سیدابوالفضل شفیعی مقدم

  The addicts of Welsh's universe, unlike all their _and perhaps also the author's_ protestations to the contrary, are nowhere as welcoming of the truth concerning the nature of their affliction as they appear to be. In order to comprehend the phenomenon of addiction, we first must dispense with, the myth of addiction as a mode of sociopolitical resistance, and second, the representation of addicts as victims of economic or political oppression rather than psychological distortion and socio-historical conditioning. The works with which we are concerned however fail on both counts, even though in popular culture they are widely viewed as some of the most comprehensive representations of addiction. What is needed to achieve such clarity regarding the subject of addiction is the realization that the individual does not choose addiction in spite of its negative cultural implications, but because of it. Though it might appear like an illogical choice on the surface, a Lacanian view of the human psyche reveals that when one's ego, identity or self-image is at stake, logic is seldom taken into consideration. To support such claim, it helps to reflect back on slave morality and the Nietzschean concept of men of ressentiment, who, in an attempt to refuse their inferior social status, succeed in taking pride in those very attributes that rendered them inferior in the first place. What we aim to do in this study is to shed light on the ways in which structural discrepancies and moments of resistance in the text reveal a new reservoir of evidences which lead us to truths hidden, as it were, between the lines. Among these "truths", if we dare say, one that is most readily available and at the same time the most crucial one is our collective intolerance for facts that endanger the integrity and consistency of our self-image. Mark Renton, Welsh's main character, is a self-professed intellectual who holds society in great contempt for its dependence on myths and ignorance regarding the reality of the human condition. Yet having approached the subject through our selected methodology we see that he himself is adhering to an illusory idea of self no more reconciled with truth than the social myths which propagate consumerism or perpetuate religious establishments.