Privilege without Responsibility
The story is set at Yale University, but within a reality that is not exactly our own. While secret societies are a part of the Yale culture, for the most part they are simply ridiculous opportunities for rich people to play dress up while enjoying their wealth and privilege. In this reality, the secret societies involve genuine occult weirdness and magic that is not related to how much money your father has and how much influence that money buys. The reality and the fictional are part of the same coin, however, as the presentation of stranger things going on Yale than already go on there is demonstrated to reveal that giving these people more privilege and power does nothing to increase their sense of responsibility. The system is rotten and corrupt because the people within it are so.
Drugs Are Not Medication
The novel also takes an issue existing in the real world and steeps it within the strangeness of its otherworldly vision of reality in the form of drug abuse. America is strange country as it is: an overwhelmingly misplaced focus is placed on opioid abuse while every weekend the broadcast airwaves are marketing alcohol as the solution to all of life’s unhappiness. Emotional issues, mental health, and just plain psychopathy are “treated” with drugs by various characters in the novel with the inevitable consequence of taking mind and body altering substances not designed to treat those issues. Almost every character, in fact, is shown at one time or another to be ingesting drugs either for the intended purpose of dulling or sharpening emotional reactions to sensory input. This is not pharmaceutical abuse and reflects the greater reality of America’s problems than the overhyped issue of prescription drug abuse.
College Rituals Are Inane and Archaic
Throughout the story, emphasis is placed upon the “rituals” that members of these secret societies perform. In real life, these rituals are primarily kept secret from the outside world because of the simple fact that to anyone not looking to become a member of the society performing them they look embarrassingly moronic. At the same time, however, it is not unknown for some of these rituals—especially those taking the form of hazing—to result in injury or even death. The protagonist of the story is actually put in charge of ensuring the safety of the rituals performed by the societies because on at least once occasion a hellbeast was summoned and, apparently, summoning a hellbeast is looked down upon by the good folks in charge of such things at Yale. This over-the-op fictionalizing of what can happen during one of these rituals has the effect, along with other unwanted consequences, of revealing just how such shenanigans belong to another place and time, alongside such other outdated and forgotten institutions of the past like men’s lodges and slavery.
