Dark Secrets Theme Analysis

The narrator spends hours people-watching from the window of a London coffee-house, entertaining himself by categorizing passersby according to their class, occupation, and other readily observable traits. But the story takes a darker turn when the narrator begins to follow a strange old man through the streets, imagining that the inscrutable man must have a remarkable history and maybe even a sinister goal in mind. With his bizarre facial expressions and unusual behavior in the crowds, the old man becomes a darkly fascinating figure in the narrator’s imagination, all because of the secrets that the old man is assumed to be keeping. Just like the reader, the narrator believes that he’s getting closer to revealing a dark truth as he follows the old man, but despite the exhausting chase, neither character is really pursuing a destination, but rather fleeing something. This is why the old man “refuses to be alone” though he ignores the people around him; he’s harboring a burden that he can’t bear to acknowledge. Indeed, as he abandons his pursuit, the narrator can only conclude that the old man is “the type and the genius of deep crime”—somehow a personification of humanity’s “worst heart.” Thus, instead of describing the dark side of human nature directly, Poe uses the unresolved pursuit to suggest that people—not just the old man, but perhaps the narrator and even the reader—keep their darkest secrets locked deep within themselves, going to great lengths to avoid them.