Thou Art the Man

"Thou Art the Man", originally titled "Thou Art the Man!", is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1844. It is an early experiment in detective fiction, like Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", though it is generally considered an inferior story. The plot involves a man wrongfully accused of murdering his uncle Barnabas Shuttleworthy, whose corpse is missing. An unnamed narrator finds the body, suspects the victim's good friend Charles Goodfellow, and sets up an elaborate plot to expose him. The corpse appears to come back to life and points to the best friend, exclaiming "Thou art the man!" The title and the climactic line refer to the second Book of Samuel and also echo a line from the "Great Moon Hoax". Plot summary In the town of Rattleborough, the wealthy Barnabas Shuttleworthy goes missing. His nephew and heir is accused of murdering him and is arrested. Soon after, Shuttleworthy's good friend Charles Goodfellow receives a letter from a wine firm informing him that shortly before his disappearance, Mr. Shuttleworthy had ordered a case of "Chateau-Margaux of the antelope brand, violet seal," Goodfellow's favorite vintage, to be sent to him. Mr. Goodfellow arranges for a party to break open the new wine. But when the narrator (a denizen of Rattleborough and acquaintance of Shuttleworthy and Goodfellow) pries open the case, there is no wine. Instead there is the decaying corpse of Mr. Shuttleworthy, who looks to Goodfellow and somehow utters, "Thou art the man". The terrified Goodfellow confesses to killing Shuttleworthy, after which he immediately drops dead, with the exonerated nephew set free. It turns out that the narrator had orchestrated this gruesome turn of events. Suspecting Goodfellow all along, the narrator discovered that Goodfellow had framed the nephew. He also managed to find Shuttleworthy's corpse on his own, and knowing that his efforts would not be effective without a confession, he forged the letter from the firm, and sent the "case of wine" himself to Goodfellow. The corpse's voice was provided by the narrator himself, employing his ventriloquism skills. Publication history "Thou Art the Man" originally appeared as "Thou Art the Man!" and was credited as being written "by Edgar A. Poe" in the November 1844 issue of Godey's Lady's Book.