Figurative Language In Trainspotting

We cry "scapegoat" to stigmatize all the phenomena of discrimination – political, ethnic, religious, social, racial, etc. – that we observe about us. We are right. We easily see now that scapegoats multiply wherever human groups seek to lock themselves into a given identity – communal, local, national, ideological, racial, religious, and so on’ (160).
Fear and frustrations As seen with Fisher’s notion that there is a lack of central exchange, Girard notes that: ‘the real source of victim substitutions is the appetite for violence that awakens in people when anger seizes them and when the true object of their anger is untouchable. The range of objects capable of satisfying the appetite for violence enlarges proportionally to the intensity
Alison, Renton and Spud – junkies themselves – all become afraid of contracting the virus, but quickly demonize Mattie stating ‘That wis Matty. Whit sortay life did he huv before he kent he wis HIV?’(Welsh 361). In this we can see Galbraith’s idea that those who are unfortunate are blamed by the overall community because they are ‘insufficient’ in some way, and also out of fear. This is further verified when his ex-girlfriend states that ‘there had always been a weakness about him, an inability to face his responsibilities, and also to face the force of his emotions’ (Welsh 368). At the end the friends all agree that they have learned nothing from his death, and in this it seems that by scapegoating Mattie, and believing that they could not be ‘deficient’ and get the disease, the have created a case out of him in order to create cognitive dissonance between themselves and the reality of the situation. Here, they come together in agreement that it was Matty’s fault, that they could never contract the disease because they are better than