The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger

Drugs, whether demon-grass, mescaline, or heroin, play an important role throughout the novel, and symbolize cataclysmic change. This can first be seen in the beginning of the novel, when one of the first focuses is on the devil-grass, a desert grass thatwhen inhaled after burning, causes devastating visions or nightmares. The devil-grass is the only fire fodder within the barren desert, but the gunslinger is careful not to sit in the path of the smoke for fear that he will be lost to its effects.

While the gunslinger never directly feels the effects of the devil-grass, Nort, a citizen of Tull, dies from smoking and chewing the grass. His addiction causes him to live his final days in a mad, dissociated state, before finally dying in his own black vomit. The Man in Black raises Nort from the dead, only for him to still be addicted to the devil-grass in his second life. This addiction that transcends death symbolizes something sinister in the land. Considering the numerous Christian allusions throughout the novel, Nort’s resurrection is most directly associated with Jesus’s resurrection in the Bible, a fact demonstrated by the townspeople of Tull, who think that the Man in Black must be an angel from God.