ABSTRACT
Throughout the pages of Wasted, the author have concerned with a similarly controlling metaphor the metaphor of waste and the ways in which that metaphor not only vividly describes the experiences of addiction, but also shapes how Americans perceive, respond to, and live through their addictions. The metaphor of waste time and again locks the addict into a deterministic, oppressive, and often fatal cycle of abuse in which rehabilitation and respect are, at best, pipe dreams. Unlike the metaphor of waste, which asserts itself with the authority and the absolute certainty of a monolith, the metaphor that is traced by Mia Michael's choreography seems always unsure of itself, tentative if not wholly ambiguous in meaning. It refuses to accept the authority of representation and, in doing so, it works to unsettle the authority of the metaphor of waste. The production of metaphor constitutes an exercise of power, as does its elucidation in the form of a study such as Wasted.
