Nereikalingieji Irvine Welsh romane „Traukinių žymėjimas“

The Wasted and the Wounded in Irvine Welsh's Novel “Trainspotting” Irvine Welsh’s debut novel Trainspotting (1993) depicts working-class life in the 1980s’ Edinburgh. Written in a Scottish dialect the novel gives voice to the most marginalized social group at the time – drug addicts. However, the portrayal of addiction is not limited to substance abuse but also encapsulates dependency on sex, unhealthy relationships and nationalistic ideology. Drawing on A. Ronell’s theory of narcoanalysis as well as F. Nietzsche’s ideas on the ‘selfless’ society presented in The Gay Science (1882), the present BA paper pursues two principal aims: firstly, to (re)interpret the relationship between the society and the individual and, secondly, to examine the novel’s protagonist’s choice of drugs as a response to the middle-class culture and his subsequent descent into addiction. The characteristics of addiction are examined and consequently an attempt is made to answer the key question whether addiction could offer ultimate liberation. The insights into the novel show that addiction does provide the protagonist with an escape from the prevailing capitalist and consumerist ideology; however, being a manifold human condition it at the same time leads the protagonist to getting wasted and trapped in a circle without futurity. On the other hand, it is the ultimate evilness of addiction – being wounded both physically and emotionally, what opens up the possibility of transcendence