“Less Than Zero” by Bret Ellis Essay

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Introduction

Less Than Zero is a book written by Bret Ellis who was 21 years old when he wrote the book in 1985. The book rocked literary circles in being very fascinating in its horrific depiction of degenerative and wealthy youngsters being obsessed in being openly involved with drug abuse and debaucheries related to violence and immoral behavior. Due to the revolution created by his blatant disclosures in the novel, Ellis began to be considered as the voice of the young generation and literary critics started to refer to the book as representing the MTV culture in view of its nature of being divided into different scenes that depicted the happenings in the same way as the MTV channel. The novel also has detailed and frequent examples of songs by artists of the same bent of mind. Noteworthy is the fact that songs are an important role playing characteristic in the novel such as Elvis Costello’s song which is the title song in conjuring up a world that is considered as being out of the joint. The novel is much infused by comments from the media, which further aggravates the opinion formed about the novel in having created too much chaos amongst the youngsters and teenagers.

Main body

Clay is the main character in the novel, and besides being a rich, young and enthusiastic college student having recently returned to Los Angeles for a short winter break, is very prone to the delicate habits of the youngsters in the city. The novel depicts Clay as spending most of his time in enjoying parties and indulging in drug abuse along with his several friends. Clay has several issues in hand to sort out while he is in Los Angeles. He has to decide whether to continue his long time intimate friendship with Blair, and while thinking over time on this issue, he continues in his flings of enjoyment and excitement by having one night stands and parties with his male and female friends. This does not allow him to think much about the relationship with Blair. Clay tries during this time to renew his friendship with his once best friend Julian and makes genuine attempts in this regard. But unfortunately Julian had by that time got heavily involved in prostitution and drugs habit. Having witnessed such drastic developments amongst his friends, Clay is much frustrated and realizes that he has lost faith and trust in the friends that he used to enjoy the parties and drug sessions with. Notably there were three reasons for Clay that subsequently led him to transform himself in regard to the way he envisioned the youngsters, the party circles and the carefree lifestyle in Los Angeles. At first he felt very much frustrated upon seeing his long time friend Julian while he was soliciting customers amongst rich businessmen to finance his heroin and drug habits. He was also very much troubled and at pain to the see that there was no positive response from his circle of friends after having seen the adverse consequences of drugs in a reformatory film on drug abuse. Clay is at the end of his wits upon observing the horrifying incident when he saw his friends behaving in a shameless way and in being attracted to a 12 year old naked girl while she was bound in that state to the posts of a friend’s bed. The novel depicts the portrayal of Clay as strongly and emotionally suffering from the repeated incidents of drug abuse habits as also the blatant and shameless display of sexual fantasies and permissiveness of the youngsters in his age group. The total impact of all these realizations having dawned on Clay, he is much demoralized and the novel gives a clear indication that he leaves a frustrated, but enlightened man from Los Angeles.

Conclusion

The novel created lot of meaningful learning experiences for American culture in its big cities in bringing about a message that such culture needs to be made more refined so as to make the future generation more responsible. Surely the high incidents of drug abuse and excessive and shameless portrayal of sexual permissiveness needs to be checked so as to bring about a positive cultural transformation in American society. The book continues to enjoy immense popularity to this day and the author has a huge fan base that is in touch with each other in making efforts to improve the quality of youth in the country.

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IvyPanda. (2021, October 22). “Less Than Zero” by Bret Ellis. https://ivypanda.com/essays/less-than-zero-by-bret-ellis/

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"“Less Than Zero” by Bret Ellis." IvyPanda, 22 Oct. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/less-than-zero-by-bret-ellis/.

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IvyPanda. (2021) '“Less Than Zero” by Bret Ellis'. 22 October.

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IvyPanda. 2021. "“Less Than Zero” by Bret Ellis." October 22, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/less-than-zero-by-bret-ellis/.

1. IvyPanda. "“Less Than Zero” by Bret Ellis." October 22, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/less-than-zero-by-bret-ellis/.


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IvyPanda. "“Less Than Zero” by Bret Ellis." October 22, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/less-than-zero-by-bret-ellis/.

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