Quotation #3

"Stability," said the Controller, "stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability."

Why Soma is used, to create individual stability, Chapter 3

This quote is talking about how soma affects daily life; you come home, tired and stressed, and have some soma. It's perfect. You leave, and come back content, creating peace. The text-to-world connection I made is between soma and basically all other addicting drugs. The catch though is, unlike say alcohol, when you have a hangover and thus many people (but not enough people apparently) think twice about taking it. With soma, not only is it permitted, it is almost required, and it has no aftereffects, so that makes it all the more attractive.

The text-to-text connections I made is, surprisingly, to the novel Battle Royale.  In the book, 41 teenagers are forced to fight each other to the death on a remote Japanese island. The "drug" is death, or escape, and there are multiple suicides because the students simply do not have the courage to actually fight one another, except for a few antagonists.
The text-to-self connection is, similar to the text-to-world, about the compulsive use of drugs in society and how they are permitted. Even kids are under the influence of drugs, and about 4-6 % of kids take things like glue/solvents as an escape. Also, there has recently been a few suicides in bullying cases, as an extreme way of escape.