William Somerset Maugham’s ‘the Lotus Eater’

Q: Sketch the character of Thomas Wilson. Is the name ‘lotos-eater’ proper to him? Ans. William Somerset Maugham’s convincing short story ‘The Lotus Eater’ paints his inquisitive gathering with Thomas Wilson, the vital character of the story. A resigned English bank director, Wilson, who made the Italian island Capri his own residence, had a decent arrangement of gossip going about him. No devotee of all the gossip that went about him on the island and somewhere else, the creator met him actually to find his genuine character. At the point when the writer met him just because, Wilson, a moderately aged individual, had just gone through fifteen years on the island. As Wilson himself uncovered to the creator, he experienced passionate feelings for Capri from the outset sight. Capri was an island of magnificent sights and sounds to such an extent that Wilson would appreciate them generously until the most recent day of his life. After his retirement, he lived on an annuity that was to keep going for just a quarter century, and he wished to live these years to his heart’s content. He was a man who might live in the current thinking minimal about what's to come. To Wilson, he had legitimate motivation to live apparently trying to win over his affections, since he had none on earth to stress over. He adored nature, music and books, which alone could take care of the musings of a forlorn man like him. He favored recreation to work, for he accepted that individuals worked uniquely to get relaxation. Little miracle, after the expiry of his annuity, Wilson fell on most exceedingly awful days and lost the resolve to convey his life any further. Without any would like to live for, Wilson once made an endeavor to end it all. In spite of the fact that he endure the human endeavor, he was no longer in his correct psyche. At that point one decisive morning, he was discovered lying on the mountainside with his eyes shut for ever. The creator reviewed Wilson saying that he had gone to the island on a twilight night. Thus, he expected that Wilson had inhaled his last while devouring his eyes on an amazing sight in the twilight. It is significant that the title of the story ‘The Lotus Eater’ is astoundingly proper to the character of Wilson. The lotus eaters in Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ were the sailors of Ulysses who overlooked their companions and homes in the wake of expending the ‘lotos’ plant on Lotus-land. Having devoured the plant, the sailors broke into a vital melody. The chorale worded the anguish that accompanied drudge, as additionally the delight that they had in that ecstatic existence of recreation and inaction.