Comment on the plot of the short story entitled "The Lotus Eater."

Comment on the plot of the short story entitled "The Lotus Eater."

Like many of Maugham's other short stories, "The Lotus Eater" is a study of an unusual character he claims to have met in his travels. Thomas Wilson is a very ordinary Englishman who falls in love with the Isle of Capri and the Bay of Naples and decides to spend the rest of his life there. He is able to afford an annuity which pays him enough to rent a cottage, buy his food, and have his landlord's wife clean and cook for him. He is thirty-five years old when he begins his stay on the island. The annuity is good for twenty-five years.

The attraction of an annuity is that it works a bit like reverse life insurance; it pays higher than simple interest because the company can make a big profit off annuity holders who die prematurely. It is noteworthy that Somerset Maugham took a big interest in money matters. "The Verger," for example, is about a man who saves up 30,000 pounds and invests in opening tobacco stores in London. "The Luncheon" is about precisely how much it costs a man to take a woman to luncheon at an expensive Parisian restaurant.

Thomas Wilson obviously intends to kill himself when his annuity runs out. The narrator, Maugham himself, is curious about what will happen to the man, but doesn't find out until years later that when the time came to commit suicide, Wilson failed at one attempt and then, after an unpleasant near-death experience, couldn't bring himself to try again.

"It's not so easy to kill yourself," I said. "For a very long time, Wilson had lived an easy life. He had not had to make any decisions. When the time came to make a decision, he was unable to do anything."........................................................................................................

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