Poe was the first American short-story writer. Others had written
stories that were short, but he was the first to recognize the
short-story as having a form and an aim all its own. Moreover, he
was willing to admit the public to his laboratory and to explain
his process, for he discounted inspiration and emphasized
craftsmanship. In "The Philosophy of Composition" he declares that
every plot "must be elaborated to its denouement before anything
is attempted with the pen. It is only with the denouement
constantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensable air
of consequence, or causation, by making the incidents and
especially the tone, at all points, tend to the development of the
intention." He also tells us that he prefers beginning with an
effect. Having chosen, in the first place, an effect that is both
novel and vivid, he decides "whether it can be best wrought by
incident or tone," and afterward looks about "for such
combinations of events, or tone, as shall best aid ... in the
construction of the effect."
In view of such explanations, it is interesting to study "The Gold
Bug" and to see how well the plot has been worked out and the tone
established. It is doubtful whether in this story the plot meant
to the writer what it means to the reader. The latter likes the
adventure with its ingeniously fitted parts, each so necessary to
the whole. But after the gold has been found--and that is the
point of greatest interest--the story goes on and on to explain
the cryptogram. This, no doubt, was to Poe the most interesting
thing about the story, the tracing of the steps by which the scrap
of parchment was deciphered and reasoned upon and made to yield up
its secret. As to the time and place, the strange conduct and
character of Legrand, the fears and superstitions of Jupiter, and
the puzzled solicitude of the narrator--all these aid materially
in establishing and maintaining the tone.