Both Uses of
glutton
in
Black Like Me
- Existence becomes a grinding effort, guided by belly-hunger and the almost desperate need to divert awareness from the squalors to the pleasures, to lose oneself in sex or drink or dope or gut-religion or gluttony or the incoherence of falsity; and in some instances in the higher pleasures of music, art, literature, though these usually deepen perceptions rather than dull them, and can be unbearable; they present a world that is ordered, sane, disciplined to felicity, and the contrast of that world to theirs increases the pain of theirs.†
gluttony = an instance or habit of consuming too much -- especially eating and drinking too much
- Would they see the immense melancholy that hung over the quarter, so oppressive that men had to dull their sensibilities in noise or wine or sex or gluttony in order to escape it?†
*
Definitions:
-
(1)
(glutton) someone who consumes more than they should -- especially eating and drinking too much
The expression: "a glutton for punishment" refers to someone who persist in some activity despite negative consequences (as though loving the punishment)
The expression: "a glutton for whatever" refers to people who like whatever a lot -- such that "a glutton for sunshine" loves sunshine. -
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Gluttony is an instance or a habit of eating or drinking like a glutton.
Much more rarely, glutton can reference a kind of wolverine in northern Eurasia.