Ó¢ÃÀÎÄѧAnalysis of Trainspotting in the Light of Youth Subculture

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It depicts the decadent life of four youths who lived in Edinburgh and the various confusions they came across during their growth. It provides a relatively real portrait of the young people living in Scotland and gives an accurate account of identity dilemma existing among them. In the 1970s, the economic condition in England began to go from bad to worth, thus the rate of employment went up and the social circumstances, the original belief of British people was destroyed, and the youth were at a loss and thus the youth subculture came into being, which is a culture that is again the mainstream culture, having a lot of characteristics, remarked as against the society and tradition, falling around edge. Being an outsider of this circle, the youth can not be accepted by the society and at the same time be admitted by the circle as well. Besides, the cultural feature of themselves also has its own problems. The relevant expressions are confused about the future, the resistance towards the power and the denying towards themselves. This thesis, from the perspective of youth subculture, attempts to analyze the tendencies and characteristics of youth subculture reflected in the characters in Trainspotting in order to arouse more and more people to show their deep concern over the youth group and the healthy development of them. The thesis falls into five chapters. Chapter one gives a brief introduction to the author, the novel itself, the writing background and the main characters. Chapter two is literature review, introducing the previous studies both at home and abroad and relevant critical theory. In chapter three, youth subculture is presented and analyzed. Chapter four provides a thorough analysis of the novel from the perspective of youth subculture. Chapter five is the conclusion. Key words: Culture; Youth subculture; Mainstream culture; Trainspotting; Social identity Contents Contents: ¶À´´ÐÔÉùÃ÷¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­I ÕªÒª¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­.II Abstract¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­.III Contents¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­.V Chapter One Introduction1 1.1 Introduction to the Author1 1.2 Introduction to the Novel3 1.3 Aim of the Study6 1.4 Organization of the Thesis7 Chapter Two Literature Review8 2.1 Previous Studies8 2.2 Relevant Theories9 Chapter Three The Youth Subculture14 3.1 Introduction to Youth Subculture14 3.2 Reasons Causing Youth Subculture14 3.2.1 Demography14 3.2.2 Economy15 3.2.3 Social Reforms16 3.2.4 Education17 3.2.5 Conscription19 3.2.6 Mass Culture20 3.2.7 Summary21 Chapter Four Analysis of Trainspotting in Light of Youth Subculture22 4.1 About Choosing22 4.2 Rejection26 4.3 Addicted to Heroin30 4.4 Bodily Functions Control38 4.5 Self-centeredness41 4.6 Completely Isolated44 4.7 Youth Music Genres46 4.8 Named ¡°Friendship¡±51 4.9 Rebirth Desire56 4.10 The Disordered Sexual Relationship59 4.11 Summary65 Chapter Five Conclusion66 Bibliography69 Acknowledgments¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­.¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­ ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­ 73 Chapter One Introduction Chapter One Introduction 1.1 Introduction to the Author Irvine Welsh was born in 1958, Leith, the port area of the Scottish capital Edinburgh. He is a Scottish novelist, playwright and short story writer, having published seven novels and four collections of short stories. His first novel, Trainspotting, was published in 1993, and rumor has it that Welsh wrote it in the breaks while writing his thesis at Heriot-Watt University s Library, second floor. Set in the mid-1980s, it uses a series of loosely connected short stories to tell the story of a group of characters tied together by decaying friendships, heroin addiction and stabs at escape from the oppressive boredom and brutality of their lives in the housing schemes. Even now he is still known for his novel Trainspotting, due to the fact that this masterpiece is featured by a raw Scots dialect, and brutal depiction of Edinburgh life. In his youth years, his family moved to Muirhouse in Edinburgh, when he was four, where the family stayed at local housing schemes. His mother worked as a waitress. His father was a dock worker in Leith until bad health forced him to become a carpet salesman and he died when Welsh was 25. Although he was still a little child his family moved and then he grew up in Muirhouse, where he once described: A place like Muirhouse- lije fifteen years ago you¡¯d go to Muirhouse and it¡¯d be pretty much the same, sort of pretty grab housing schemes, not a lot there, but most people would have a bit of work and there¡¯d be a chance of moving into something different and moving on or whatever. But that¡¯s just been completely cut off and it¡¯s become much more a kind of ghetto. (Irvine Welsh . BBC Documentary. 1992) After his high school education, he became an apprentice TV repairman until an electric shock persuaded him to move on to a series of other jobs. He left Edinburgh for the London punk scene in 1978, where he played guitar and sang in The Pubic Lice and Stairway 13. During this period, he also made money through buying, renovating and selling property, thus making full use of them both. While it was starting from 1988 to 1990, it is the real time he began to write the remarkable novel Trainspotting in which it describes the life of the Scottish young people Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and other friends, who are addicted to the liberty use of drug and sex, and reflects the Scottish youths¡¯ confusion and perplexity towards friendship jobs, sex, heroin, drug and social identity they faced in their growth. Besides Welsh has made several reading tours around the world and has been involved with his beloved house music as a DJ, promoter and producer. Like many of his characters, he supports Hibernian F.C.(¡°Hibs¡°). The various sides of his background can also be traced in readers, who consist of building art-house, literati and academics and people who never thought they will buy the books about sexual life, alcohol , overusing drug as well as fashion class people and so forth. In addition, Irvine Welsh is widely known as the author of the book Trainspotting which was then turned into the movie of the same name directed by Danny Boyle and starred by Ewan McGregor. And that is part of the reason why his work Trainspotting can keep the top position for quite a long time of Booker Prize, which diversifies British culture placed dance music, and describes drug in a fulmination way against the deprivations of poverty and describe sexuality or ethnicity of the certain classes in Britain. He describes himself as ¡°not so much middle-class as upper-class. I m very much a gentleman of leisure. I write. I sit and look out of my window into the garden. I enjoy books. I love the density and complexity of Jane Austen and George Eliot. I listen to music; I travel. I can go off to a film festival whenever I like.¡° He also describes himself as monogamous: ¡°it sounds boring but it s the way I am¡°. All in all, he is so intelligent that Welsh s books have made him a cult figure within the literary world since the 1990s. Several of his books have become best sellers and all have a mixture of comedy, drama and hard-hitting issues.the best-known being Trainspotting (1996) which was even made into a box-office smash worldwide at the movies in 1996. Of his other works, one other has also been brought to screen, The Acid House (1998)£¬a trilogy of stories and though not as successful as Trainspotting commercially, became a cult success in his homeland of Scotland and the UK. At time of writing, Welsh is currently on a project writing the sequel to Trainspotting called Porn , which would give the success of the first film as well, should might make him even more famous when released as a film within the next year or so. 1.2 Introduction to the Novel Trainspotting is the first novel by Irvine Welsh. It takes the form of a collection of short stories, written in either Scots, Scottish English or British English, revolving around various residents of Leith, Edinburgh who either use heroin or engage in destructive activities that are implicitly portrayed as heroin addictions, which is yet another exploration of the dark side of Scottish. The other main thing that distinguishes Trainspotting (apart from its massive success) is that it contains a sense of pathos, concern and sentiment. It not so much sparked a change in Scottish literature, but it opened a new door. In fact, it opened a whole wide door to the ex-junkie that a wannabe novelist¡¯s effort as well as for the rave ¡®kulchure-books-n-slacking¡¯ which are almost all without doubt utterly a waste of paper pulp and reading time. Don t underestimate this book though-- there s good writing in here than the usual junk fuelled braggadocio - so much more than Andrew Greig s of the Scottish writing scene. Trainspotting carries out an attack on two traditions in leftist thought, social democracy and revolutionary socialism. The first is represented and analyzed throughout the text. The second is evoked and attacked through allusion, and it is this evocation that Mitchell s narration denigrates by proxy. ¡°By paying attention to stray words and phrases, and by examining a key political allusion commentators have thus far ignored, this essay seeks to explain the political purpose of Bad Blood s narrative uncertainty, and to link it to what I will call Welsh s literary anti-Trotskyism.¡±(Chapel Hill, 1987) The main character, Mark Renton, is at the center of a clique of nihilistic slacker junkies with no hopes and no possibilities, and only ¡°mind-numbing and spirit-crushing¡° alternatives in the straight world they despise. This particular slice of humanity has nothing left but the blackest of humor and a sharpness of wit. American readers can use the glossary in the back to translate the slang and dialect--essential, since the dialogue makes the book. This is a bleak vision sung as musical comedy. As Childs (2005:241) argues: Trainspotting marked a literary shift because it created a new bestseller that was distinctly Scottish as well as distinctly working-class; it dealt with a subject and with an underclass that both society and fiction had largely chosen to ignore. Trainspotting was read in clubs and appealed to the chemical generation; it encouraged music shops to sell fiction, alerted the middle-class to another side of Edinburgh, which has the highest HIV infection rate in Britain, and reaffirmed the potential of literature to provoke moral outrage. Probably most famous for his gritty depiction of a gang of Scottish Heroin addicts, Trainspotting, Welsh focuses on the darker side of human nature and drug use. All of his novels are set in his native Scotland and filled with anti-heroes, small time crooks and hooligans. Welsh manages, however to imbue these characters with a sad humanity that makes them likable despite their obvious scumbaggery. Irvine Welsh is also known for writing in his native Edinburgh Scots dialect, making his prose challenging for the average reader unfamiliar with this style. Thereby the novel is characterized by a raw Scots dialect and brutal depiction of Edinburgh life. The whole novel describes the life of the Scottish young people Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and other friends, who are addicted to the liberty use of drug and sex, and reflects the Scottish youths¡¯ confusion and perplexity towards friendship jobs, sex, heroin, drug and social identity they faced in their growth. As soon as this novel has been published, it has caused a tremendous stir. Sunday Times has once said, ¡°Welsh writes the novel with a skill, wit and compassion that amounts to genius. He is the best thing that has happened to British writing in decades of the most significant writers in Britain.¡± ¡°He writes with style, imagination, wit, and force¡°, Times Literary supplemented. ¡°Welsh writes with such vile, relentless intensity that he makes Louis-Ferdinand Celine, the French master of defilement, looks like Little Miss Muffet¡°, Courtney Weaver commented. The New York Times Book Review ¡°The corrupt Edinburgh cop-antihero of Irvine Welsh s best novel since Trainspotting is an addictive personality in another sense: so appallingly powerful. His rapid-fire rhythm and pungent dialect of the dialogue carry the reader relentlessly toward the literally filthy denouement. ¡° Trainspotting is set in the late 1980s, which has been called the period of ¡°the voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent¡°. At that time, post war Britain has undergone some social upheavals, which have lengthened the period of youth and made their lives distinctive and less predictable. It launched not alone the career of Irvine Welsh but arguably the youth under that time. Trainspotting is Irvine Welsh s best novel besides indeed my favorite novel of all time. The whole book may be around drug and violence in some people¡¯s eyes (Renton, Sick boy and Spud are completely immersed in drugs and Begbie is equally busy immersed in violence.) however in our eyes it naturally gives the readers a fully described picture of the life and emotion which the youth held at that moment. After avoiding conviction Renton nearly overdoses and finally gets clean by cold turkey by being imprisoned by his parents. He moves to London living a life of sobriety only to be joined by Sick Boy & Begbie who is on the run after a botched j