The Drawing of the Three

This section tracks the evolving association between Eddie and Roland. In addition, it explores an important motif: voices from the past. In Eddie’s case, the voice is predominantly that of his older brother, Henry, while for Roland, the voices belong to Cort, his mentor, and to the man in black. One feature of this novel and The Dark Tower series overall is the expanding network and semantics of symbols. In this section of the novel, the text creates layers of meaning by assigning additional associations to symbols like the baboon on the prisoner’s back and the tower that Roland chases. For instance, as the reader learns more about Eddie’s relationship with his brother, Henry, it becomes clear that the burden (or baboon) that Eddie carries isn’t just drug use but also an unhealthy emotional attachment to his brother that drew him to drugs. In that sense, Eddie carries not one but two burdens. Similarly, Eddie is shown to be a prisoner in more than one sense: He’s a “prisoner” to drug use, and when the Customs officials take him in custody, he’s briefly imprisoned for real. Eddie is also a prisoner to Roland since Roland entered his mind and life without permission.

In the mythos of the universe that Eddie and Roland inhabit, the Tower represents a central bridge or axis around which many dimensions revolve. In The Gunslinger, the man in black showed Roland a vision of the tower and told him that the tower was the answer to the puzzle of life and death. For Roland, the tower becomes the defining quest of his life, the symbol of ultimate truth. Apart from symbolizing the truth, the tower represents a difficult journey and personal hubris or pride. The text foreshadows that the single-minded quest for the tower itself may complicate judgment, such as when Roland sees Balazar’s lair and mistakes it for the tower. Eddie explains to him that the red lights around the tower aren’t apocalyptic flames but neon signage. Additionally, the tower motif is mirrored in the tower of cards that Balazar obsessively builds. Again, the text hints that a quest bordering on obsession can backfire and collapse like a house of cards.

In the chapter titled “The Shuffle,” the voices-from-the-past motif predominates, with Roland and Eddie trekking the bleak, sterile shore, consumed in their thoughts. Setting is as important in this section as in the previous one, as Roland and Eddie’s unending walk in a hostile landscape is described vividly. The outer landscape mirrors the characters, the gray waves and rocky shore reflecting Roland’s advancing fever and Eddie’s grief and symptoms of withdrawal. In this setting, the past looms large: Eddie recalls that his mother often lectured him “on how much both she and Henry had sacrificed for him” (191). In addition, Eddie tells Roland that every time he tried to intervene as Henry’s drug use became more severe, Henry would admit that he was weak and didn’t deserve to live. Disarmed by his brother’s frightening admission, Eddie would end up placating Henry and eventually joining him. In a passage that reveals the strangeness of Roland’s world, Roland is stopped short by Eddie singing the Beatles song “Hey Jude.” The song seems so familiar to Roland he wants to ask Eddie if he heard it from him. This shows a mysterious overlap between Eddie’s and Roland’s realms, adding to the whimsy and mystique of Mid-World. Earlier, Roland reflected on how even Marten, a figure from his past, didn’t take as much sugar in his coffee as the cola of Eddie’s world contains. This shows that Roland’s world uses the word “coffee,” but the term “sandwich” is alien, enhancing his world’s uniqueness.

Voices from the past dominate not just Eddie’s thoughts but also Roland’s. Roland’s internal monologue presents as a series of observations and remembrances, punctuated by pithy statements and speeches by Cort and the man in black. For instance, when Eddie asks Roland whose fault it was that Henry began to use drugs, Roland recalls a line from Cort: “Fault always lies in the same place, my fine babies: with him weak enough to lay blame” (194). Cort’s idiomatic expressions are important on two levels: They add vigor to Roland’s internal monologue, and they also provide crucial backstory about Roland. In the previous section, Roland recalls Cort calling the gunslingers-in-training “maggots” (30). Cort’s training is a mixture of potent advice, tough love, and disbursing a punishing code of masculinity. The training explains why Roland reveals so little of his emotions. While Cort’s voice is the voice of authority and fathers in a symbolic sense, the mocking voice of the man in black, which Roland describes as having taken up permanent residence in his head, represents guilt and self-doubt. Roland’s guilt at Jake’s death manifests itself as the chiding statements of the man in black.

That both Eddie and Roland are haunted by the scepters of their past shows the deepening connection between them. This connection ties into the motif of doubles and pairs. Roland and Eddie may seem vastly different from each other but are also each other’s double. Both characters must outgrow the voices of their pasts and forge a new, stronger self. The metaphor of intrusive voices mirrors the plot’s physical setting. The lobstrosities make an animalistic noise that sounds like “did-a-chick” and “dum-a-chum” (187). Every time Eddie shoots a lobstrosity for its meat, a “ka-blam” sound jolts Roland out of his feverish dreams (182).

This section continues the theme of The Relationship Between Destiny and Free Will. In “The Shuffle,” after Eddie ends his tale, Roland muses that Eddie’s life makes sense because it brought him here: “It’s ka” (198). The term ka is analogous to destiny or “a place you must go” (198). Eddie is enraged at Roland’s words because he can’t see any meaning in his past life or his present conundrum. Eddie feels that talk of destiny is “a goddamn mean trick” (199). Eddie didn’t end up on the beach because it was destined; Roland took him there deliberately for his mission. Eddie implies that exalting the concept of destiny can make people feel that any of their actions are justified. Eddie’s concerns are valid, but the text also shows that Roland truly believes in destiny. When he reaches the second door, Eddie threatens him at knifepoint to take him along. Roland lets ka decide whether he’ll live or die, and he takes the action he sees fit anyway. Thus, the text hints that human decisions are motivated by a complex interplay between a sense of destiny or purpose and one’s individual or free will. The tarot cards motif illustrates the theme of destiny, raising the question of whether Roland was destined to seek the prisoner or sought the prisoner because the card was drawn and whether he would have ended up on the beach had he not drawn that card. In addition, the text suggests the question of what would have happened had Roland not opened the door marked “the prisoner.”

The banter between Roland and Eddie leads to many moments of humorous culture clash, such as when Eddie observes that Roland has a “really incredible case of culture lag” (200). Additionally, the text contains many instances of dark humor, such as when Roland notices that the meat Eddie has been serving him is incredibly delicious and sweet. What Roland doesn’t know at this point is that the meat is from the horrid lobstrosities, one of which actually ate Roland’s fingers. Another instance of tongue-in-cheek humor occurs when Roland wonders whether cocaine is made of sugar since cola tastes so incredible, which alludes to the original Coca-Cola containing a cocaine-like substance. However, the relationship between Roland and Eddie lickers between warmth and dislike: While in Balazar’s lair, Roland and Eddie act like the perfect team. However, in the final chapter of this section, Eddie often bickers with Roland, finding his concepts of knighthood, ka, and the divine quest antiquated and false. The evolving dynamic mirrors a generational clash, or father-son trope. This relationship mirrors the bond that Roland had with Jake in the first book of the series, underscoring again the motif of doubles and pairs and, more generally, recurring patterns.