The Man That Was Used Up

Edgar Allan Poe 1848 ( daguerreotype )

The Man That Was Used Up (subtitle: A Tale of Late Bugaboo and Kickapoo Campaign , German : "A consumed man. Anecdote from the last Bugabukickapunic wars") is the title of a satirical short story by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe , which he wrote in August Published in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in 1839 and added to the Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque collection in 1840 .

A nameless first-person narrator typical of Poe's stories is able, after some difficulties, to discover the secret of a highly decorated brigadier general .

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A friend introduces the narrator to John ABC Smith, a “dashing fellow who is said to have done heroic deeds in many battles . With his “head hair” that would have “honored” a Brutus, the symmetry of the chest, the shoulders that would have put Apollo to shame, and the pleasant voice , he seems to be the ideal of a man.

He notices that the hero moves with a certain stiffness and “right-angled precision”, which, with such an outstanding personality, does not seem affected or forced, but rather appropriate. The friend suggests that the "Desperado" is popular with the ladies because of his daredevil nature, begins to whisper and is about to explain more when the general interrupts him and a conversation develops. He proves to be a pleasant cause with outstanding general education, even if he does not go into details of the battles, drifts into the philosophical and extensively extols the achievements of technology and the latest inventions .

After the conversation, the narrator has become curious and meets various friends and acquaintances from whom he expects further information. They all praise Smith, curse the Indians, long-windedly extol the inventive age, but hint at a terrible fate for the general. No matter how hard the narrator tries to finally find out details, he does not succeed, because they always evade, throw in other names or are interrupted.

When the fourth attempt also fails, he goes to the source himself to solve the “wicked secret”. He stands in front of the door early in the morning, but is first shown into the bedroom by the valet Pompey, as the hero is still busy with the morning toilet. He looks around and sees only a "strange-looking bundle-something" on the floor. In a bad mood, he kicks it to the side. Then the bundle begins to speak with a squeaky voice and complains about the less civilized behavior. Horrified, he stumbles back and watches as the soon-to-be summoned and insulted servant put together the creature from cork legs, glass eyes, other parts and a wig , which soon turns out to be General Smith. You don't have to "fight with the Bugabus and Kickapus if you want to get away with just a scratch". After he has also received his artificial palate , he stands in front of him in old splendor and can again sound his melodic voice.

Biographical and political background

Lieutenant General Winfield Scott, 1861

With the title of the story, Poe probably alluded to the Whig Party's campaign slogan "Van, Van, is a used-up man", which was directed against American President Martin Van Buren , whose term in office was shorter than the costly Second Seminole War . He was initially Vice President under Andrew Jackson , who had participated as Commander in Chief in the Indian Wars and supported the Indian Removal Act .

In addition to criticizing progressive and materialistic positions, Poe's satire presumably targeted the long-time General Winfield Scott , who had participated in the fighting against the Indians . The veteran of the British-American War later took part in the Mexican-American War and Civil War, was acquainted with Edgar and his foster father, John Allan, and was highly regarded at the time.

During Poe's time as a sergeant in the artillery regiment , his superiors were so satisfied with his performance that they were ready to promote him to sergeant major on January 1, 1829 . Although he was proud to have reached the rank so quickly, he could not rise further under the military statutes and sought an early release, for which he needed the consent of his foster father. But he was initially not ready to comply with Poe's undiplomatic wish. Later, Poe had two officers persuade him not to give up his military career. They advised him to apply as a cadet for the West Point Military Academy in order to move up the hierarchy. So Poe turned to Allan again and asked him to go to US Attorney General William Wirt and General Scott for a recommendation. The late reply was both disappointing and shocking. Poe learned that his foster mother, Frances Allan, was dying and that he should go to Richmond . A specimen copy of the book of poems Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems with a personal dedication was later found in Winfield Scott's library .

details

The word " Kickapoo " in the subtitle refers to an Indian tribe against which the hero claims to have fought and which Poe also briefly mentioned in his story The Business Man , published in 1840 . With "Bugaboo" turn is mumbo meant a bogeyman who like the bogeyman (Bogeyman) a baseless fear to symbolize.

Liliane Weissberg points out the manageable number of literary figures in Poe's narrative work. In addition to the devil , who often appears - for example in the satire The Duc de L'Omelette - the "negro valet" and slave "Pompey" (Pompey), who lets the narrator into the house in this story, is striking. A little later the general impatiently summons him, the " nigger " should finally give him his artificial teeth and hurry up. Pompey is a "negro-servant" companion of Signora Psyche Zenobia in the originally coherent satires How to Write a Blackwood Article and A Predicament (In a bad fix - the scythe of time), while the name in the story The Business Man is used for a dog . In Weissberg's view, this indicates a significant use of the figure of the black , which can also be recognized in other works. In his novel The Report of Arthur Gordon Pym, for example, the “negro” appears as a frightening stranger and in the short story The Gold Beetle he speaks a dialect that is difficult to understand .

Burlesques and satires

The short story shows a side of Poe that is relatively unknown, as his name is mainly associated with the horror , adventure and science fiction stories , including The Downfall of the House of Usher and The Black Cat , A Story from the Rough Mountains and The Premature Burial , the effects of which appeal to the reader immediately. An important area of ​​his work, which received comparatively little attention by critics , can be described as satirical, burlesque and parodistic . In addition to The Man That Was Used Up , The Duc de L'Omelette , König Pest and A Tale of Jerusalem also count among the burlesques.

The “arabesques” and “grotesques” cannot easily be distinguished from one another, especially since Poe himself did not clearly distinguish the terms and both define the character of his oeuvre , which can be classified as “bizarre” and “surprising” as well as “original” and "Imaginative". Of his early five contributions to the Philadelphia Saturday Courier , only his first story, Metzengerstein, is an arabesque that points to the later great horror stories , while the remaining four belong to the burlesque. Despite these delimitation difficulties, certain traits can be worked out for Poe's burlesque and satire. One of them is the development of a fraud that is discovered in the course of the story. In addition to the many puns and ambiguous idioms, another characteristic is his bizarre figure drawings, often animal-like and crippled , with which he parodied the romantic and Gothic horror literature .

Compared to the horror stories , the satires and burlesques often require extensive background knowledge of the literary tastes of the time and other details in order to be understood, which led to their comparatively low popularity. If one examines Poe's early work, it is noticeable that he renounced the coarse humor after 1838 and dispensed with many obscene and insulting allusions and intrusive tirades in his revisions.

Web links

Wikisource: The Man That Was Used Up (original English text)  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

1. ↑ After Hedda Eulenberg's satire had been translated into German under the title The Artificial Man and published by JCC Bruns in 1901, Hans Wollschläger translated it again , who in addition to Arno Schmidt also translated Poe's other works into German. It appeared in 1966 in the edition of Walter Verlag edited by Hans Dieter Müller and Kuno Schuhmann and was entitled: A consumed man: The subtitle was: Anecdote from the last Bugabukickapunic war. The Haffmans Verlag followed this issue verbatim.
2. ↑ Quoted from: Edgar Allan Poe: A consumed man. In: Edgar Allan Poe, Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume II. The Fall of the House of Ascher. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 20.
3. ↑ Quoted from: Edgar Allan Poe: A consumed man. In: Edgar Allan Poe, Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume II. The Fall of the House of Ascher. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 21.
4. ↑ Edgar Allan Poe: A Consumed Man. In: Edgar Allan Poe, Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume II. The Fall of the House of Ascher. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 29.
5. ↑ Edgar Allan Poe: A Consumed Man. In: Edgar Allan Poe, Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume II. The Fall of the House of Ascher. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 29.
6. ↑ Edgar Allan Poe: A Consumed Man. In: Edgar Allan Poe, Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume II. The Fall of the House of Ascher. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 30.
7. ^ Liliane Weissberg : Edgar Allan Poe. Metzler, Stuttgart 1991, p. 5.
8. ^ Frank T. Zumbach : EA Poe - A biography. Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf 2007, p. 51.
9. ^ Frank T. Zumbach: EA Poe - A biography. Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf 2007, p. 162.
10. ^ Frank T. Zumbach: EA Poe - A biography. Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf 2007, p. 200.
11. ↑ Kuno Schuhmann: Notes on A consumed man. In: Edgar Allan Poe: Der Fall des Ascher , Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume II. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 409.
12. ↑ Kuno Schuhmann: Notes on A consumed man. In: Edgar Allan Poe: Der Fall des Ascher, Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume II. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 409.
13. ^ Stephen Peithman, The Annotated Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Avenel Books, New York 1986, p. 568.
14. ↑ So in the translation by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger
15. ^ Liliane Weissberg: Edgar Allan Poe. Metzler, Stuttgart 1991, p. 72.
16. ^ Liliane Weissberg: Edgar Allan Poe. Metzler, Stuttgart 1991, p. 70.
17. ^ Liliane Weissberg: Edgar Allan Poe. Metzler, Stuttgart 1991, p. 71.
18. ^ So Henning Thies: Kindlers New Literature Lexicon. Volume 13, Edgar Allan Poe, The Duc de L'Omelette. Munich 1991, p. 478.
19. ^ Henning Thies: Kindlers New Literature Lexicon. Volume 13, Edgar Allan Poe, The Duc de L'Omelette. Munich 1991, p. 478.
20. ^ Liliane Weissberg: Edgar Allan Poe. Metzler, Stuttgart 1991, p. 70.
21. ^ Liliane Weissberg: Edgar Allan Poe. Metzler, Stuttgart 1991, p. 71.
22. ^ So Henning Thies: Kindlers New Literature Lexicon. Volume 13, Edgar Allan Poe, The Duc de L'Omelette. Munich 1991, p. 478.
23. ^ Liliane Weissberg: Edgar Allan Poe. Metzler, Stuttgart 1991, p. 71.