Trainspotting: Reflections of the “Lost Generation” in the literary production of the 1990s

Abstract

When we talk about the ‘Lost Generation’, we are referring to a demographic group that reached adulthood shortly after the end of World War I. However, in the British sociopolitical context of the 1980s & 1990s, and according to Lee Elliot (online), the term also echoes to a generation that was characterised by the political decisions of the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who, at the time, moved forward on the privatization of public services and economical cuttings, creating a sense of instability. This final degree dissertation will analyse literature produced in the United Kingdom during this historical period, examining how it was used as a critique towards Thatcher’s policies that significantly impacted British society of that time. I will primarily focus on the novel by Scottish author Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting (1993). Welsh’s novel is set in late 1980s Edinburgh, a city profoundly affected by the economic crisis and unemployment, which transformed a generation that once seemed to have a promising future into simple citizens of a wasteland. Trainspotting is a novel that explores the frenzy that characterises its protagonists as they confront the cruel reality that surrounds them, in a world that seems to not have a place for their ambitions and where addiction becomes a mousetrap. In this dissertation, I will draw an analogy between the concept of the ‘Lost Generation’ and the renowned theoretical framework of the ‘Monster Theory’, based on the consideration that in Welsh's novel there are two types of monsters: a metaphorical one, embodied by Margaret Thatcher, and a material monster, manifested in drug addiction.