De QUINCEY, commentaire de texte pp.78-80.
This excerpt is the closing passage of The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, and
therefore it logically belongs to the last section of the book, “The Pains of Opium”. It follows the
description of the five recurrent dreams made by de Quincey under the influence of opium.
This conclusion to the narrative seems very short, and indeed, just before the passage we are
interested in, the author apologizes for not developing it, supposedly for want of space. And yet, it
seems striking that the narrator, who has depicted thoroughly the painful dreams springing from the
use of opium, should not detail the pains he suffered through the detoxification process. What is at
stake here is the throwing off of the habit and the reassertion of the self, not as a collapsed or
shattered being, but as one able to regain a sense of happiness.
It seems quite relevant as well to notice that, although the first half of this passage is
addressed to “the reader” in general, the last half is directed at opium-eaters.
After studying the account of the effects, as opposed to the process of detoxification, we will
focus on the author’s rejection of his former self, the opium eater and the final attempt to regain a
state of happiness, and reassert the self.
1. An account of the effects, as opposed to the process of detoxification.
What must first be underlined is the lexical field used to describe both the opium and the
practice of opium-eating in this passage, refering to physical and moral pains: QUOTE torment and
tortures are repeated twice each. The emphasis seems to be laid on the total absence of pleasures
derived from what has become an addiction and not recreational drug-taking.
While DQ described thoroughly both the circumstances which led to his taking opium and the
slow process which culminated with his addiction and the nightmares resulting, it seems strange that
the steps taken in shaking off the habit should be reduced to a mere sentence: l.21-23. It also seems
particularly surprising that the narrator should insist so much on his ignorance as far as his
consumption is concerned: l.16-21. This may hint at a lack of sincerity on the behalf of the
autobiographer, especially since, throughout the narrative, he constantly underlined how much opium
he was taking at specific times of his life. The exact solution, the path DQ underwent to triumph of this
addiction, is therefore hidden from the reader, but what is described in a little more detail are the
effects of this detoxification, and especially the bodily effects.
The accumulation of adjectives, describing the consequences of detoxification, suggests a
tormented state of both body and mind, and the rapid pace of the sentence mimicks the intense
physical pains, and this feeling of restlessness: l.26-27.
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The same way DQ silenced the steps taken to overcome the habit, he does not provide the
reader with any medical details. It seems rather paradoxical that one who should insist on his lack of
space should spend 7 lines explaining why he does not wish to give a medical overview of his
situation. QUOTE. What seems to govern this excerpt is therefore a reluctance to deliver information,
coupled with unexpected digressions.
2. A rejection of the author’s former self, the opium-eater.
One of the striking aspects of this narrative as a whole, which is also typical of
autobiographies, is the relationship between the author and the alleged extra-diegetic reader. DQ
seems, throughout his narrative, to establish a distinction between three types of readers, the scholar,
the opium-eater and the common reader, whom he rarely addresses.
However, the last half of this excerpt seems exclusively dedicated to the opium-eater part of
his readership, which seems in keeping with the didactic goals he expressed in the introduction, in
which he wished his narrative to be both “useful and instructive” (p.1). While the narrative seemed
composed of alternatively didactic or illustrative parts, this last excerpt proves different in the sense
that DQ distinguishes himself from the opium-eater he was, and underlines that the circumstances
which led him to throw off his opium-eating habit may not apply to others (“I had motives external to
myself which he may unfortunately want”, ll.47-48). He relates his own experience, but appears to
denigrate the fact it could be a universal example; his experience is but a very personal one. It seems
striking that DQ fails to mention the events of his personal life which led him to quit opium-eating: l.11,
l.47. This elusivenes may remind the reader of the narrator’s former reluctance to reveal his personal
reasons for wanting to go to Westmorland. This refusal to give any precisions undermines the
universality he wished to begin with.
DQ also distances himself from his former self, which appears clearly in the shift from the
pronoun “I” to “he”: “some people (...) will persist in asking what became of the opium-eater and what
state he is now, I answer for him thus” (ll.1-3). We may also notice the absence of the indefinite
pronoun to be found in the title: the narrator does not appear as one amongst others, but as a
singular being, thus a collection of personal experiences. In the same way, the narrator alludes to
himself as “the author” (l.11). This seems to emphasize a feeling of rejection towards the episodes of
his life recounted in the narrative. Perhaps this external, retrospective and seemingly objective view
on the former self is intended to shed any feelings of guilt which may remain.
The whole paragraph addressed to the opium-eater seems quite relevant as regards the
distinction made between what the author is now and what he used to be: the pronoun “I” is opposed
to “he”, which occurs no less than 5 times in a dozen lines. This highlights the wish to obliterate any
confusion between the “new self” and the “former self”.
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This appears contradictory with the rest of the narrative, as the constant references to other
works of literature for example aimed at re-establishing the opium-eater as part of a community, the
scholars, and not be estranged, marginalized. Therefore it seems that, once the opium-eating habit
shaken off, the new self does not feel the need to insist on his belonging to the bulk of mankind.
3. A final attempt at redemption.
The rejection of the former self also appears as a way to sever the new self from the feeling of
guilt the opium-eater must have suffered. This feeling of guilt transpires through the Christian
allusions to be found in this excerpt. The process of detoxification is assimilated to a rebirth as a new
man, which explains the drastic dissociation from the opium-eater. Death and birth are put on a
similar level of pain, l.51, but what eventually accounts for the choice made by the opium-eater to quit
his habit is that detoxification represents a final attempt to regain a sense of happiness QUOTE l.10.
DQ insists on his being “happy” once he quit opium-eating: QUOTE.
The process of shedding the habit seems similar to purgatory, with all the physical and moral
tortures it entails. This passage through purgatory is necessary for the author to consider himself a
Christian again. And indeed the insistance on the fact that he is not in a dejected state (l.25) is a way
of reasserting his faith. The word is printed in italics which highlights its importance. As a matter of
fact, a good Christian i.e. one who has faith, does not have the right to fall into despair, which is a
form of sin, and which is equivalent to losing one’s faith in God. The word dejected itself implies a
state of mind, a movement contrary to that of resurrection. The shift from the former opium-eating self
to the new happy self occurs through physical sufferings: l.53-54. This description reminded me of the
shift from dr jekyll to mr hyde in stevenson’s novel. Physical rebirth is accompanied by high spirits.
Moreover, the proliferation of the pronoun “I” QUOTE reasserts the existence, the stability of the self,
a unity which has been achieved and which is in keeping with DQ’s metaphor of being a born-again
Christian.
However, the advent of the new man, this sort of paradise regained so to speak is undermined
by the ultimate statement of the narrator, in the last paragraph. Indeed, the persistence of the
dreams, under no influence from opium, overshadows the otherwise positive conclusion. This shadow
is somewhat minimised by the use of expressions such as QUOTE. The hope of an eventual
complete serenity transpires throughout those lines, and yet it seems of paramount importance that
DQ chose to close his confessions with a quote from Milton’s Paradise Lost. The degradation of the
fallen angel may be mirrored by the physical and moral degradation of DQ. QUOTE.
CONCLUSION:
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What dominates this passage is the sense of TRIUMPH over opium. This triumph is but
relative, as it is hinted at in the last paragraph, and as will be confirmed in Suspiria, but what stands
out is the individual, personal quality of the experience which is confirmed by the massive intrusion of
the pronoun “I” and the reluctance to communicate any information which might actually be useful to
another. This conclusion definitely belongs to the chapter “The Pains of Opium”, as sufferings, both
physical and moral, lie at the core of this passage, albeit sufferings which give birth to a new man, a
renewed assertion of the identity of the self, which had been shattered by the use of opium.
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