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Drugs in Literature

Just say yes...to literature.

  • Course Length: 18 weeks
  • Course Type: Elective
  • Category:
    • English
    • Literature
    • High School

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Shmoop's Drugs in Literature course has been granted a-g certification, which means it has met the rigorous iNACOL Standards for Quality Online Courses and will now be honored as part of the requirements for admission into the University of California system.

Just say no.

We've heard it a thousand times. But addiction isn't that simple, and around the world, there's plenty of disagreement over which drugs are good and which are...prison-worthy. In some countries, cocaine is legal; in others, caffeine is illegal. And over the past two hundred years, writers and lawmakers have continued to argue about it until the crack comes home.

You might come into this course with a strong opinion about drugs, alcohol, and addiction. You might come in with a completely open mind. Either way, just remember: there are folks who have spent their entire lives trying to figure it out. And in this course, we'll hear what they have to say.

Unit Breakdown

1 Drugs in Literature - Xanadu? More Like Xanax, Dude

In this unit, we'll read Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1816 poem, "Kubla Khan," Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," and Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market." Yep, this is your one-way ticket to Drugsville.

2 Drugs in Literature - Good Ol' 20th-Century Drunks

Unit 3 is all about booze. We'll start you off with a not-so-healthy dose of James Joyce (selections from Dubliners), and then move on to Tennessee Williams's play, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.

3 Drugs in Literature - Sex, Drugs, and Jazz

Hello, Beats. This unit will cover James Baldwin, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg: everything from outright celebrations of drug use to, well, the exact opposite.

4 Drugs in Literature - Horatio Mindblower

Get ready for some crazy hallucinations. This unit will cover Aldous Huxley's futuristic novel Brave New World and William Gibson's Neuromancer. You're going to encounter explosive descriptions of what it's actually like to be high. Yowza.


Sample Lesson - Introduction

Lesson 0.02: Those Who Think Well Ink Well

Can you use a bottle of ink to tell the future? Depends on what you write down.
(Source)

Now he's got you good and hooked on The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins decides to take things up a notch in Chapters 4-7, where we learn about the mysterious circumstances surrounding John Herncastle's last will and testament.

By this point in the story, we begin to realize that the object from the book's title, the moonstone, is probably going to drive all of the action in this book. We can guess that this is what those three Indians guys are after, and we have no clue what they're willing to do to get it.

Which makes the moonstone—you guessed it—the drug of the story.

For starters, it can drive people to extreme behavior—even murder, in the case of John Herncastle. Plus, during Wilkie Collins's time, India was considered the home of strange, foreign drugs that confused people's senses and brought them to strange Eastern places (remember Xanadu in Coleridge's "Kubla Khan"?).

This connection that Brits drew between drugs, sensual pleasure, and the Far East would later become known as Orientalism. Basically, the British wanted to think of themselves as rational and sober gentlemen, so they talked about folks from the other side of the world as sensual, irrational, and addicted to opium. Funny, too, because no one loved opium more than the Brits.

No one.

Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading .0.02: Dis-Orienting Drugs

Since you're hooked anyway, go grab your trusty copy of The Moonstone and read from First Period Chapter 4 up to the end of First Period Chapter 7.

We'd say don't read ahead, but we have a feeling you'll ignore us.

Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 0.02: Forecast

Back in the 19th century, British folks thought that drugs, foreignness, and mystical powers (like the ability to tell the future) were all connected. The drugs and mystical powers part makes sense, we guess: after all, people often thought that the hallucinations they were having on drugs could help them see into the future. But the foreignness part? That's what we call racism today.

But this specific kind of racism, Orientalism, was all over the place back in the day.

Enter the three mysterious Indian dudes of Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone. We don't know what they're up to yet, but we do know that they try to use a bottle of ink to tell the future and that they're probably looking for a way to get the moonstone back.

Your task: use your own bottle of ink to tell us the future.

Knowing what you know about the characters and about this book so far, tell us at least five things you think are going to eventually happen in this story. You won't be graded on accuracy, but you will be graded on your reasoning—so "Batman comes in and saves the day" probably isn't the best guess. Explain each of your predictions in at least 50 words, providing evidence from the story for why you think they'll come true.

Get to it.

Expository Writing Rubric - 25 Points

OutstandingProficientDevelopingNeeds Improvement
Evidence / Support

All support is clearly and logically connected to the topic. Examples, evidence, and details are thorough and relevant with effective explanation.

(10)

All support about the main topic is relevant. Examples, evidence, and details are explained.

(9)

Most support is related to the topic. Examples, evidence, or details are given.

(8)

Insufficient examples, evidence, or details. Support may be irrelevant.

(7)
Content Understanding

All content is accurate and analysis is interesting and sophisticated.

(10)

All content is accurate.

(9)

May contain minor errors.

(8)

Major errors.

(7)
Style

Language is clear and interesting. Enhances presentation of information. No errors.

(5)

Language is clear and appropriate to topic. Minor spelling or grammatical errors.

(4)

Language is occasionally unclear, but meaning is generally understandable. Frequent spelling/grammar errors that do not impede comprehension.

(4)

Language use makes writing very difficult to understand. Frequent spelling or grammar errors that impede comprehension.

(3)