History

Smith is inspired by the character of the same name, who appears in Edgar Allan Poe’s 1839 short story “The Man That Was Used Up”. Poe’s Smith is an American-Indian War veteran, who turns out to be the user of many artificial body parts, including a prosthetic leg, arm, bosom, hair, eye, and palate. He’s also the user of a wig, false teeth, and artificial shoulders. Despite the number of prosthetic devices he uses, he appears impressively handsome and commanding to the narrator up until the latter sees Smith without his prostheses attached. Poe’s story explores what it meant to live in a world with rapidly improving technologies, which promised to replace (in appearance and function) missing body parts. See chapter 3 of Ryan Sweet’s free 2022 book Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture.

Backstory

An army General gravely injured in the American Indian Wars. He uses many artificial body parts.
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