Friday, June 29, 2012

Is Eve's Place Really Hell?

You can just go to hell, Jesse mumbled through the sweet relief of it all.
I think you've forgotten that's where we are.

Needles. Just endless piles and piles of needles and the promise of all the heroin you could ever ask for. A junkie's dream. A winter wonderland with a different powder of choice. And yet, Jesse Bell is not a simple junkie. She seems to have a genuine desire to quit, though not at the outset of her use. What was once an escape for her has become an engorged tumor of a thing by the time she arrives at Eve's. And Eve, an interesting creature who claims to want to rehab Jesse, is instead providing her with product and more and more luxurious means with which to shoot it.

And what does Eve hope to gain, for herself or for Jesse?

Is it, as we discussed in class, that she simply wants to expose her to the source of her problems again and again in the hopes that this will in some way cause her to grow and overcome it? Yes. Is it that she simply wants to torture Jesse in some way for what she has become because of the drug? Yes. Is Eve just sadistic? Quite possibly, but we never know for sure.

But it's also true that if Jesse wasn't shooting up inside Eve's she'd simply be doing it on the street. Beyond that, Eve is providing her with the best possible product and needles available. She is showing Jesse that this is as far as heroin can take you and your life still amounts to shit with it. No matter how far this thing can take you, it won't be further than this. And that, as a realization of the world she must inhabit, must be enough for Jesse.

As for Eve's place. Sure, it's hell. But it's just one of many.

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