Post #1: The Role of Alcoholism in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym

A major theme of Poe's writing as a whole has been the struggle of alcoholism that is often found in many of his characters. In The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, it runs rampant among the characters, and is highlighted in a few different ways within the first six chapters in varying degrees of intensity. In the first chapter, during the tale of Pym and Augustus' first sea outing, the two were so drunk that it almost cost them their lives. While it seems Pym was sensible enough, he didn't realize that his friend was beyond any reasonably sober state. He theorizes that he was in a extreme state of intoxication, "a state which, like madness, frequently enables the victim to imitate the outward demeanor of one in perfect possession of his senses." (Chapter 1) This particular instance was for the most part ignorance on Pym's part for trusting that Augustus was sober enough to sail the boat, but the event leads to one that that the story thus far has alluded to, the connection of alcohol to the possibility of death. This connection is seen in two other occasions during the mutiny aboard the Grampus. The first is the constant threat of the mutineers. In most instances the mutineers are referred to as drunk after they have taken the boat and Augustus feel extremely fearful of his life in case one of the mutineers decided he wasn't needed anymore. The other is during Pym's last ditch effort to survive while in his "prison" of a hold. After narrowing surviving an attack from his childhood dog, Pym has almost no will to move on. He merely has a "gill of liqueur" left to survive. (Chapter 3) In his final push to escape, he drinks the rest of his alcohol knowing that if he couldn't contact Augustus now, he would probably die.

It's interesting to note how close Poe brings the concepts of death and alcoholism together, considering the writer was an alcoholic himself. He was known to treat alcoholism as a disease rather than a social defect and it is very clear in other works of his, such as "The Black Cat," that Poe believes alcoholism can lead to the downfall of good men, as it can deteriorate any good in them to worst those people could be. It doesn't seem to go to that extreme in Pym's story, at least for the main characters, but it does exist in the book in the form of the possibly lunatic mutineers that don't include Dirk Peters.

(I must apologize for the lack of page numbers. As I have the digital versions of most of the books, my page numbers seem to be somewhat off from the rest of the class and would be useless to others.)