Thomas De Quincey’s Gusto: Desires Unfulfilled
My original primary interest about “Confessions of an English Opium Eater,” by Thomas De Quincey, was to learn whether or not the author deprecates the behavior of taking opium— not only am I unable to conclude the answer to this question when finishing reading the book, but also at least fifty percent of Confessions, I found, depicts De Quincey’s early life, mostly unrelated to opium. Even when it comes to opium eating, he often circumvents the effects of opium on his own body and tends to describe more about the moral afflictions that attack his mind as a result of the bad early-life experiences. Many scholars, thus, consider Confessions to be an incomplete work. For instance, Clarke maintains …show more content…
“Like Wordsworth, with whom he shared numerous ideals and opinions, De Quincey both chronicled the details of his life and sought to explain the abstract principles responsible for his personal art,” especially with an emphasis on his early love and suffering of starvation (Shilstone 20). For Wordsworth, his “feeling in youth that identifies” himself “with Nature” is responsible for his adulthood dream to go back to Nature, which was not completely fulfilled, as he lived torpidly in the cities for a long time (Hazlitt 312). For De Quincey, similarly, his love for Ann and those sufferings at an early stage are responsible for the “phantasmagoria of his dreams, (waking or sleeping)” (De Quincey 9). De Quincey wishes to talk with Ann again and wishes to help out the poor, which he could not do much to help, so that these wishes haunted him like nightmares. On the other hand, even though both the title, “Confessions of an English Opium Eater,” and De Quincey’s claim, that the opium “is the true hero of the tale,” appear to prove that opium is the author’s central concern, the book continues to stray away from it to discuss the previous topics on love and sufferings (De Quincey 98). Function of opium cannot be the major theme, because, first, De Quincey’s attitude on it is …show more content…
As I stated, it is difficult to know whether De Quincey encourages us to have opium or not, but since it is illegal to trade opium nowadays, this information is hardly beneficial to us. In light of other morals, however, there are two useful ones, as illustrated by the dreams of Ann and the poor. The author’s regret for being unable to find Ann again will always remind us to keep a close eye on those we dearly love, since human relationship “gain by being brought nearer” to us (Hazlitt 137). More importantly, the author’s sympathy for the vagrants has influenced me in such a way that I felt a “sudden restoration of its original sensibility to the stomach” (De Quincey 107): When I arrived back at Oxford at midnight last Sunday, from a trip to Snowdonia, I stopped in front of a beggar, who was mocked by some other pedestrians, to listen to his story. He confessed that he just came back from a hospital and needed a hostel to live in; but not entirely trusting his story, I gave him three pounds and left. From a long distance away, I then observed that another young man went to meet him, and they left together. I remained perplexed, because if the other man helped this man out, I am morally guilty because I could have helped him out earlier, but if not, I might have
My original primary interest about “Confessions of an English Opium Eater,” by Thomas De Quincey, was to learn whether or not the author deprecates the behavior of taking opium— not only am I unable to conclude the answer to this question when finishing reading the book, but also at least fifty percent of Confessions, I found, depicts De Quincey’s early life, mostly unrelated to opium. Even when it comes to opium eating, he often circumvents the effects of opium on his own body and tends to describe more about the moral afflictions that attack his mind as a result of the bad early-life experiences. Many scholars, thus, consider Confessions to be an incomplete work. For instance, Clarke maintains …show more content…
“Like Wordsworth, with whom he shared numerous ideals and opinions, De Quincey both chronicled the details of his life and sought to explain the abstract principles responsible for his personal art,” especially with an emphasis on his early love and suffering of starvation (Shilstone 20). For Wordsworth, his “feeling in youth that identifies” himself “with Nature” is responsible for his adulthood dream to go back to Nature, which was not completely fulfilled, as he lived torpidly in the cities for a long time (Hazlitt 312). For De Quincey, similarly, his love for Ann and those sufferings at an early stage are responsible for the “phantasmagoria of his dreams, (waking or sleeping)” (De Quincey 9). De Quincey wishes to talk with Ann again and wishes to help out the poor, which he could not do much to help, so that these wishes haunted him like nightmares. On the other hand, even though both the title, “Confessions of an English Opium Eater,” and De Quincey’s claim, that the opium “is the true hero of the tale,” appear to prove that opium is the author’s central concern, the book continues to stray away from it to discuss the previous topics on love and sufferings (De Quincey 98). Function of opium cannot be the major theme, because, first, De Quincey’s attitude on it is …show more content…
As I stated, it is difficult to know whether De Quincey encourages us to have opium or not, but since it is illegal to trade opium nowadays, this information is hardly beneficial to us. In light of other morals, however, there are two useful ones, as illustrated by the dreams of Ann and the poor. The author’s regret for being unable to find Ann again will always remind us to keep a close eye on those we dearly love, since human relationship “gain by being brought nearer” to us (Hazlitt 137). More importantly, the author’s sympathy for the vagrants has influenced me in such a way that I felt a “sudden restoration of its original sensibility to the stomach” (De Quincey 107): When I arrived back at Oxford at midnight last Sunday, from a trip to Snowdonia, I stopped in front of a beggar, who was mocked by some other pedestrians, to listen to his story. He confessed that he just came back from a hospital and needed a hostel to live in; but not entirely trusting his story, I gave him three pounds and left. From a long distance away, I then observed that another young man went to meet him, and they left together. I remained perplexed, because if the other man helped this man out, I am morally guilty because I could have helped him out earlier, but if not, I might have