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3. The Rube
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Naked Lunch, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Drug Addiction
The Art of Writing
Politics, Power, and Control
American Society
The Medical-Industrial Complex
Summary
Analysis
The narrator is charged with hiring Dr. Benway on behalf of Islam Inc. Benway is currently serving as an advisor to the Freeland Republic (a welfare state the narrator hasn’t yet described). The narrator hasn’t seen Benway since Benway was involved in an assignment that involved subjecting the people of Annexia (a place or organization the narrator hasn’t yet described) in the form of strict and arbitrary laws, painfully tedious bureaucratic processes, and psychological torture. All of this was intended to gradually break down the citizens of Annexia and induce their “Total Demoralization.”
This chapter introduces the character of Dr. Benway. Though the novel is largely non-linear, there are several recurring characters, and Dr. Benway is among the most prominent of these. He is a medical doctor, but as this passage shows, his expertise is not being put to curing illness or improving health. Rather, he has been hired by government entities to subordinate entire populations. Though Benway is currently on assignment in the Freeland Republic, the chapter begins with information about his previous assignment in a place called Annexia, where he was charged with the “Total Demoralization” of the population. It is interesting to note how the “prolonged mistreatment” that Benway utilized in Annexia corresponds to what most readers would consider basic facts of life within contemporary society: codes of conduct and bureaucracies. In this way, the novel begins to highlight the indirect and often mundane means governments use to enact control over citizens.
Active
Themes
The narrator cuts to Benway giving a long explanation about his work in Annexia. Benway claims he hates “torture” and suggests that rather “the threat of torture” is a more effective way to subordinate a population. In particular, he explains the methods he used during interrogations to get the subjects to “break down.” One is the Switchboard, in which electric drills were connected to suspects’ teeth. The Switchboard was usually successful in getting the individual to crack in under 30 minutes. Benway used different kinds of narcotic drugs to alter the subject’s psychological state during interrogations. Other “psychological methods” of torture that Benway employed included mandatory psychoanalysis and sexual humiliation. Benway explains that he was just beginning to unravel all the possibilities when he got ousted from his position.
This passage continues to talk about Benway’s previous assignment in Annexia. It elucidates the kind of “prolonged mistreatment” methodologies Benway used on citizens of Annexia. The line between what constituted torture and what constituted the threat of torture for Benway is a fine one and ultimately reveals Benway’s questionable ethics, as he freely experiments on other humans without much consideration for their long-term (or short-term) well-being. Furthermore, Benway’s use of narcotics and other pharmaceutical drugs represents the pharmaco-industrial complex, showing how the work of medical professionals and government overlaps, often to the detriment of civilians.
Active
Themes
The narrator describes the Freeland Republic, where the narrator has come to find Benway, as “clean and dull my God” (in later chapters, Freeland is described as a “welfare state”). In Freeland, Benway directs the Reconditioning Center (or R.C., which seems to be a correctional-type facility, but the narrator does not explain this). Benway offers to show the narrator around the R.C. While they make their way through a long white corridor, Benway begins talking about a series of seemingly unrelated topics.
Active
Themes
First, Benway launches into a tirade against matriarchy, which he describes as “anti-homosexual, conformist and prosaic.” Benway also tells the story of a drug-fueled scalpel fight he was involved in. The fight took place in the operating room and involved his baboon assistant named Violet and another doctor by the name of Brubeck. It is unclear exactly when or where this fight took place, but Benway lost his medical license as a result.
Active
Themes
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Not wanting to give up the medical profession, Benway subsequently started performing illegal and “positively unethical” abortions in subway bathrooms. He later met Placenta Juan the Afterbirth Tycoon (Hassan). Juan became rich in the slunk trade (slunk refers to a calf that has not yet reached six months of age). Benway accepted a job as the doctor aboard one of Juan’s cargo ships, the S.S. Filariasis. To avoid restrictions, Juan sailed his fleet of ships under the Abyssinian flag.
Active
Themes
Back in Freeland, in the present, Benway is leading the narrator down Drag Alley. Benway opens the door to a room lined with men whom he describes as having irreversible neural damage, or INDs. Benway believes they are “over-liberated” and a “drag on the industry.” He then demonstrates how the men nevertheless still have some reflexes by holding up a chocolate bar. One man tries to snatch the chocolate bar out of Benway’s hands. Then Benway throws the chocolate onto the floor, and the same man crawls on the floor to retrieve it and eats it up. Benway is repulsed by his behavior. He calls to his assistant and demands that the assistant to remove the INDs “outa here,” claiming they are “bad” for tourism.
Active
Themes
Next, Benway brings the narrator to a different ward in the R.C. This one is filled with former schizophrenics whom Benway claims to have cured of their psychosis by turning them into drug addicts. Benway claims that he has never seen a “schizophrenic junky.” He then mentions a place in Bolivia where the population is also apparently free of psychosis. Benway hopes to go there and study the population before the area is spoiled by modernity. Benway admits that he cannot explain why drug addicts do not have schizophrenia, but he suspects it is because the need to keep procuring more drugs maintains their connection to reality.
After this, Benway shows the narrator the mild and deviant criminal ward. The narrator asks if homosexuals are classified as deviants. Benway explains that there are no homosexuals in Freeland due to Freeland being a “functioning police state” where the idea of homosexuality does not even occur to people. Benway tells the narrator that has nevertheless observed inverse latent sexual desires in both hetero- and homosexual patients, though Benway admits, that he draws no conclusion from the observation.
Benway and the narrator return to Benway’s office to eat lunch. While they are eating lunch, Benway receives a telephone call and learns that the “electronic brain” malfunctioned and has released all the subjects of the Reconditioning Center. After Benway hangs up the phone, he turns to the narrator and immediately accepts a position with Islam Inc. Benway and the narrator then go to the roof to catch a helicopter out of Freeland. From the roof of the R.C., they witness horrific scenes of riots, physical and sexual violence, and coprophagy, and it is implied that this chaos is the direct consequence of the release of the R.C. subjects.
Active
Themes
In one scene, an English colonial goes on about all the tropical diseases he’s been infected with. In another scene, a young man turned “Rock and Roll hoodlum” performs physically and sexually violent acts on another young man. Other scenes involve boring people either prattling on about the merits of scientific writing or showing off prizes they won for various mundane accomplishments. In one scene, a hypochondriac stops every passerby and forces each one to palpate his hemorrhoids and the lymphogranulomas in his groin. While all of this is going on, Freeland’s tourists are attempting to break out of Freeland’s border using any means available.
