Joe Beaty

Jr. Morality 07

Requiem for a Dream

            I have read the book and seen the movie. The main dilemma deals with three heroine addicts that struggle through seasons. In the beginning Harry steals his mother’s TV set and sells it for drug money. She just buys back the TV from the pawn shop, and cowers from her addict son. The three friends start to look to their future, getting a pound of pure, cutting it, and selling it off, making enough money to retire on at twenty something, and then open up a clothing store, the idea of Harry’s girlfriend, Marion. As fall and winter come, sales drop, and they use their saved money to feed their addiction. Tensions flare between Marion and Harry as the sexually active couple struggle to make it through the nights with out a hit. Marion ends up having sex with her psychiatrist, and later a drug dealer to keep getting the dope. Harry and Tyrone try to drive to Florida to buy a big shipment, but meet discrimination the farther South they go. All the while, Harry’s mother, Sara, gets addicted to diet pills, which are just like speed. She starts hallucinating and losing her mind as the movie shows the fridge and TV coming alive, and attacking her. As she becomes obsessed with a TV show that she might be on, she loses all control of her mind, and is sadly sent to electro shock therapy. The movie ends around the movie being shocked, Harry losing his arm to infection, Tyrone and Harry in prison, trying to cope with their withdrawals, and Marion lying happily with her drugs after a night of hardcore sex.

            Though the story goes more in depth to each person’s addiction, and their struggles, it clearly shows me to stay away from drugs. I’ve seen these types of people in real life, and what they go through is hell. Not only feeding the addiction, the symptoms, and the withdrawals, but the way it totally ruins their life. A life of solicited sex, drug dealing, and stealing breaks about every moral code there is. These people’s conflict was within themselves, but the addiction of heroine is much harder to fight off than you think. There was also a struggle between the authority of the cops and these addicts, but that wasn’t evident until the end. The main struggle was with the drug, how it makes people dream, and ruins those hopes for the future. I feel that if I want to succeed in life I must not get involved with these drugs, and the things they do. Though not every drug has the same effect, many do have the same consequences.