Drugs as Literary Theme
Drugs as a literary theme has a rich history in North American literature, with roots tracing back to the early nineteenth century. Initial explorations of drug use, such as opium in the works of Edgar Allan Poe, paved the way for deeper examinations of addiction and substance abuse in the twentieth century. Notable authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway depicted alcohol's prominent role in their narratives, while Eugene O'Neill's plays highlight the complexities of substance use in personal lives. The Beat generation of the 1950s further celebrated drug culture, with writers like William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac intertwining their literary works with themes of individuality and rebellion against societal norms.
As the decades progressed, literature increasingly reflected the social changes surrounding drugs, particularly during the psychedelic era of the 1960s. Authors such as Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary explored the potential for transcendental experiences through hallucinogens, while the 1970s and 1980s saw a rise in narratives detailing the gritty realities of addiction, as exemplified by Hunter S. Thompson's work. In the late twentieth century, memoirs and novels like Denis Johnson's *Jesus' Son* and David Foster Wallace's *Infinite Jest* offered introspective takes on addiction, encapsulating the struggles and complexities surrounding drug use and recovery. Overall, the theme of drugs in literature serves as a lens through which authors examine personal and societal issues related to substance use and its effects on human lives.
Drugs as Literary Theme
The Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
The exploration of drugs in literature is a time-honored subject that stretches backward in North American history at least to the early nineteenth century. The works of Edgar Allan Poe, for example, depict the use of opium in such short stories as “Ligeia,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “Tale of the Ragged Mountain,” published in the late 1830s and early 1840s. It was not until the twentieth century, however, that drugs, particularly their use and abuse, became a mainstay in literature. Alcohol is prominent in the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, ranging from Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) and Tender Is the Night (1934) to Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929). Alcohol and drugs are central to such plays by Eugene O’Neill as Long Day’s Journey into Night (1941) and The Iceman Cometh (1946). The main themes of all of these works include people coming to terms with the roles drugs play, or have played, in their lives and the lives of those around them. Nelson Algren's 1949 novel The Man with the Golden Arm follows Chicago card dealer Frank Machine as he struggles to cope with his marriage, card sharks, and his addiction to morphine. He tries to get clean, but is sent on the run after he's framed for murder. The novel won the National Book Award in 1950 and was adapted into a 1955 film starring Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak.
The Late Twentieth Century
Since the 1950s, drugs have increasingly become a part of everyday life, and the literature since that time has reflected this social change. Most prominent in celebrating the role of marijuana, heroin, and psychedelic drugs in defining individuality in the 1950s were the Beat generation writers, a listing of whom includes William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg. Burroughs’ drug addiction and exploration provided the material for Junkie (1953) and Naked Lunch (1959); The Wild Boys (1971) celebrates an outlaw posse of hashish users at the close of the twentieth century. Kerouac’s On the Road (1957), filled with tales of freedom and drug use, glorified by the underground counterculture, became the scripture for the Beat generation. Ginsberg expressed the terrible side of the world extolled by Kerouac in works including Howl (1956) and “Lysergic Acid.”
The 1960s psychedelic era produced works dealing with drugs and their possibilities for transcendental or soul-changing experiences. Noteworthy authors include Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Tom Wolfe, and Carlos Castaneda. Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience (1964) presents a guide to combining LSD use and Eastern, particularly Tibetan, philosophy. His High Priest (1968) and The Politics of Ecstasy (1968) both deal with hallucinogens and religious experiences. Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962) presents an examination of institutional drug use and psychological therapy in fictional form. Narcotics and the 1960s hippie generation are the subject of Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968). Jacqueline Susann, an actor turned bestselling novelist, published Valley of the Dolls in 1966; the titular dolls refer to pills. Castaneda gives an account of hallucinogenic drug usage and Southwest Indian teachings in his Don Juan series, beginning with The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1968).
The 1970s and 1980s produced some work dealing with drugs, but the heyday was mostly over. Notable in this last period are Hunter S. Thompson, Jay McInerney, and Bret Easton Ellis. Thompson, writing from the late 1960s onward, combines fact and fiction in his tales of massive drug usage in, among others, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (1971), Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 (1973), and The Great Shark Hunt (1979). McInerney describes cocaine usage among the East Coast yuppies of the 1980s in Bright Lights, Big City (1984). Ellis’s work deals with drug usage among college students and dropouts on the West Coast of the United States in Less Than Zero (1985), and on the East Coast of the United States in The Rules of Attraction (1987).
In the last decade of the twentieth century, a number of drug-themed novels and memoirs by US writers stand out. Jesus' Son (1992) by Denis Johnson is a collection of linked stories that could be considered a novel. The narrator of the stories is an unnamed drifter whose heroin habit becomes an addiction before he attempts to detox and live sober. Drinking: A Love Story (1996) is a literary memoir by Caroline Knapp, a columnist and editor, who was a high-functioning, active alcoholic for twenty years. In her memoir, Knapp recalls her realization that her father, a prominent psychiatrist and professor at Boston University who had died within a year of her mother, was also an alcoholic. It was this realization that helped spur her toward recovery. David Foster Wallace's 1996 experimental novel Infinite Jest, which weighed in at more than a thousand pages, is ostensibly about different forms of addiction. Among the novel's characters are a group of recovering drug and alcohol addicts who live in a Boston-area halfway house. They and other characters are hooked on a mysterious videotape they refer to as "the entertainment."
Twenty-First Century
Between 1999 and 2016, opioid overdoses in the United States quadrupled as a result of increased prescriptions for opioid painkillers, the intensive marketing of these opioids by their manufacturers, and a growing familiarity with their casual use. The US opioid epidemic surfaces as a theme in several novels written during the 2000s and 2010s. Notable among these are Taipei (2013) by New York City writer Tao Lin. Lin's novel is "basically an encyclopedia of the drug habits of 20-somethings in the 21st century," according to Jonathon Sturgeon for Flavorwire in 2015. The protagonist is an author who takes opioids and other drugs to keep his social anxiety under control. Nico Walker's 2018 debut novel Cherry tells the semi-autobiographical story of an Army medic who returns to Ohio after completing his military service. Struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder, reconnects with his girlfriend Emily in Ohio and the two bond over a shared addiction to heroin. When neither his relationship nor the drug serve to provide him with solace, he starts robbing banks. Poison Girls by Cheryl R. Reed and Marlena by Julie Buntin also explore the epidemic.
Bibliography
Goodwin, Donald W. Alcohol and the Writer. New York: Penguin Books, 1988.
Kusinitz, Marc. Drugs and the Arts. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.
Lenson, David. On Drugs. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995.
Tytell, John. Naked Angels: The Lives and Literature of the Beat Generation. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976.
Weiss, Allen S. The Aesthetics of Excess. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989.