The Man Of The Crowd by Edgar Allan Poe

Published in 1845, The Man of the Crowd by Edgar Allan Poe is a fascinating tale exploring, among other topics, the various ways we can be present in the world and experience the people and life around us.

For such nineteenth century thinkers as Arthur Schopenhauer aesthetic experience is a way to lift us above our everyday concerns, material desires and emotional sufferings to a realm of intellectual contemplation that is most pleasant and freeing. This is, in fact, the narrator’s mindset for the first half of the story when he sits in a coffeehouse in a happy mood, free of boredom, with clear-headedness and a sense of exhilaration so that “Merely to breathe was enjoyable.” He has been feeling calm and keenly interested in his cigar, his paper and the people in the coffeehouse for some time when he turns his attention to the coffeehouse window and the mass of humanity pounding the pavement outside.

Listening to his account, it’s as if he is a spectator sitting in his box at the theater, watching the play of everyday urban life where the actors are men and women from London’s social classes and cultural strata, top to bottom. The narrator categorizes and describes in colorful detail the appearance of decent business-types, haggard clerks, pick-pockets, gamblers, dandies, military men, peddlers, beggars, invalids, young girls, the elderly, drunkards, porters, coal-heavers, organ-grinders, laborers and monkey-exhibiters.

Then, when night descends and the gas-lights turn on, as if in answer to the shifting light, the narrator shifts his focus from overall physical appearances and clothing to an examination of individual faces. We read, “Although the rapidity with which the world of light flitted before the window, prevented me from casting more than a glance upon each visage, still it seemed that, in my then peculiar mental state, I could frequently read, even in that brief interval of a glance, the history of long years.”

Perhaps his "peculiar mental state" is heightened intuition from his prolonged aesthetic experience, but, whatever it is, as he looks out the coffeehouse window, the narrator thinks he can read an individual’s life history by momentarily viewing his or her face.

Then, something unexpected happens: the narrator sees an old man between sixty-five and seventy, an old man who’s face is so arresting and absorbing and idiosyncratic, the narrator feels compelled to leave his seat at the window and follow him down the street. Will he learn more about this old man with a face that prompts ideas of such things as vast mental power, of triumph, of blood-thirstiness, of excessive terror?

The narrator is certainly willing to sacrifice his calm, happy mood and enjoyable breathing to find out. We read, “I felt singularly aroused, startled, fascinated. Then came a craving desire to keep the man in view – to know more of him. Hurriedly putting on an overcoat, and seizing my hat and cane, I made my way into the street.” So, it’s bye, bye happy, relaxed contemplation; hello, craving desire and psychological fascination.

And here we follow the narrator as he experiences an entirely different way of being in the world, a totally different way to experience life and observe people. The mindset he adopts is intriguing, mainly the attitude of a private detective trailing a suspect with a tincture of flâneur, that is, an explorer and connoisseur of the street.

The narrator’s excitement and inquisitiveness is heightened; he is willing to race through London streets for hours, even the dangerous and dilapidated East End and even in the rain. Poe writes, “The rain fell fast; the air grew cold. Down this, some quarter of a mile long, he rushed with an activity I could not have dreamed of seeing in one so aged, and which put me to much trouble in pursuit.”

The narrator relays his many observations and judgments about the old man of the crowd as he follows his path for hours and hours, until the rising of the sun the next day. Now, that’s headstrong fascination! Ultimately, the narrator doesn’t like what he discovers and concludes for such as the old man of the crowd, he can learn no more.

What I personally find fascinating is Poe’s penetrating insight that our intention and focus and mindset radically alters our perception; how, when we shift from calm philosophical to aroused and desirous, we are, in a very real sense, encountering a different world. What an altered experience the narrator of this tale would have had if, after putting on his hat and coat and running from the coffeehouse, he couldn’t locate the old man. What a dissimilar world he would have seen if he reverted to his calm, aesthetic contemplation, randomly and casually strolling London’s streets.