quitters inc

Quitters, Inc.
Quitters Inc. is written by Stephen King. It was first published in 1978 in the ‘Night shift’ collection. Stephen King is a very well known writer, especially for his contemporary horror, science fiction and fantasy stories.

Quitters Inc. is about a man named Dick Morrison who decides to quit smoking after he meets an old friend. McCann recommends Quitters Inc. to help him. What Morrison does not realize, before it is too late, is that it will have extremely consequences if he cheats. The Quitters Inc. program guarantees that people will stop smoking forever. The program has 10 steps for cheaters, and what Morrison does not believe before he becomes a cheater, is that the program will not only hurt him but also his closest and most beloved family.

The theme of this short story is ‘Love and family are the strongest motivation'. When Morrison says that love is the ‘most pernicious drug of all' (P. 236), he means that love makes you blind. Besides that he also means that you would do anything for love and your family in the end and if you get a serious ultimatum about you quitting something or your family getting hurt, you are able to do what you think is impossible. With the right motivation as love and family, everybody can quit smoking even though he or she does not want to. The treatment Mr. Morrison was going through was in an unethical way. In the beginning, they show him a rat that receives electroshock when it is trying to eat something that it likes. Donatti explains that the same would happen to his wife if he will continue smoking. They are putting Richard in a ‘mental game' to make him quit smoking, so if he loves his wife he should quit smoking.

The text takes place in the real world, but all the features that are included in the story and the unethical methods to stop smoking makes the vision of the story look different. The story takes place in New York and begins at Kennedy International (P. 217, top part) which is the airport where Morrison meets his friend Jimmy McCann for the first time, since College. The setting in this story creates a particular atmosphere. Mr. Morrison believes that Quitters Inc. is a healthy clinic with a doctor that would help him ethically through the process, but he will get negative surprised when he sees it for the first time. The atmosphere in this place is a bit odd, because of its location and the interior. Quitters, Inc. is in a new and very fine and expensive building.

The main character Richard (Dick) Morrison is a married man. He and his wife Lucinda Morrison have a son named Alvin who is mentally retarded. In the start of the text, Richard is working, eating and smoking to much. (p. 217, l. 13) Because of this, his relationship with his wife is tense. (p. 222, l. 27) In the start of the text, Richards relationship with his son is not good because he thinks of him like ‘half’ a son. (p. 220, l. 27) but it becomes a lot better at the end. (p. 231, l. 15). After the treatment everything in Richards life seems to get better. He gets a promotion (p. 234, l. 13), looks a lot better because he works out (p. 235, l. 1) and he and his wife get closer to each other again. (p. 234, l. 1)
At first the reader can get a feeling that Richard is a selfish man but as you go through the text, you get to see that he is a good person who really cares about his family.

Everybody who reads the text knows that what they do at Quitters Inc. is not ethical correct. Quitters Inc. was founded by the gangster Mort ‘’Threefingers’’ Minelli. ‘Threefingers’ founded the organization because he was diagnosed with lung cancer. When the reader finds out that a gangster founded the organization it all makes better sense. What the gangsters had realized before everybody else was that love is the most pernicious drug of all (p. 231, in the middle) therefore was the treatment 100 % bulletproof.

We can relate “Quitters, Inc.” to “Thank you for smoking” because both of the stories have the same theme: Is it wrong to smoke and how can we prevent it?
Another reason to relate the two texts is because they are opposites in the ethical way. One wants people to keep smoking and smoke more and the other wants people to stop smoking at any cost.
But we can also relate it to the family relation because both of them improve their relationship to their sons throughout the story. Nick Naylor does not have time to be with his son and Dick Morrison does not want to take the time to be with his son.