“Actively Caring for Mankind Since 1866”: Nineteenth-Century Medicine, Pain, and the Worker’s Body in Season 1 of Severance

This chapter draws upon the history of nineteenth-century medicine and points out a parallel between diethyl ether, which was used as an early anesthetic to numb the pain of dental extractions, surgeries, and childbirth, and the show’s twenty-first century severance procedure, which promises to shield employees from physical, psychological, and emotional pain. Although the severance procedure poses unique ethical problems different from ether anesthesia, in future seasons, Lumon executives could frame the severance procedure as a natural progression for the company, as an extension of Kier’s “caring,” altruistic legacy, and as a medical innovation that, like anesthesia, may be feared and criticized in the beginning only to transform people’s relationship with pain forever. Despite the rhetoric of “care” that permeates Lumon Industries in Season 1, the company is actually in the business of inflicting pain--at least on its innie employees. The final section of this chapter provides a close reading of several scenes from Severance to explore the physical, psychological, and emotional pain Lumon inflicts upon its workforce.