Henry Drax’s alcoholism

Henry Drax’s alcoholism is portrayed not simply as frequent drinking but as a compulsion that can take command of his attention and action. In the timber yard, he drinks while waiting to kill Patrick Sumner, but the narration distinguishes the thirst from the immediate plan: the killing has an ending, while the thirst seems without limit. That contrast makes his drinking a recurring force in its own right, one that shapes his behavior even when violence is imminent.

Pattern and Circumstances

The evidence presents Drax drinking in markedly different circumstances. In the attic where Jacob Baxter finds him, empty brandy bottles litter the floor, and Drax is asleep on a metal camp bed. When Baxter wakes him, Drax grumbles before slowly opening an eye. Later, after Baxter explains that Sumner knows enough to threaten their fortune and intends to look for Drax, Drax reaches beneath the bed for a nearly empty bottle and drinks it. The gesture occurs in the middle of a conversation about danger and their shared interests: even as Baxter presses the urgency of the situation, Drax turns first to the remaining brandy.

His drinking also appears as a settled pattern rather than an isolated response to Baxter’s news. In the timber yard, Drax carries brandy in his pocket and returns to it repeatedly. The narration describes occasions when, with money available and the thirst upon him, he drinks continuously for a week, consuming two or three bottles a day or more. The account does not reduce the habit to pleasure, nor does it describe it as a straightforward physical need. Instead, it presents drinking as an impulse that advances on its own terms, making the distinction between wanting and not wanting irrelevant to Drax’s immediate behavior.

The Thirst and Drax’s Conduct

The narrative gives the craving a vocabulary that separates it from Drax’s other motives. As he waits in the timber yard, he recognizes that he will kill that night, but killing is not foremost in his mind. His rage is sharp and finite; the thirst is prolonged and apparently bottomless. This contrast connects the drinking to his violence without treating the two as identical: he has a specific target and plan, but the craving occupies a deeper, more persistent place in his awareness.

That priority becomes clearest when he prepares his revolver. The bullets fall from the cylinder onto the ground, and Drax has difficulty recovering them; he staggers, loses his balance, and must steady himself. He also has vomit in his mouth, which he swallows before drinking again. The episode depicts the practical effects of intoxication in the same scene as his preparation: he has lost a bullet, but counts that as unimportant because four remain and he believes one will suffice to kill Sumner. His physical instability therefore does not end his intention or prevent him from proceeding toward the planned attack. The scene holds impairment and purpose together rather than suggesting that one cancels the other.

Dependence and Narrative Significance

The earlier attic episode and the later wait in the timber yard establish recurrence across separate encounters. In the attic, Drax wakes among empty bottles and immediately finishes what remains within reach. In the yard, the narration broadens that image into a habitual cycle of prolonged drinking, then places it alongside a concrete crisis involving Sumner and Baxter. Together, these scenes present the habit both through observable acts and through the narrative’s description of the compulsion behind them.

Drax’s refusal to take responsibility for the task Baxter wants done also places his drinking inside their strained practical alliance. Baxter says their fortune depends on keeping Sumner from speaking to a magistrate and argues that Drax could be hanged while Baxter could be jailed. Drax answers that he has been drinking all day and tells Baxter to use Stevens instead. When Baxter insists that he cannot trust Stevens with the task, Drax challenges the purpose of paying him. The exchange shows alcohol intersecting with Drax’s usefulness to Baxter: he is being asked to act in a scheme on which both men depend, yet he presents his all-day drinking as a reason to leave the work to someone else. He later takes up the task himself, and the timber-yard scene shows the thirst continuing as he prepares for it.

The resulting portrait is not of a habit neatly confined to private indulgence. Drinking accompanies Drax’s dealings with Baxter, affects his bodily steadiness, and persists into a moment when he is focused on killing Sumner. The narrative’s repeated emphasis on the thirst gives the condition a force of its own, but does not remove Drax’s agency: despite his intoxication, he continues to calculate, handle the revolver, and pursue his chosen course. Alcoholism thus marks both a vulnerability in his capacity to act reliably and a compulsion that coexists with deliberate, consequential action.