The worst heart of the world is a grosser book than the 'Hortulus Animae,' and perhaps it is but one of the great mercies of God that "er lasst sich nicht lesen."

In the age of modernity backed by the effect of industrial revolution, technology, mechanization and labor encroached on the city, where individuals were entrapped into concrete anonymity. Estranged from a sense of belongingness, the modern man’s belief in the mystery hidden beneath the surface of urban spectacles is encapsulated in "The Prelude" written by William Wordsworth:

 

How oft, amid those overflowing streets,

Have I gone forward with the crowd, and said

Unto myself, "The face of every one

That passes by me is a mystery!" (1994)

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Poe’s "The Man of the Crowd" shares the similar theme of the mystery of human existence in a threatening world, where the function of gaze is concurred – a mode of reading external signs of individuals to desirably unveil ‘the history of long years’. To detect and read a crime, using Saussurean terminology, is a process of ‘selecting and grouping signifiers and assigning various signifieds to them’ (Huhn, 1987). Therefore, a crime standing alone is a twinge of uninterpretable signs. In a society fragmented along a number of fault lines (the mingling of classes, genders, identities), Poe portrays a solitary convalescent, the representation of everyday modern man, whiling away his time observing the crowd and corresponding stable meanings to the discontinuity within modern urbanization. However, the desire of the narrator to unearth the deepest significance is doomed to fail.

 

Driven by the phantasmagoric quality of the pedestrian counterparts, the unnamed narrator gazes into the details through the “surfaced signs” of individuals - figure, dress, air, gait, visage, and expression of countenance, and presents his ability of discerning and classifying individuals, which constitutes a rather superficial study – junior clerk with tight coats and bright boots; upper clerk with white waistcoat and looking shoes (4). Interestingly, as he continues to move his eyeballs downward the social classes, the emphasis on eyes in terms of categorization reinforces his dominance over the spectacles – the gaze into the gazes. He identifies the Jewish merchants by ‘hawk eyes’; the gamblers by a ‘filmy dimness of eye’; young girls who must meet the ‘glances of ruffians’; alcoholics by ‘lack-luster eyes’ (6).

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He deviates from several patterns of physiognomical traits to introduce his visual perception of relationship between interior identity and external appearance, believing that he could read one’s history merely in ‘a brief interval of a glance’, which asserts himself a sense of superiority. And yet the possibility of all these perceptions is by far from the angle of an observant rather than a participant, and hence is called into question of ‘in-depthness’.

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Once the old man appears, the narrator’s visual compulsion to detect the depths of the soul deepens. Applying the same method, he starts examining the old man’s external signs:

He was short in stature, very thin, and apparently very feeble. His clothes, generally, were filthy and ragged (7).

 

Continuing observing the man, the narrator tries to make meanings through penetrating gaze and yet finds himself presenting a set of contradictory characteristics that bewilder his interpretations of signified: dirty linen of beautiful texture; closely buttoned and evidently second- handed roquelaire; a diamond or a dagger.

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If he held a diamond, he could be a wealthy man; and if he held a dagger, he could be a criminal. Plunged into fits of contradiction and confusion that heighten his interest, the narrator dashed out of his comfort zone, the coffee shop, to join the crowd. He witnesses the old man ‘cross[ing] and re-cross[ing] the way repeatedly without any apparent aims’ (9) and is led through bazaars and shops, into the noisome and impoverish part of London. Despite a detailed descriptive map presented to the readers, he surrenders to the old man’s waywardness as he fails to interpret any meanings, bringing the narrative back to the generalization about the unreadability from which it begins.

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“The Man of the Crowd” challenges the function of gaze to make meaning out of an urban setting and captures a double narrative visuality. On one hand, the gaze holds a liminal place between the inner and outer world, as the narrator in the first part of the story , is observing the crowded London street from a detached visual position, the coffeehouse’s windows. This liminality preserves his sense of individuality – he does not allow himself to be exposed, so that he can be able to search for the urban surfaces and physiognomies (signifiers) to trace into the spectacle’s identity (signified), like a real flaneur:

It is the gaze of the flaneur, whose way of living still played over the growing destitution of men in the great city with a conciliatory gleam. (Benjamin, 1999)

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His gazing position enters into a paradox when he is enthralled by an old, mysterious man. While attempting to keep the old man framed within his search without being noticed, he is inserting himself to read what is left unseen in the fragmented society: ‘horrible filth festered in the dammed- up gutters’ and the ‘whole atmosphere teemed with desolation’ (9). To a modern man, it is implausible to distance himself from the uncanny urban setting if he seeks to form some analysis of meaning conveyed.

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Given the object of scrutiny’s resistance to all recognition and signification, the narrative’s gaze fails to extract the second layer behind the first mark of physiognomical factors. The narrative finally gazes at the old man steadfastly in the face and gives an empty cipher after this aimless wander:

He noticed me not, but resumed his solemn walk, while I, ceasing to follow, remained absorbed in contemplation (10).

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The impenetrability of the old man blocks all forms of access to historical background and trace. No conclusion can be drawn from the objectless movement. The penetration by gaze only allows one to read the most apparent arbitrariness of perceived identity. However, the depth of souls, such as the interior of human feelings, human identity and private history still remains unveiled and unread. The relationship between gaze and signification lies at the heart of the opening sentence, ‘It was well said of a certain German book that "es lässt sich nicht lesen"—it does not permit itself to be read’ and hence, is paradoxical – attentive yet lacunary; elaborate yet impotent.

 

"The Man of the Crowd" entails the urban context in which detective story is revealed not as the problem- solving process of decoding all uninterpretable signs, but an ontological emblem refracted in the inability and impotence to decipher the modernist’s want – the mystery of everyday life. Beyond the paranoia and anxiety embedded in modern city, no attentive and elaborate gaze is able to read a psychopathic crowd structure, where everyone can be the man of the crowd.