crime?
71. What evidence is there that the killer was strong?
72. What does Dupin say is the cause of Madame L'Esplanaye's bones shattering?
73. Why didn't the police think that the shattering of Madame L'Esplanaye's bones was the result of her fall onto the stone pavement of the yard?
74. Who does the narrator think has caused the murder when Dupin reveals all the facts?
75. What does Dupin reveal that he found clenched in Madame L'Espanaye's fist?
76. Who does Dupin hand the narrator a description of?
77. How does Dupin lure the owner of the Ourang-Outang to him?
78. How did Dupin guess that the sailor was from a Maltese ship?
79. Where has the sailor recently returned from?
80. How did the sailor end up in sole possession of the Ourang-Outang?
81. What did the sailor find the Ourang-Outang doing when it escaped from the closet?
82. What did the Ourang-Outang do when the sailor grabbed the whip?
83. Why did the Ourang-Outang climb up the lightning rod and across the open shutter in through the window of the L'Espanaye apartment?
84. What did the Ourang-Outang do to the older lady when it entered?
85. What happened when the Ourang-Outang saw the blood coming from the older woman's throat?
86. What did the Ourang-Outang do when it looked over to the window and saw the sailor's face?
87. What did the sailor do when he saw the ape coming toward the window?
88. What did the sailor do with the ape when he caught it?
89. How does the Prefect react to Dupin's judgment?
90. What does Dupin say about the Prefect's talent?

Answers

1. With a discussion about different kinds of thought
2. That the brain's ability to analyze, which is the tool we use to categorize and organize all of the things around us, rarely gets turned on itself
3. Chess and draughts players
4. The kind of mind that can find answers only if she's got all of the clues in front of her
5. They're analytical and creative.
6. All the information she needs right in front of her
7. She can figure out what she needs to know using the combined power of imagination and analysis.
8. His friend, Monsieur C. August Dupin
9. A library in Paris
10. Closing up all the blinds during the day to read, write, and talk to each other (fun)
11. They head out to the streets of Paris, walking and chatting until the early hours of the morn.
12. They look at them and make conclusions about who they are.
13. That most men's hearts are like open windows to him
14. Chantilly, a local cobbler who suddenly gets it into his head to try acting
15. Xerxes
16. He was widely "Pasquinaded," or ridiculed for his efforts.
17. That he was too short to play serious tragic roles
18. The fruiterer knocks the narrator into a stack of paving stones, which makes the narrator look angry and slightly pained.
19. Staring at the ground, watching his step
20. The art of cutting stones, or more generally, of dividing solid objects into smaller shapes
21. Mouthing the word "stereotomy"
22. Muse on "atomies," i.e. the smallest pieces of creation
23. Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher
24. A popular astronomer in the early 19th century who wrote books on the layout of the solar system and its planets
25. To think about current science and atoms
26. The constellation of Orion
27. "Perdidit antiquum litera prima sonum."
28. "He has ruined the sound with the first letter."
29. He had been hunched over and then stood up straight.
30. "EXTRAORDINARY MURDERS"
31. A series of loud screams
32. The fourth story apartment of Madame L'Esplanaye and her daughter, Mademoiselle Camille L'Esplanaye
33. With a crowbar
34. Two or more voices that seem to be in angry conversation
35. It's been turned over and destroyed, with wrecked furniture everywhere.
36. A razor
37. Two or three long, thick locks of grey hair smeared with blood
38. Four Napoleons, a topaz earring, three larger silver spoons, three smaller spoons of Algiers metal, and two sacks of four thousand francs in gold
39. Stuffed up the chimney
40. Bruises on her neck
41. In a small yard behind the building
42. It falls off.
43. They were on excellent terms with each other.
44. As a fortune-teller
45. The older woman, her daughter, and maybe a doctor or a porter a handful of times
46. A Frenchman
47. The words sacre and diable
48. A foreigner
49. A Frenchman
50. She came in person to his bank to withdraw four thousand francs.
51. He accompanied her home, carrying two sacks of francs for her.
52. An Englishman
53. It was locked from the inside.
54. An Englishman
55. "Expostulating" or attempting to reason with another
56. A Russian
57. They're too small for a person to go up or down without getting stuck.
58. A really strong man using a large, blunt instrument
59. Adolphe de Bon
60. The only people who've investigated so far are the police.
61. They're diligent.
62. It's possible to be too deep in your thinking and sometimes just looking at the surface of things is enough to understand them.
63. Le Bon once did a favor for Dupin.
64. He knows the Prefect of Police.
65. They're so gross, there seems to be no motive, nobody can figure out who the arguing voices could've been when no one was found upstairs, there's no other exit but down the front stairs, and the room seems to have been pointlessly thrown around.
66. Someone who isn't the killer but is still semi-responsible for what happened
67. A pistol
68. All the witnesses agreed that the arguing voices didn't belong to the mother and daughter, and it's also physically impossible.
69. A concealed spring that allowed the windows to spring shut and lock when they're closed
70. The women didn't need expensive clothes as they hardly ever went out, (meaning that valuable clothing wasn't taken as the police believe), the murderer left the money behind, and Dupin dismisses the cash as coincidence regardless.
71. The stuffing of the corpse up the chimney so hard that it needed several people to bring it down again, the pulling out of clumps of grey human hair by the root, and the near severing of Madame L'Esplanaye's head using a "mere razor"
72. Her fall onto the stone pavement of the yard, and not a blunt instrument
73. Their minds had been "hermetically sealed."
74. Some disturbed guy who has escaped from the local mental asylum
75. A sketch of the finger patterns on Mademoiselle L'Espanaye's neck
76. The Ourang-Outang
77. He puts out an ad in a local paper popular with sailors saying that he found the animal, and that the owner should come to where he and the narrator live.
78. He picked up a ribbon at the foot of the lightning rod that is greasy from tying back long hair, which sailors are fond of doing, and is knotted in a way that's particular to Malta.
79. A sailing expedition to Borneo
80. His friend, who helped him capture the animal, died.
81. Lathering up its face and preparing for a shave
82. Jumped out of an open window and ran away
83. It was attracted to the light in the apartment.
84. Grabbed her by the hair and began holding the razor to her face, imitating a barber
85. The Ourang-Outang grew angrier and throttled the daughter with its bare hands.
86. It remembered the whip and became scared, so tried to hide its wrongdoing by sticking the body of the daughter in the chimney and picking up the body of the mother to throw out the window.
87. He freaked out and ran away, not wanting to see what happened next.
88. He sold it to the zoo.
89. He respects it, but is clearly angry that the resolution of this case is so strange.
90. His talent is to deny what is and explain what is not.