by Derek Johnson

Created on: November 04, 2008

The effects of drugs play a large part in the novels Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, The Moonstone and The Sign of Four because England was such an important player in the 19th Century global drug trade. Opium was imported from India and China and grown in England. Cocaine would become a popular mind-altering substance by the end of the Victorian era. Thomas De Quincey, narrator of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, is an indolent, proud and arrogant student who studies the Latin and Greek languages and classic literature. He drops out of school and lives as a street person because he seeks adventure. It is opium however, that is the key ingredient to the novel that gives him his pleasure and it's the true narrator of this novel because it controls De Quincey's life: "Not the opium-eater, but the opium, is the true hero of the tale; and the legitimate centre on which the interest revolves." (Thomas De Quincey, 69) De Quincey assures the readers of the novel that he is uniquely qualified to discuss opium in such a detailed way but that's only because he's so addicted to it. Opium has taken over him because of its euphoric effects: "here was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered: happiness might now be bought for a penny" (De Quincey, 34) which alludes to the cheap price of the drug. De Quincey found the answer to all of his life's problems, even though they were really very few, and it came in the form of opium. De Quincey's salvation lied in the drug and this is a direct connection to the wonders the drug opium did for Ezra Jennings from The Moonstone.

Ezra Jennings is invaded by opium and his physical and mental capabilities become much more limited because of the drug. In The Moonstone, the character of Ezra Jennings shows how drugs can overcome a man and destroy his sense of security. At first, just like De Quincey, Jennings is in love with the drug, it gives him all of the comfort and pleasure he lacks. Jennings gives into the drug because of his addiction, and like all addictions, his life starts to crumble. When he goes to sleep, his nightmares tear him apart mentally: "The vengeance of yesterday's opium, pursuing me through a series of frightful dreams. At one time, I was whirling through empty space with the phantoms of the dead, friends and enemies together. At another, the one beloved face which I shall never see again, rose at my bedside, hideously phosphorescent in the black

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>