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The Lotus Eater

“The Lotus Eater” by W. Somerset Maugham is the story I chose to share with you.
This story is set on an Italian island named Capri. It all began when the narrator visited a friend on this island.
We are not told much about the narrator but we realise his friend was a close acquaintance of a man called Wilson, who is the main character of this short story. Through a first conversation between the unknown narrator and his friend we learn about the peculiar life story of this man, Wilson, who moved to the island after he had fallen in love with it when he had visited it during a holiday some years before.
Wilson’s heart-rending story was on everyone's lips on Capri. Of course, each islander put their own gloss to the story. Everybody aired their views on the matter even though nobody was pretty sure of its validity. The narrator was bowled over by Wilson’s personal life so he decided to meet with him so as to find out whether all people’s comments were true or just hearsay.
Ok, I won’t keep you in this nail-biting suspense. I’ll go straight to the point - Wilson’s particular life story.
Wilson gave up his hectic and humdrum life as a bank manager in London and decided to live a life of pleasure and leisure on Capri. His wife had died of bronchopneumonia. They had had a child who was brought up by Wilson’s mother-in-law after the child’s mother had died. Eventually the child died because of blood-poisoning. Wilson put the blame on his mother-in-law for not looking after the child properly. We learn through his own statements that he had little affection for his family.  As it says in the story:  “…all so peaceful and beautiful, I said to myself, well, after all, what should I go back? It wasn’t as if I had someone dependent on me. My wife had died… and the kid went to live with her grandmother. She was an old fool, she didn’t look after the kid properly … and she died.” “I was cut up at the time, though of course not so much as if the kid had been living with me”. His life was a kind of selfish existence.He never even wondered whether leaving his daughter alone with her grandmother was a good decision because he only cared about his own happiness.He wanted to live for himself.
He traded a life of dull and monotonous routine in London for an ordinary and easy life on Capri.  All he wanted was carefree days far away from the daily grind of his work. As Wilson himself says: “All I had to look forward to was doing the same old thing day after day till I retired on my pension. I said to myself, is it worth it? What’s wrong with chucking it all up and spending the rest of my life down here? “ “… All the time I was working I kept thinking of the bathing here and the vineyards and the walks over the hills and the moon and the sea…”. His plan was to live for twenty-five years on Capri on the money he had saved; he had bought an annuity to last twenty-five years and then he was going to commit suicide, but he ran out of money before planned. So, he borrowed sums of money not to pay what he owed but to continue his life of enjoyment. When things became worse because of his impossibility to pay the rent, he tried to commit suicide. He lit a fire at home and he locked himself there, but he failed. He didn’t die. As a result, he was not in complete possession of his faculties; he became a sort of insane. Wilson continued living in this condition for 6 years until he finally died. His death was not so horrible; he died naturally; apparently in his sleep.
The narrator doesn’t make his death so miserable because Wilson died watching what he loved the most-the breathtaking landscape of Capri and its beautiful sea.
I believe this story clearly depicts a man who had not a great love of life. He didn’t care dying because he felt he had done everything he had to. However, he always neglected his primary duty: to look after his daughter. He was egocentric and self-serving.  He was not interested in other people’s lives, not even his family’s life but his own. He didn’t mind quitting everything and starting living a life of his own. He didn’t dote on his family. He was constantly pointing out their failings without accepting his own.
It seems to me that love does not only imply feeling love for oneself and caring about oneself but also caring for someone with devotion. Wilson was indifferent to his family. He only cared about his well-being and happiness. Quite consciously, he set his sights on his joy of life despite having to shirk his duties and responsibilities. He was a self-centred person.
However, at the end of the story we learn that he didn’t even love himself. A person who decides to end with his own life doesn’t have dignity or self-respect.

"The Use of Force"

The first short story I chose to read is called “The Use of Force” by William Carlos Williams. It’s a story about a doctor who visits the house of a sick child named Mathilda. Her parents are nervously concerned since the girl has had a fever for three days. They know their daughter's life depends on him. Yet, the doctor realises they do not trust him much because of the way they look at him. He knows he has a duty to perform so he ignores their attitude and, as soon as he arrives at the room where his patient is, he starts trying to examine her. But the stubborn girl refuses to allow the doctor to touch her. As the doctor fears that she is suffering from a serious illness, he makes his best to examine the uncooperative child. No matter how much Mathilda misbehaves he is determined to discover the girl’s health problem. This situation turns into a sort of battle in which the doctor becomes forceful as he tries to see Mathilda’s throat while the girl continues to resist with all her strength. Eventually, the doctor is able to see that the girl has a serious infection throat disease and now he knows how to cure her.

Personally,  when I read this story I was moved by the doctor’s determination to cure the little girl. This story made me think that doctors need more than knowledge to do their work. They not only need to have a sense of love for their fellow man but also a sense of responsibility, respect and care for others. Many times the life of other people is on their hands and they have to be really committed to their work, as was the doctor in the story, in order to save their lives. Furthermore, doctors also need to be very patient so as to deal with different kinds of people with different personalities. In “The Use of Force” the doctor has to cope with Mathilda’s parents’ distrust, as they did not believe that he would be able to help them, and with Mathilda’s misbehaviour. In spite of these complications, the doctor performs his duty with his best manners and he is finally able to discover the girl’s problem.

Lastly, I believe that we do not only have to be polite with our fellow men, we have to love them and be willing to offer our help to them. In this society, we all have to help each other, no matter how unfamiliar some people may be. They need us as much as we need them.  

Love in "The Lottery".

The first short story I’ve chosen is called “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson. The story takes place in a small village in the present time. Villagers gather once a year in the main square to hold a lottery where the “winner” does not win money but is stoned to death as a kind of sacrifice to obtain a good harvest. Although villagers seem to be nervous, especially when the moment of announcing who the winner is comes, and some of them believe the lottery should be cancelled, they see the event as something common and natural.  Even the winner’s own family and friends pick up stones in order to kill him or her.

The story is really shocking. It made me think that sometimes love is not enough in our world. The situation presented in the story has been taken to an extreme, because sacrifices in fact took place in some civilizations in the past and the person sacrificed was killed not by all the members of the community but by a priest or some kind of special authority, for example. However, in this story even those strongly connected to the victim by kinship or friendship have the right and the obligation of throwing stones to him or her. So I paid special attention to the characters that represent Tessie Hutchinson’s (the victim) family: her husband Bill Hutchinson and her three children, Bill Jr., Nancy and little David (who is even given a few pebbles to stone his mum) participate in the lottery of course and do not hesitate at stoning her own wife and mother. These characters show that love sometimes looses the battle against authority and violence. In my opinion, neither a good harvest nor authority are reasons to harm a person I love. Violence is never the path to obtain a benefit.

The story is a kind of metaphor which shows the inhumanity present in our lives and a dramatization of the pointless violence. Tessie’s family allows brutality and hostility to kill the love they feel for her. Of course, as I said before, this situation has been taken to an extreme and there is not good reason to make a person I love suffer. But isn’t it true that we sometimes behave aggressively if we get angry with those we love? Don’t we have arguments, verbally attack and shout to friends and family? Is there a point in acting violently if we can solve our problems peacefully?

In our world, as in the story, love is sometimes not enough – violence is stronger.