SUNY Geneseo Department of Computer Science
Tuesday, February 11
Intd 105 13, Spring 2014
Prof. Doug Baldwin
Thanks for the ethics essays; don’t forget to come discuss them with me by next Monday (Feb. 17)
In pairs, write a one paragraph “position statement” identifying some aspect of the story you consider highly interesting or important, and why
In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Gold Bug there were several parallels to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story The Adventure of the Dancing Men. Besides the focus on cryptanalysis in both stories, the position of the narrator was vital in the flow of both plots. In both stories solving the cipher began with determining the most common letter or symbol and asserting that it was actually the letter ‘e’. Furthermore both narrators in the stories were passive, neither of them really contributed to the plot. Watson, in The Adventure of the Dancing Men, never really questioned Sherlock’s thought process or actions throughout the course of the story. Instead Watson sat off to the side and simply observed. In The Gold Bug the unnamed narrator also did not contribute a ton to the plot of the story. They simply went along with what Legrand wanted. The only difference being between the narrators was the narrator in The Gold Bug was more skeptical of Legrand’s actions. The narrators’ passive voice allowed for the story to flow without much conflict.
One highly interesting aspect was the skull. Not only did Legrand draw a picture of the bug, which the narrator says looked like a skull, but the skull became an image that would foreshadow an infamous pirate treasure. The place of the skull and where the gold bug was dropped, was a key give away for the place of the buried treasure! - Molly and Kyle
One thing that struck us was the similarity between the ways that Holmes and Legrand got started on solving their respective codes. Each used the frequency of the letter “E” as the first step in their process of breaking a code.
The biggest difference between the two was that there was no spaces in the cipher in “The Gold-Bug” while there was a man with a flag marking the end of each sentence in “The Adventure of the Dancing Men.”
It was interesting to see how the codes took over all aspects of Holmes’ and Legrand’s lives. They each spent all their waking hours working to decipher their code until it was cracked. Although Legrand became a little more consumed with his code, they both were determined not to break until it was solved.
Each of our code breakers also happened to have a right-hand man looking after them through their obsessions. Each helper (Watson and Jupiter) worried for the sanity of their respective friends.
McKenzie Prunier and Andrea Labunski
An obvious similarity between “The Gold Bug” and “The Adventure of the Dancing Men” was that the characters used frequency analysis to attack substitution ciphers. To start, both realized that the most frequent letter in the cipher was E because that is the most common letter in the English alphabet. However, it was more difficult for William Legrand in “The Gold Bug” because the characters in the cipher were not separated into words. He couldn’t use small words as clues to break the code.
Another interesting point was how different the messages were. In “The Adventures of the Dancing Men”, the messages from Abe Slaney were threats to Elsie while in “The Gold Bug” the messages were hints to the location of buried treasure. The dancing men characters were examples of steganography and meant to be discovered. It was fascinating how the messages in “The Gold Bug” were discovered by accident when the parchment was exposed to heat from the fire. The discovery of the cipher happened only by coincidence.
Laura Mattison & Alex Cerio
In “The Adventure of the Dancing Men” and “The Gold Bug,” the main characters solve substitution ciphers which result in positive outcomes in both scenarios. In the case of the Dancing Men, Hilton and Elsie would both have been harmed, but justice wouldn’t have been brought to Slaney if it weren’t for the message being deciphered. In “The Gold Bug,” they wouldn’t have found Kidd’s treasure. In both cases, deciphering the message resulted in a positive outcome. What could be generalized from this is that although ciphers in and of themselves are meant to deceive others, sometimes when solved, they can be beneficial to those who the cipher was intended to deceive.
Erica Kosmerl & Jonathan Kee & Naomi Iwamoto
We thought it was interesting how Edgar Allen Poe portrayed Jupiter throughout the entirety of the story. Based off of the way that Legrand treats Jupiter, he is portrayed as someone of lower status, such as a slave or servant. Legrand had threatened Jupiter to smash his head, break his neck, or give him a lashing if Jupiter did not climb the tree with the gold bug. Although Jupiter was loyal to his master, he feared being around the gold bug because he had seen first-hand how it caused his master to go crazy with emotions and greed. Seeing as how Legrand knew this was a source of fear for Jupiter, Legrand continued to force him to do things that he did not approve of, demonstrating his lower status. Poe used stereotypical speech for Jupiter when he spoke, showing Jupiter’s lack of intelligence and education. His intelligence was also insulted when Legrand had asked Jupiter to place the string with the gold bug in the right eyeball of the skull. This showed that Legrand did not believe that Jupiter could decipher the difference between his right and left.
Sarah Pray and Becky Brien
In both The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe and The Adventures of the Dancing Men by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, there is an element of madness in association with encrypted messages. In The Adventures of the Dancing Men the characters that are driven mad are Elsie and Hilton Cubitt. Elsie is driven mad because of the threatening nature of the encoded messages that she is receiving as well as by the presence of the dancing men, while her husband Hilton by his inability to understand the messages, therefore preventing him from protecting his wife. In The Gold Bug William Legrand also appears to show characteristics of madness. Upon being bitten by the Gold Bug, he becomes obsessed with searching for gold. Although this madness is not directly caused by an encoded message, it is what causes the characters to stumble upon the code.
Adam Strumpf and Katie Tharrett:
Mr. William Legrand and Sherlock Holmes share many characteristics. They are both very confident in themselves and were both able to solve their respective ciphers. Legrand, however, seemed much more obsessed when trying to uncover the mystery of the gold bug compared to Sherlock Holmes whom was comparatively much more laid back about the mystery of the dancing men. Watson and the narrator in “The Gold Bug” share many characteristics as well. In both stories, they serve as witnesses to the solving of the mystery. The narrator in “The Gold Bug” however plays a more active role in the story , as well as generally being more skeptical of Legrand than Watson ever was of Holmes.
Ooha Kambhampati & Sarah Kowalski
In the “The Gold Bug” Legrand found a golden bug with a strange pattern on its back. It had three dots arranged into a triangle. Originally Legrand was only intrigued by the bug, but eventually become possessed. This is parallel to “The Adventure of the Dancing Men” in that Elsie also became obsessed and worried about the messages she found. Another similarity was that Mr. Hilton worked his way into Elsie’s life the same way the narrator worked his way into Legrand’s life. They worked their way in to try to help the other person out. Both also included codes to decipher. It was somewhat confusing in “The Gold Bug” when Legrand was bitten by the bug. At first it seemed as though they thought he was actually bitten, and had actually been infected by some sort of disease. Later on though it seemed as though he may have actually been “bitten” by the thought of the gold and treasures as he thought more about where he found it.
Discussion of ideas from paragraphs
Race in “The Gold Bug”
Read the discussion of 19th century portrayals of African Americans at http://black-face.com/