The Plot of “The Gold Bug”

“The Gold Bug” is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe that follows the adventure of William
Legrand, a man who becomes obsessed with finding a buried treasure. The story begins with
Legrand showing his friend, the narrator, a strange bug that is made of solid gold. Surprised by
Legrand’s discovery, the narrator helps him search for the treasure that he believes the bug is
taking them to. The two men, along with Legrand’s servant Jupiter, start a journey to find the
treasure, encountering various obstacles and clues along the way. As they get closer to their
goal, they must decipher a cryptogram that will take them to the location of the treasure. In
the end, they successfully find the treasure and Legrand becomes a rich man. However, the
story takes a surprising turn when it is revealed that the gold bug was not actually taking them
to the treasure, but was simply a coincidence. The true treasure was found through Legrand’s
intelligence and perseverance, showing that sometimes the greatest treasure is within oneself.

The Plot of “The Gold Bug”

One day, the narrator went to visit his friend William Legrand, a man who had no family and
lived in a small wooden cottage on Sullivan’s island with his servant, Jupiter. When he got to
the cottage, there was nobody so he decided to light a fire and wait for them to come. Legrand
and Jupiter came back and they told him they had found an unusual bug. He couldn’t show it
to him because he had given it to Gray to study it but he could draw it on a piece of paper he
had also found on the beach while fishing. As it was late and dark, the narrator went closer to
the fire to see the drawing more clearly. He saw that the insect had a pattern of a skull but he
also saw some writing in red ink. It was strange. He told William about it and from that
moment on, he didn’t speak a word. So, the narrator came back home to Charleston.

About a month later, Jupiter came to see the narrator to town. He was saying that William was
sick and behaved strangely. He also had a note for the narrator.
The narrator and Jupiter went to the island immediately. There William showed him the gold
beetle and explained that he had studied the bug and the paper and they were clues to find
something very important. So, they started a journey following those clues until they got to a
tall cliff. Jupiter had to climb a tall tree and found a skull. He had to drop the bug into the left
eye of the skull and when the bug fell to the ground, they measured fifty feet from the tree.
Once they got there, Legrand stopped and started digging. First, they found human bones, old
coins and finally a wonderful treasure – gold and silver coins and beautiful jewels. Exhausted
but happy, they took the treasure to the island. They were now rich. The next day, Legrand
told the narrator how he knew about the treasure. He had paid attention to the old paper and
he had decipher the code and understood the message. Each number represented a letter. He
had started with the number 8, which appeared 41 times, and the letter E is the most common
letter in the English language. He also understood the pictures of the skull (a pirate symbol)
and the goat (Captain Kidd’s name – the word for a young goat is a KID).