The Man Who Was Poe resembles a play, with its events taking place in discreet scenes such as Edmund's room and the cemetery; each setting serves as a stage, limiting the action to its boundaries. Within each setting are clues to be discovered. At first it is the mysterious Dupin (Poe) who spots the important details and interprets them, but the logic he uses seems to be a habit of thinking, because Edmund picks up on it and eventually is able to identify clues and make some conclusions of his own. Organizing The Man Who Was Poe as if it were a drama gives the novel a strong you-are-there tone, with characters and clues standing out in high relief from scene to scene, making the settings and people easy to visualize.