The Lotus Eater

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The Lotus Eater is a short story written by Somerset Maugham in 1945.

It is also track no.3 of progressive metal/death metal band Opeth's album "Watershed".

[edit] Analysis

The irony in this story is that Wilson traded a life of boring routine in London for an equally mundane life in Capri. However, this irony is only on the part of everyone else except Thomas Wilson, for he enjoyed his life on Capri thoroughly. What is definitely sad, is that he lived a wonderful 25 years of pleasure and ended the last 6 living like a wild animal. Somerset's stories are often rich with ironies, as well as other subtle lessons about human nature. Wilson's choice to leave his London life behind in exchange for a life of leisure on Capri is at once awesome as well as tragic. It is awesome because it resonates with every young traveler who has gone abroad and marvelled at the comparison between some wonderful new place and the routine dullness of his familiar life at home but it is also tragic because he did not provide himself with enough funds to live well into his natural time of death. In this, Somerset reveals the downfall of making such hasty decisions such as the one Wilson made. If Wilson had carefully planned his retirement from his banking job, saving enough money in the process, the last 6 years of his miserable life might well have been avoided.