Edgar Allan Poe Reading

When first reading, “The Man of the Crowd”, by Edgar Allan Poe, one gets the sense that the title applies to the unnamed narrator. The reader is somewhat led to believe that the man of the crowd is the unnamed narrator, because in the short story he is literally a man in the crowd who is people watching. “With a cigar in my mouth and a newspaper in my lap, I had been amusing myself for the greater part of the afternoon, now poring advertisements, now in observing the promiscuous company in the room and now in peering through the smoky panes into the street.” (2486). Poe does not take the time to set up any character or give us any background to this unnamed narrator, except the fact that he was previously sick, but now his health was returning. Whenever a character is not developed or set, one gets the impression of their importance or their mundane nature. “The man of crowd” sounds like a generic and mundane, whom has nothing unique about himself; he does not stand out in the crowd, rather he meshes into it so well that his presence is only faintly (if at all) detected. Thus, it would not be off the wall to assume that this character being called the man of the crowd would be this unnamed narrator himself.
However, just as one becomes comfortable in this thought and assumption, situational irony puts an entirely different twist on the story title. In observing the many people that pass by, the unnamed narrator becomes consumed with the passing of an elderly man. “. . . there came into view a countenance… which at once arrested and absorbed my whole attention, on account of the idiosyncracy of its expression… I felt singularly aroused, startled, fascinated.” (2489). The narrator’s attention is caught up in the expression and the story he is curious to understand that is the root behind it. After proceeding to stalk this character the remaining time of the story, the situational irony comes into play. “‘This old man is the type and the genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone. He is a man of the crowd. It will be in vain to follow; for I shall learn no more of him, nor of his deeds. ’” (2492). The unnamed narrator calls this elderly man of the curious visage, the man of the crowd, after many readers were probably led to believe that he himself was this man of the crowd, because of the fact that he merely melts into the background and people watches. However, this narrator pointedly suggests that this man is the man of the crowd, because of the fact that he is on a mission, yet this mission involves little action or true progress. This man just walks in circles all over the city and out of it, just to be out among the people; he goes into stores and bars, yet never buys anything and is kicked out, however he does not mind, because he is out among people, which is all his soul desires.
In linking these two characters, I would say that they are quite similar, because both of them are men of the crowd, because both are obviously lonely and merely being out among people with no real goal (of shopping, eating, or fraternizing) is fulfilling their lives. They are both men of the crowd and are fascinated by people and are fulfilling the voids in their life by being out among people and merely existing. They are both searching for the same gratification in being out with people.