In Artificial Paradis, Baudelaire writes this about hashish: “Amateurs who wanted to obtain at all costs the magical delights of this substance continued to seek the hashish that crossed the Mediterranean... that is to say, hashish made from Indian or Egyptian hemp” (15). Only hashish from the "Orient", that is to say from most of Asia and North Africa, is sufficiently intoxicating for Baudelaire, who finds freedom in the relaxation of borders physical and mental effects produced by hashish. In Confessions of an English Opium Eater, De Quincey describes the equally pleasant feelings that opium created in him. Ultimately, however, Baudelaire's use of this substance goes too far and ends up destroying him. De Quincey has alarming nightmares about the intimidating Orient and also succumbs to drugs. The men's accounts of their drug use both address the concept of the "borderline" between sobriety and drunkenness, the European and the Oriental. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayThe origin of psychoactive substances was essential for European users, especially upper-class and educated users. Baudelaire writes that hashish “possesses such extraordinary intoxicating powers that for several years it has attracted the attention of scholars and men of the French world. It is more or less valued according to its various regional origins” (36). The potency of Oriental hashish almost seems to come from the strangeness of the land where it is grown, as if there were something innately intoxicating in the oriental soil, water, air, or other admixture. to the cultivation process, which cannot be scientifically established. replica. There is no other way to explain how French society, which in Baudelaire's eyes was at the world summit of scientific and cultural progress, could fail in all its national attempts to cultivate strong hashish. Baudelaire establishes a clear contrast between Europeans and Orientals. De Quincey does the same in the description of his nightmares about the Orient. He writes that he is "terrified by the ways of life, by the manners, and by the barrier of utter horror and lack of sympathy, placed between us by feelings deeper than I can analyze." I could rather live with madmen or brutal animals” (81). Comparing the Malay who comes to her cottage with the English servant who opens the door, De Quincey comments that “there seemed to be an impassable gulf between all communication of ideas” (62). The incredible power of these psychoactive substances therefore lies in their ability to bridge this “unbridgeable chasm”. The only common language De Quincey and the Malays share is the gift of opium De Quincey gives him. It seems that Baudelaire and De Quincey must constantly declare the existence of a fundamental barrier between Europe and the Orient, because the crossing of this apparently impassable border justifies the powerful and supernatural effects of psychoactive substances. Baudelaire, one of the key effects of hashish intoxication is its ability to play with conventional boundaries. In addition to rigid cultural and national boundaries, these substances can also cross the boundary that in sober living seems even more impenetrable, that between the outer world and the inner sense of self and body. Baudelaire states that under the influence of hashish “you forget your existence, to the point of confusing the objects of your senses with the objects of the real world” (51). He talks about becoming a tree, or a bird, or disappearing into thin air. For Baudelaire, this fantasyromance appears to be a positive experience. The transgressive power of hashish fits well with the fascination with irrationality that characterized the Romantic movement of Baudelaire's time. There is a liberation in being able to see the world in a way that is not governed by the boundaries of sober experience. Hashish can enable the mind to arrive at new methods of processing with the goal of discovering new truths about experience that are unachievable through rational thought. What Baudelaire describes as liberation, however, comes alarmingly close to what De Quincey describes as tyranny and oppression. There is an infinitesimally fine line between freedom and slavery, between intoxicating and toxic, and according to De Quincey, crossing that line is desperately inevitable. The border crossed by the consumption of opium which troubles De Quincey is that between waking and dreaming. De Quincey never really seems to wake up once he starts having nightmares. These nightmares are filled with his anxious conception of what he imagines to be the overwhelming horrors of the Orient, an amalgam of Egyptian, Chinese, Indonesian beasts, plants, gods, pyramids, coffins, furniture and people. and Indians. De Quincey writes that “a sympathy seemed to arise between the waking and dreaming states of the brain” (75). His visions “were driven by the fierce chemistry of my dreams, into an unbearable splendor that tormented my heart” (75). Although it horrifies him when figures like the Malay seem to haunt his dreams, what is more horrifying is that his dreams come to haunt his waking life. This sacred boundary, drawn from the start with such determination by Baudelaire and De Quincey to separate the European experience from the Eastern world, is now crossed by something more than the simple opium of pleasures. It is acceptable when the barrier is crossed by psychoactive substances. Indeed, the powerful and pleasant intoxication of hashish or opium seems to come from substances that have crossed this barrier. However, when something other than Europeans associate with the Orient enters European life, whether it is the plague or the labyrinthine visions of De Quincey, the breakdown of the border is not only unacceptable , it is threatening and even potentially deadly. De Quincey sees the Orient as extremely aggressive. He seems to experience the visions passively, whipped from terror to terror. Even inanimate objects pose a threat as tables and sofas transform into vicious crocodiles. In his dreams and during his waking hours, opium made him, he writes, “helpless as a child” (74). The oriental aggression revealed in his dreams reveals something larger about the fascination with orientalism that permeated European society in the 19th century. By declaring a well-established notion of the "other" and erecting an impassable boundary between European society and the Eastern world, Europeans were able to project onto the Orient many of their own less than admirable traits and thus seemingly rid themselves of these defects, because not all L'Oriental is, by definition, European. In the 19th century, it was undoubtedly the Europeans who were the aggressors, not the Orientals. It seems that Europeans had no problem crossing the East-West border, as long as it was done on their own terms. European colonial desires were immense. In the 19th century, there were three Anglo-Burmese Wars, two Anglo-Afghan Wars, two Opium Wars, and two Anglo-Sikh Wars, all of which involved British forces invading and vying for control of Asia. Viewing the Eastern world as aggressors helped justify the invasion,..