Images of Addiction :: English Literature

Images of Addiction 'Addiction', 'craving', 'dependence', 'enslavement', 'habit', 'obsession' these are some of the many ways of describing a persons need for something or someone. Addiction and the way it's presented is the main focus of two books, 'Junk' by Melvin Burgess a contempary novel written in 1996 and 'The Man With The Twisted Lip' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a short story from the Sherlock Holmes series written in 1892. I will be comparing the two similarly themed stories and discuss how they show images of addiction. Both of the books use many different techniques to make the story as realistic and believable as possible. In Junk each chapter is written from the point of view of a different character in the 1st person narrative. This style of writing gives the story a lot of credibility and often involves different characters telling the same event but from a completely different perspective. This is not just very interesting for the reader: it also gives you the chance to get deep into the characters heads and to find out what they are thinking. You can also formulate your own opinions of characters as many of them, particularly Gemma, really involve the reader and try to talk them round to their points of view. In contrast 'The Man With The Twisted Lip' is very formal and written throughout by the same character, Dr Watson. The details are very precisely written like a report of what has happened with constant references to street names and timings to give the effect that everything in the story has really happened one example is 'found herself exactly at 4:35 walking through Swandom Lane on her way back to the station'. Another method the authors use to convey a sense of realism is the language. In 'Junk' there is a lot of teenage slang and swearing both in the dialogue and the text itself, which adds a sense that you are getting the full truth however disturbing it may be, not a sugar coated version. I also thought that the way the story was written as if the characters were talking to you worked really well because you felt the characters were telling you, not just writing it down. Another important aspect of creating realism from the language was the way the characters began to use 'junkie slang', drug terminology, unheard of at the beginning of the novel but common place by the end. This really helped to show how the lives of the main characters had really changed as the book progressed. Cultural references are also important because they help people to relate to the story and put the