Thomas De Quincy's Confessions Of An English Opium Eater

“At that moment, when the world around him melted away, when he stood alone like a star in the heavens, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of icy despair, but he was more firmly himself than ever.” (Chapter 4, Page 41, Paragraph 2)

Mr. Frazer plays his radio every night while he is at the hospital. Even though his escape from reality is based around an object, it is still his opium. “But Seattle he came to know very well...He lived in Seattle from two o’clock on, each night, hearing the pieces that all the different people asked for, and it was as real as Minneapolis...Mr. Frazer grew very fond of Seattle, Washington” (480). Mr. Frazer’s radio allows him to travel to different places without having to leave since he is unable to. He learns to listen to his radio “without thinking” (480). Escape starts to become an addictive thing, just like an opium drug, and it transforms into something that will soon obscure him completely from the real world.

This caused in him a feeling in which he had never felt before, and thus inspired him to new things to get himself more aquatinted with God:

"It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being; all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct. A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses. By degrees, I remember, a stronger light pressed upon my nerves, so that I was obliged to shut my eyes. Darkness then came over me and troubled me, but hardly had I felt this when, by opening my eyes, as I now suppose, the light

“Now he, too, felt belatedly for once in his life that strongest and strangest of passions; he suffered from it, suffered pitifully, and yet he was blessed, and yet he was in

"I was no longer scared. I could see what was inside me." Chapter 3, pg. 69

faces were distorted with terror.”(ch2, pg 20-1) The author is drawing a sharp mental image of

During the 19th century, China transformed from a prosperous economic center to a weakened country in a system controlled by Great Britain, largely due to the opium trade. Prior to Europe’s industrial revolution in 1800, China had little need for products from other countries, and participated sparingly in world trade, while Europe borrowed China’s ideas and inventions to gain a financial foothold. But in the 19th century Britain introduced opium into the Chinese market, setting off a chain of events that lead to the Opium Wars, which along with the opium trade sapped China’s economic strength. Nevertheless, she persisted, and in 1907 China passed a law that blocked the opium trade once and for all and took out Britain’s system of power within

227).? He never articulates his real fears, but implies them ?loose and dreamlike.? As if the act of mention suspicion of drug use was a calamity in itself.

In Adam Barton’s film, The Stoned Ages (2011), researches the historical use of drugs and the institutional response upon the use of drugs by the masses. The Stoned Ages (2011) exposes an overwhelming discovery of drug use by people of ancient times and a connection of persistent patterns world-wide. Human beings have been in pursuit of expanding psychological capabilities from the beginning of human evolution (Barton, 2011). Social advancements depicted in The Stone Ages (2011), have derived from the use substances such as psychedelic mushrooms, during ancient rituals; permitting individuals to communicate with sacred Gods. Barton (2011) also discovers the use of drugs among Ancient Greek politicians as well, illustrating the wide use of drugs among people around the world and therefore theorizing the concept of drug use as an element of human behavior (Barton, 2011). According to Marc-Antoine Crocq’s (2007) research article summarizing the existence of drug use throughout the history of human-kind; “Schematically, psychoactive substances have been used (1) in religious ceremonies by priests; (ii) for medicinal purposes; or (iii) massively, as staple commodities, by large segments of the population in a socially approved way” (Crocq, 2007). Explained in Barton’s (2011) documentary however, the use of drugs had dire consequences caused by elitists’ hunger for power; Christians forbade the use of drugs with severe tactics of enforcement and lethally persecuting those who

The opium problem in China during the nineteenth century was primarily viewed as an issue created by foreign traders bringing opium into their empire. Zhu Zun and Xu Naiji wrote memoranda in 1863 elucidating their diverging view to the government on how to combat the issue of opium use and trade. Xu advocated for the relaxing of anti-opium laws as a means of reducing illegal smuggling, while Zhu contends that more stringent enforcement of anti-opium laws is the preferable policy, which Commissioner Lin supports in his edict to foreign traders.

The Civil War was a time period of four years in which the confederacy and union fought over the abolishment of slavery. The Civil War began on April 12, 1861 and ended on May 9, 1865. The president of the confederacy was Jefferson Davis, and their capital was Richmond, Virginia. The president of the Union was Abraham Lincoln, who gave his famous Gettysburg Address speech on November 19, 1863. In the spring of 1865, General Robert E. Lee of the confederates, surrendered their last major army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. In the Battle of Gettysburg, there were approximately 51,000 casualties, and throughout the war, there were approximately 620,000 deaths. There were many diseases and wounds that would have been treated differently now due to our advancements in the medical field, but for this time period there were different precautions and surgical procedures taken to heal their wounded. James Longstreet’s children, an unnamed man, and General Kilrain Buster had different wounds or diseases that affected them greatly.

It is a common trope to say that an addict becomes a “different person” when he consumes his particular poison. “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is the story of an addict whose inebriated self just happens to have a different name. It does not matter what the solution he drinks for his transformation is supposed to represent, whether alcohol, opium, heroin, or some other substance—he checks off every box for addictive and self destructive behavior. There can be no clearer interpretation of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” than that it is a polemic against the prevalent usage of drugs and alcohol in England at the time of its writing.

Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief--oh, no!--it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night . . . the terrors distracted me. (122)

Opium- an addictive drug originally used as a painkiller. It is obtained from the unripe seeds of the opium poppy and can be made into substances that a person can smoke causing relaxation, alleviated anxiety, and a state of euphoria. Continued use of the drug also induces deterioration to the mind and body of a person eventually causing death. The substance was therefore stated illegal in China during the late 18th Century yet consistently smuggled into the country via British merchant ships. As the Chinese placed more restrictions on trade in an effort to abolish the importation of opium, the battle against the drug raged on until war was unavoidable between England and China. It is this war that lasted from 1839-1842