The man of the crowd by Edgar Allan Poe – comparison to Pessoa’s fragment

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Man of the Crowd” (1840) is about seeing and reading, but not only. Still, these two actions are dominating in the story.

The author describes one’s man efforts to read another man, who happens to be a denizen and therefore a representative of the modern urban environment. The story could be seen as an example of how important is to observe the urban landscape and to read its signs.

The décor is quite simple- the narrator during his convalescence was sitting in the bow window of a coffeehouse, in London. He alternately was reading a newspaper and was observing the surroundings both within and without. The narrator is a beholder of the show of life in London. He is very confident in his ability of reading the crowd on the basis of external signs. He is like a detective looking for something that means his attention is very sharp, but also he is very calm, he is not actually living the life of the city, he is just watching it.

Poe’s narrator is just an observer. By having the narrator alternate reading his newspaper with observing the crowd, Poe parallels the two activities and emphasizes their similarity. Comparing the act of gazing through a window with reading a written text, Poe compared the acts of seeing and reading.

On the other hand, Pessoa’s narrator, in this short fragment is not just an observer of the others’ lives; he is an observer of his own life, of his own reactions into the crowd. He describes his own feelings of fear and insecurity, which are very real because he experiences them. He is not just a watcher; he is an active participant of the crowd’s life.

Pessoa’s character is afraid of the crowd, he is afraid of losing himself into it. For him the crowd is powerful and he needs to cling on someone in order to pass through it. He is like a little child who seeks for protection and understanding.

At the beginning, Poe’s narrator is confident in himself, he is not afraid of the crowd, because he is just a beholder; he doesn’t participate on the life beyond the shop window. His condition of being convalescent gives him a much sharper look over the things. Usually an intelligent person put in such a passive condition of being ill and then convalescent become much more attentive at others’ reactions. He can’t be active with his body, but his mind is very active. Looking from without the events he has a different perspective.

Poe was in part inspired by the so called pseudo sciences of physiognomy and phrenology in creating his narrator’s ability of read the character of people in a crowd.

Observing the streets, both literally and figuratively, was becoming a matter of reading. The contemporary figure of the sandwich man reinforced the similarity between reading written texts and reading a person. Overall, "The Man of the Crowd" reflects what Poe saw as a new period in the relationship between word and image. Centuries before, the written word had taken precedence over the visual image, but in this new period the written word was beginning to take on the qualities of an image.

I would say that both narrators (of Poe and of Pessoa) are the two faces of the same coin, in other words taking both experiences, that of observing and that of living the life of the crowd, the reality can be completed. Actually, in a life time, we are one by one observer and participant and that gives as the whole view.

But Poe’s narrator doesn’t remain just an observer, he impulsively decides to follow a man in the crowd- a suspicious old man, and in the process spends an entire night winding through the various quarters of London.