The novel Crank by Ellen Hopkins tells the story of a teenage girl, Kristina, who becomes addicted to crank, a form of methamphetamine. The novel follows Kristina's downward spiral as she attempts to feed her addiction and deal with the consequences of the bad decisions that she has made. It is during this time that Kristina gives birth to a new personality whom she will come to call Bree. Kristina describes Bree as the essence of herself. While Kristina is a traditional good girl and straight-A student, Bree is fearless. Bree flirts with boys, wants to experience the wild side of life, and takes drugs. Kristina best describes Bree as, ““Bree was not an invention, not a stranger. Bree was the essence of me” (54).
I decided to research the “success culture” that is present in today’s modern society. More specifically, I decided to research success culture in a high school and college setting. Success culture can be seen everywhere. But it is most notably present on college campuses, high schools, and varsity sport teams. The success culture can ultimately be defined as the mentally rigorous setting that many young adults have found themselves in, in which they are heavily competing with their peers to be the best. This culture is the breeding ground for a young adult’s strive for success. The feeling of always having to be the best compared to their young adult counterpart is detrimental to the young adult’s life. A lot of young adults are not okay with being in a constant battle with themselves and their peers. This vicious competition for success will leave many people behind. In this case, this will cause many young adults breaking under the pressure of having to be perfect. Researching this topic was very hard since there were was no accurate data to go off from. I based my understandings of the success culture off of signs and trends. I noted that within the last ten years the acceptance rates for ivy league schools have gone down while their suicide rates have gone up.
In this novel, Kristina ultimately breaks under the pressure of having to maintain the good girl image at all times.This is the reason for her first encounter with crank. She describes her first experience with crank as, “Fire! Your nose ignites, flameless kerosene (and, some say, Drano) laced with ephedrine you want to cry powdered demons bite through cartilage and sinuses, take dead aim at your brain, jump inside want to scream troops of tapping feet fall into rhythm, marking time, right between your eyes get the urge to dance louder, louder, ultra
gray-matter power, shock waves of energy mushroom inside your head you want to let go detonate, annihilate barriers, bring down the walls, unleashing floodwaters, freeing long-captive dreams to ride the current through arteries and capillaries, pulsing, rushing, raging torrents pounding against your heart sweeping you away” (116). She becomes so disgusted with herself for falling in line with the crowd that she vows to change herself. This can best be seen in the quote, “So you want to know all about me, Who I am, what chance meeting of brush and canvas painted the face you see? What made me despise the girl in the mirror enough to transform her, turn her into a stranger” (244). Ultimately, it all became too much for her and she felt like she had to please too many people. She had to please her stepfather, fight for the attention of her absent father, and try to please her clueless mother. Kristina was tired of carrying the label “good girl” around. She is a straight A student that never causes problems for her parents. Her parents ultimately think of her as the “good child” and never expect any trouble out of her. This can be seen in the scene in the novel when Kristina is going through a relapse after being off of crank for a couple of days. Her stepfather correctly guesses that she must be using drugs while her mother is sure that she must have a cold because her “perfect” daughter would never do such a thing. In a way Kristina wants her parents to find out that she is doing drugs, she wants as much attention as she can muster up from them. This can be seen in the quote, ““You want to shout, can't you see I'm here? Can't you see I'm brand new? Can't you see me at all?” (256). The interesting part of this whole novel is that Kristina knew how bad her life was getting. She knew that she was becoming a failing member of society and that she was disappointing her parents but it seemed like she couldn't pull herself away from the drugs. Her acknowledgement of her downward spiral can best be seen in the quote, “Hers is the face I wear, treading the riptide, fathomless oceans where good girls drown” (311).
The success culture is built on self-doubt and competition. Not many people make it out on the other side in one piece. The effects that the success culture can have are seen throughout the novel. It proved to be too much for Kristina which is why she started to do drugs, The stress and self- doubt that come along with always having to be the best is detrimental to realistic life goals. The stress of having to be perfect ultimately leads to Kristina’s downward spiral of a life. The constant need to be successful is transparent all over our society. The need to succeed can and will leave many people behind.
