Reading Poe¡¦s ¡§The Purloined Letter¡¨ The central concern in reading Poe¡¦s ¡§The Purloined Letter¡¨ lies in the very purloined letter in question: how it is displaced from its assigned origin and, since ¡§a letter always arrives at its destination¡¨ as Lacan believes, how it must be redirected back to its proper end. The purloined letter might then be seen as the ¡§center¡¨ of the story ¡§The Purloined Letter,¡¨ and the whole narrative a …showed first 75 words of 909 total…

…showed last 75 words of 909 total…odd,¡¨ and his effort ends with copying into the blank card prepared for the Minister certain words from a play. Dupin thus begins with a play that defies the binary scheme of thought and ends with another play, a tragedy about revenge that is the archetype of endless repetition. Bearing this in mind, we can say that the purloined letter might finally arrive at its destination, but ¡§The Purloined Letter,¡¨ ending with endlessness, does not.