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Part 5: Up from the Rubble
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dreamland, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Pain Management and the Normalization of Narcotics
The Drug Business
Stigma, Shame, and the Opiate Epidemic
Community as a Remedy to Addiction
Summary
Analysis
According to the CDC, heroin overdoses tripled between 2010 and 2013. The Xalisco Boys may have been the first to “systematically exploit” the new market the pill epidemic created for heroin, but today, the number of dealers entering that market has increased as former pill addicts continue to move toward heroin.
The Xalisco Boys “systematically exploit[ed]” the new market the opiate epidemic created for heroin, just as Purdue exploited the new market the pain revolution created for painkillers. New regulations on prescription painkillers do little to halt the epidemic, as painkiller addicts have moved on to illegal drugs like heroin.
Themes
Simultaneously, though, a wave of criticism enveloped the country, driven by families of addicts. In addition, governments have been forced to reconsider how they will respond to a surplus of addicts with records: many are beginning to see jail “as an investment, not a cost,” advocating for more treatment facilities in prisons. In these ways, Quinones sees heroin “as an agent of change.”
The surplus of addicts has forced governments to reshape their existing ideas about addicts and addiction. Seeing jail “as an investment, not a cost” represents a gradual shift from stigmatizing drug use to trying to understand and treat it. In this way, heroin has acted “as an agent of change,” inspiring a massive shift in perspective.
Themes
When Quinones returns to Portsmouth in fall 2015, he sees more new businesses and community events. Quinones feels optimistic that Portsmouth can return to the town it was when Dreamland reigned.
Quinones sees community as a remedy to addiction, so the appearance of new businesses in Portsmouth reflects a shift in a positive direction: Portsmouth might be able to return to the town it was when the Dreamland swimming pool existed.
Themes
The epidemic might be the natural result of a country increasingly driven into isolation. Scared parents raised children who grew up to themselves be afraid. Quinones cites an Atlantic article, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” that reports a generation of college students unwilling to engage with uncomfortable ideas. These trends are symptomatic of America’s notion “that we should be protected from pain at all cost.” Additionally, the American public has for too long sought solace in “stuff,” feeling it will bring them happiness. It’s in America’s isolation, Quinones believes, that “heroin thrives.” Ultimately, he decides that “the antidote to heroin is community.”
Quinones believes that the pain revolution helped create of a generation of Americans unwilling and unable to experience pain and discomfort. This supposedly “coddled” generation turned to “stuff” to counteract their fear of pain, which resulted in a public addicted to both drugs and excess. Because Quinones views addiction—to “stuff’ and to drugs—as an isolating behavior, he believes that seeking comfort and support in one’s community can be “the antidote to heroin” (and to excess). In other words, America needs to become less involved with itself and more involved with and concerned for others.
Themes
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