Authors who struggle with addictions oftentimes have an influence that authors without an addiction would not have. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a popular author during the 1920’s and his struggle with alcoholism was later known to have influenced his writing and character’s actions. Stephen King is a modern day author who is well-known for his horror-themed literature that was heavily influenced by his many addictions. Together, both of these authors are able to provide evidence that supports the claim that addiction influences an author’s writing. Addictions influence an author’s literature through representation in the author's characters and the ability to escape traumas and insecurities. Authors who struggle with addiction oftentimes create …show more content…
To start, Stephen King is an author who struggled with addiction and has since written literature to provide an escape for fears associated with his traumatic childhood. Daily Mail says, “For King, drink[ing] and drugs helped to provide an escape from unhappiness which has dodged him since he was a child…” (Stephen King's Real Horror Story). This shows that King heavily relied on alcohol and other drugs to help him survive through any distressing memories from his childhood. Furthermore, King also used a murderous character from his book Misery to represent his life-threatening relationship with cocaine. An interview with Rolling Stones confirms this, “‘Misery is a book about cocaine. Annie Wilkes is cocaine. She was my number-one fan,’” (Stephen King: The Rolling Stone Interview). Being harmed by cocaine was one of his fears, and through writing about his relationship with it, King was able to dull his fear of cocaine. Lastly, it is known that he continued using drugs and alcohol because he had another fear; not being able to write while sober. An excerpt from Daily Mail explains, “Since he had been drinking when he wrote his first best-sellers, he now worried that he might be unable to write without being drunk…” (Stephen King’s Real Horror Story). King’s biggest success was his writing and he felt that without any substances in his system, he would lose that success and
Throughout the years, and throughout various forms of media, some of the greatest creative minds have been the victims of the most unfortunate circumstances. For many, their major problem is that of addiction, and one could say that it affects their work, for better or worse. For example, a writer’s prose usually is affected at least partly by the author’s inner dialogue, and thus, the author’s problems get mixed in with their writings. Therefore, the author’s addictions become a part of the work itself.
It is a shame that it took such a personal tragedy “for [Dransfield] to engage so definitively with the experience of addiction…in such an astonishingly short time” (Armand, 1997). His work can only be marveled at and admired for its “richly cosmopolitan tone, its urgent sense of possibility, its sheer ‘cannibal energy’, and its persistent attempt to resolve difficult emotional problems” (Armand, 1997).
Sally Satel, author of “Addiction Doesn’t Discriminate? Wrong,” leads us down a harrowing path of the causes and effects that lead people to addiction. It can be a choice, possibly subconscious, or a condition that leads a person left fighting a lifelong battle they did not intend to sign up for. Mental and emotional health/conditions, personality traits, attitudes, values, behaviors, choices, and perceived rewards are just a few of the supposed causes of becoming an addict.
Many people think that reading more can help them to think and develop before writing something. Others might think that they don’t need to read and or write that it can really help them to brainstorm things a lot quicker and to develop their own ideas immediately (right away). The author’s purpose of Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, is to understand the concepts, strategies and understandings of how to always read first and then start something. The importance of this essay is to understand and comprehend our reading and writing skills by brainstorming our ideas and thoughts a lot quicker. In other words, we must always try to read first before we can brainstorm some ideas and to think before we write something. There are many reasons why I chose Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, by many ways that reading can help you to comprehend, writing, can help you to evaluate and summarize things after reading a passage, if you read, it can help you to write things better and as you read, it can help you to think and evaluate of what to write about.
Addiction is a behavior that leads to actions that not only hurt others but is ultimately a path to one’s own self-destruction. From the beginning of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, it is clear that Dr. Jekyll never had complete control over the drug or Mr. Hyde; however, once Hyde commits suicide in order to dodge punishment, we know how awful Jekyll’s addiction to Hyde had been. Jekyll was so far out of control of Hyde that Mr. Hyde had the ability to end both of their lives simply because Hyde did not wish to be punished.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” a quote that sums up humanity’s unchanged love for horror movies. Over the years, as millions of people have watched horror movies the graphics, special effects, and sounds have changed for the better. While scenes have intensified yet remained the same someone gets stabbed, butchered or killed violently. It’s hard to imagine how anyone in their right mind could choose to see such violent acts. Which is the reason why Stephen Kings say’s “I think we’re all mentally ill; those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better- and maybe not all that much better after all” (405). That sentence provides us with his twisted example of “Why we crave Horror Movies” claiming it’s mainly a matter of our mental state. King includes examples of reasons people continue to go, he says it’s to have fun, to dare the nightmare, and to re-establish our sense of normalcy. Kings arguments within this essay are strong enough to prove his thesis making this a well written essay. He easily convinces normal people that they are mentally ill, with his use of analogy’s, comparisons, and logos. Stephen King’s use of practical wisdom leads his audience to believe that without horror films, humans are all emotional ticking time bombs waiting to explode.
David Sheff’s memoir, Beautiful Boy, revolves around addiction, the people affected by addiction, and the results of addiction. When we think of the word addiction, we usually associate it with drugs or alcohol. By definition, addiction is an unusually great interest in something or a need to do or have something (“Addiction”). All throughout the memoir, we are forced to decide if David Sheff is a worried father who is fearful that his son, Nic Sheff’s, addiction will kill him or if he is addicted to his son’s addiction. Although many parents would be worried that their son is an addict, David Sheff goes above and beyond to become involved in his son’s life and relationship with methamphetamine, making him an addict to his son’s addiction.
Drug addiction is on the largest contributing factors for the deaths of millions of people throughout out the ages. Todays day in age drugs have become more dangerously more potent than they were a decade back. The majority of the population believe that the reason addicts become hooked on drugs because the the chemical triggers found in the drug. This has caused many society as a whole to look down on drug addicts and treat them with less respect than anyone who is not a drug addict. Johann Hari is an english author and journalist who was published articles in newspapers like the New York times, Huffington post and the Guardian, Hari has published his own book Chasing the Scream were he goes into a three year journey on the war on drugs.
For such a successful writer, Stephen King really had no secret to his writing style. King has credited free writing for his best ideas. He also has a very down to earth way of looking at his fame. Stephen King would read for four hours, and then he would write for four hours or until he reached 2,000 words. In a Time magazine interview, King called this his nine to five approach and that he, “worked until beer o’ clock.” When asked where his ideas came from, King would often reply, “I have the heart of a small boy. . . And I keep it in a jar on my desk.” Also, he does not have just one particular way of writing horror, and what often sets off the terror in his readers most was the vast amount of detail portrayed.
King owes his success to his ability to take what he says are “real fears” (The Stephen King Story, 47) and turn them into a horror story. When he says “real fears” they are things we have all thought of such as a monster under the bed or even a child kidnapping and he is making them a reality in his story. King looks at “horror fiction...as a metaphor” (46) for everything that goes wrong in our lives. His mind and writing seems to dwell in the depths of the American people’s fears and nightmares and this is what causes his writing to reach so many people and cause the terror he writes about to be instilled in his reader.
As Australian poet, Luke Davies, once wrote, “When you can stop, you don’t want to, and when you want to stop, you can’t..”, one can find many references toward addiction in the Lotus-eater story in The Odyssey. The Odyssey written by Homer follows the travels and tribulations faced by Odysseus on his journey home after fighting in the Trojan War. On one of their many adventures, Odysseus and his crew arrive at the Lotus-eater island where they then become addicted and infatuated with the lotus and forget to return to the ship because of the brainwashing qualities of the fruit. Because of this, they do not concentrate on the task at hand; therefore losing focus on the bigger picture of their duties which is finding a way to get back home to their families.
People sometimes say that drugs and alcohol make for the best stories. While the saying often refers to a fun night out, drugs and alcohol can just as easily tell stories about desperation, despair, and, tragically, death. What starts out as a good time, can turn into a disaster in a blink of an eye and without a warning. Sadly, the user is too stoned to notice and the downward spiral begins.
Addiction is a story about a teen age boy who starts to get into drug use at a very young age. The narrator was a king in high school but now he is nothing. The story shows that as the boy increases in age the drugs increase as well. The narrator and his buddies have specific places for different drugs. Meyer uses the character of the unnamed narrator to illustrate the devastating effects of addiction on the individual.
Everitt, B. Robbins, T. (1999) Drug addiction: bad habits add up. Macmillian Magazines, volume 389, pg 567-570.
Drug addiction is a very big problem in today’s society. Many people have had their lives ruined due to drug addiction. The people that use the drugs don’t even realize that they have an addiction. They continue to use the drug not even realizing that their whole world is crashing down around them. Drug addicts normally lose their family and friends due to drug addiction.