Identity and Culture in "Trainspotting"

Paper Summary:

The paper approaches Irvine Welsh's 1993 novel and 1996 film "Trainspotting" as a post-colonial cultural text reflecting tough social issues at work in modern day Scotland. Specifically, it examines the function of regional dialect as it works in the novel and interprets the visual rhetoric of the film in light of Scottish national culture.

From the Paper:

"When Trainspotting first hit European bookshelves in the summer of 1993, few predicted the widespread prosperity that it would one day come to enjoy. Originally slated for a print run of only three thousand copies, demand for the novel soon skyrocketed. By the time the screen adaptation was released in 1996 it had been reprinted sixteen times and shifted over one hundred and fifty thousand units. After the film's debut this number ascended to half a million making it, "the fastest selling and most shop-lifted novel in British publishing history." Trainspotting was even being hailed by some as "the best book ever written by man or woman." "

More papers on Identity and Culture in "Trainspotting":

• Essay # 65071 : "Culture is Ordinary"
• Analytical Essay # 134473 : "Identity and Empire in "The Hamilton Case"
• Analytical Essay # 25898 : "Scottish Identity through Language"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: