William Somerset Maugham’s ‘the Lotus Eater’

Q Sketch the character of Thomas Wilson. Is the name lotos-eater appropriate to him? Ans. William pass Maughams compelling short humbug The Lotus Eater paints his funny meeting with Thomas Wilson, the pivotal character of the story. A retired English depose manager, Wilson, who made the Italian island Capri his experience abode, had a good deal of dish the dirt going slightly him. No believer of all the tittle-tattle that went about him on the island and elsewhere, the author met him personally to discover his real character. When the author met him for the foremost time, Wilson, a middle-aged fellow, had already spent fifteen years on the island.As Wilson himself revealed to the author, he fell in love with Capri at commencement sight. Capri was an island of superb sights and sounds so much so that Wilson would en comfort them heartily until the make it day of his life. After his retirement, he lived on an annuity that was to last for alone twenty-five years, and he wishe d to live these years to his hearts content. He was a man who would live in the present caring diminutive about the future. To Wilson, he had justifiable reason to live after his own heart, since he had none on earth to worry about. He love nature, music and books, which alone could feed the thoughts of a lonely man bid him.He preferred leisure to work, for he believed that people worked only to engender leisure. Small wonder, after the expiry of his annuity, Wilson fell on worst long time and lost the will-power to carry his life any further. With no hopes to live for, Wilson formerly made an attempt to commit suicide. Though he survived the mortal attempt, he was no longer in his right mind. Then one smutty morning, he was found lying on the mountainside with his eyeball unsympathetic for ever. The author recalled Wilson saying that he had come to the island on a moonlit night.Hence, he assumed that Wilson had breathed his last while feasting his eyes on a breath-taking s ight in the moonlight. It is noteworthy that the title of the story The Lotus Eater is remarkably appropriate to the character of Wilson. The lotus eaters in Homers Odyssey were the mariners of Ulysses who forgot their friends and homes after consuming the lotos plant on Lotus-land. Having consumed the plant, the mariners broke into a memorable chorus. The chorus worded the anguish that came with toil, as also the joy that they had in that blissful life of leisure and inaction.