The Hashish Eater · Chapter
Down with the Tide explained
The narrator struggles with hashish addiction, attempting to abandon the drug after intense suffering.
What happens
The narrator struggles with hashish addiction, attempting to abandon the drug after intense suffering. He initially succeeds with the support of friends and divine strength, but the spiritual pain of withdrawal—torpor, loss of connection to nature, and flashes of remembered ecstasy—drives him back to the drug. He resolves to taper his doses gradually, reducing from a drachm to ten or fifteen grains daily, and resumes hashish in secret. He experiences renewed glory and tranquility, but also heightened sensitivity and a dangerous temptation to reveal his state during an oratory session, where he hallucinates a transformed, animated cityscape.
Themes in this chapter
Addiction and Emancipation
The narrator's failed attempt to quit hashish and his gradual tapering strategy illustrate the struggle between dependence and freedom.
Suffering and Redemption
The spiritual torpor and flashes of lost beauty represent suffering, while the hope of gradual renunciation hints at redemption.
Visionary Experience and Imagination
Hallucinations of China and animated houses demonstrate the visionary power of hashish even at reduced doses.
Characters to notice
- The Narrator
Struggles with withdrawal, returns to hashish gradually, and hides his relapse from friends.
- Hashish
The drug that the narrator battles against and ultimately resumes in reduced doses.
Key passages
“For days after the last-mentioned suffering I adhered sacredly to my vow. Fortified by the sympathy of my friends, nerved by the images of a fearful memory, staying myself on the Divine, I battled against the fascinations of the drug successfully.”
For several days following the previous ordeal, I faithfully kept my promise. Supported by my friends' compassion, strengthened by terrifying recollections, and relying on God, I managed to resist the drug's allure.
Describes the narrator's initial successful abstinence.
“I returned to hashish, but only when I had become hopeless of carrying out my first intention—its utter and immediate abandonment. I now resolved to abandon it gradually—to retreat slowly from my enemy, until I had passed the borders of his enchanted ground, whereon he warred with me at vantage.”
I went back to hashish only after losing hope of quitting completely and immediately. I then decided to withdraw slowly, retreating step by step from the drug's spell until I could escape its power.
Explains the narrator's shift to a gradual withdrawal strategy.
“I was assailed with every possible temptation to laughter and to open amazement. At the very commencement of my walk, for the first time in several months I was in China. All the roofs turned up at the corners, and amorphous dragons flaunted in red, green, and gold from their peaks.”
I was bombarded with urges to laugh and gape in wonder. Right at the start of my walk, I found myself in China for the first time in months. Roofs curved upward at the corners, and shapeless dragons displayed themselves in bright colors on the peaks.
Describes the hallucinatory experience during the oratory walk.