How to see the body beyond its materiality is obviously one of majors preoccupations of Edgar Allan Poe's gothic fiction: "Metzengerstein", "Morella", "Ligeia", "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains", "Mesmeric Revelation" and "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" are some examples. But in his comic grotesque "The Man Was Used Up-A Tale of the Late Bugaboo and Kickapoo Campaign", dark humour and social satire prevail when the bizarre plot focuses on the famous Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith and the protagonist's obsession with "the topic of Smith's personal appearance". This paper intends to develop some observations on the personalities of General Smith and the unnamed narrator. The concept of pathology of adaptation, according Mahmoud Sami-Ali, and Didier Anzieu's structures of narcissistic personality and borderline personality disorder provide the model for this analysis.
Edgar Allan Poe; borderline personality disorder; narcissistic personality