Mark finds himself in between two worlds in “Blowing It”,
that of the ‘normal’ Scottish world where his brother Billy is ‘an archetypal
model of manhood Ecosse’ as he drinks to sickness and beats his wife Sharron
and Mark’s little world of addiction. Forced to go cold turkey, Mark begins to
reflect on the reason why he turned to heroine. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t give
a clear-cut answer, but rather questions social norm; ‘Why is it that because
ye use hard drugs every cunt feels that they have a right tae dissect and
analyse ye?’ Renton doesn’t accuse society for being against drugs but rather its
inability to mind its own business. He does not comprehend why his heroine
addiction becomes the focus of social workers and psychologists who in truth
shouldn’t give a shit about him. In his essay New Scottish Writing and the “Queen’s Fucking English”, Jeffrey
Karnicky points out Trainspotting’s
criticism of normative culture’s tendency to repress marginalized cultures.
According to this thought process, Mark feels that his life is threatened by
his inability to conform to society’s norms. He attempted to live the ‘normal’
life by attending university but failed to integrate himself into the academic
environment and decided to avoid normality and follow his instinct.
Normal Life according
to Rents;
“Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing
machines; choose cars; choose sitting on a couch watching mind-numbing and
spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose
rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarrassment
tae the selfish, fucked-up brats ye’ve produced. Choose life.” Pg. 187
In this context, ‘life’ refers to a normal living. Mark rejects
this, he prefers to die with his heroine addiction. If he were to kick heroine,
than his ‘dependency [would] shift from the drug to them [society]’. Mark makes
a conscious decision, to choose heroine addiction over the need for consumption
of material objects and commodities. He prefers being part of a marginalized
culture, that of heroine addicts, than be part of ‘them’, the mainstream
culture. In a sense, his addiction represents the only quality of individuality
that Mark possesses. Therefore, from Mark’s point of view, ‘rehabilitation
means the surrender ay the self’.
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