# The Man of the Crowd explained — Short Fiction > Chapter companion for Short Fiction by Edgar Allan Poe. ## What happens The narrator, convalescing in London, observes the bustling crowd from a coffeehouse window. His attention is captured by a decrepit old man with a uniquely expressive face, whom he follows through the city's varied districts throughout the night and into the next day. The old man's aimless, restless wandering through crowds reveals a profound inability to be alone, leading the narrator to conclude that he is the embodiment of deep crime, a 'man of the crowd' whose secrets cannot be read. ## Themes in this chapter ### Isolation and Alienation The old man's desperate need to remain in the crowd highlights a profound alienation and inability to be alone. ### The Supernatural and the Gothic The narrator's obsession and the old man's almost spectral, aimless wandering through the city's dark underbelly evoke a gothic atmosphere. ## Character check-ins ### Unknown Narrator The convalescent narrator who becomes obsessed with following the old man through London's streets. ### The Man of the Crowd The decrepit old man whose singular expression and restless wandering through crowds fascinates the narrator. ## Key lines > It was well said of a certain German book that 'er lasst sich nicht lesen'—it does not permit itself to be read. There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Some secrets are so terrible they cannot be revealed, just as a certain German book cannot be read. _Opening epigraph and first lines establish the theme of hidden, unutterable truths._ > How wild a history,' I said to myself, 'is written within that bosom! The narrator marvels at the profound and mysterious story he imagines lies within the old man. _The narrator's fascination with the old man's inner life._ > This old man,' I said at length, 'is the type and the genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone. He is the man of the crowd. It will be in vain to follow; for I shall learn no more of him, nor of his deeds. The narrator concludes that the old man embodies profound criminality and cannot bear solitude, making him the archetypal 'man of the crowd' whose secrets are ultimately unknowable. _The story's central revelation and the narrator's final judgment._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_14_se/chapters/the-man-of-the-crowd - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_14_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_14_se/chapters