Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson is a novel that takes a journalistic approach to Raoul Duke’s drug trip to Las Vegas. His point of view is unreliable because one does not know for sure whether he is experiencing these events, or if it is the drugs speaking for him. He is with his Lawyer, Dr. Gonzo, and they are attempting to find the American Dream. Both are convinced that they can somehow find this in Las Vegas, and set out together to do so. In reality, the different aspects of Las Vegas are representative of the actual American Dream, which, realistically, is disappointing and unachievable today. The novel is set sometime in the 60’s, while the Vietnam war was happening. During this time era, the American dream died.

The mescaline hits both Duke and Gonzo as they enter the casino, and they are hit with everything stereotypically small-town American in their drug induced haze. This place is theoretically one for family fun, at least, a circus is in the real world. However, in Vegas, it can be considered one form of the American Dream. “’Nonsense,’ I said. ‘We came here to find the American Dream, and now that we are right in the vortex you want to quit.’ I grabbed his bicep and squeezed. ‘You must realize,’ I said, ‘that we’ve found the main nerve.’ ‘I know,’ he said, ‘that’s what gives me the fear.’”(47-48) To Duke and Gonzo, it is frightening to be so close to what typical Americans strive for throughout their lifetime. What makes the Circus-Circus a symbol for the American Dream is the excess gambling. This is not a place for the original, hard-working American who makes an honest living at whatever job he has and if he keeps at it and works an abundance of hours and shows his superiors he deserves it, then he will make it to the top and be a millionaire. At the Circus-Circus, if you are lucky enough and play your cards right, you will be rich in a matter of

It is always painted with an honorable brush, one stroke representing a young man who is dirt poor, another showing him working hard and building his life up with raw, dirty hands, and finally he is wealthy enough to wipe his behind with a hundred-dollar bill. Does that mirror happiness? Thompson is searching for this answer, and trying to prove the death of the notion that those who are hardworking and ambitious enough to become a millionaire will have peaked to the ultimate American and never worry or feel sad or experience any sort of hardship. He mocks this in the novel through his descriptions of his trek through Las Vegas. Because Duke is on drugs, the reader can perceive him to be an unreliable narrator, and in a sense, he is. “When discussing how much was true and how much was fabricated, Thompson mentions ‘imaginary alligators’. Obviously, such things were hallucinations, but they were, as O’Rourke comments, ‘real imaginary.’ That is to say, what Thompson saw may not actually have been there, but he saw them nonetheless, and wrote about them. Therefore, he accurately and truthfully recorded a trip. His thoughts were wild and absurd, but he really did think them.” His descriptions are wild and unbelievable, but they are what he believes he is experiencing and he sees them even when others may not, like the lizards in the hotel lobby and the bats on the road. What makes his drug-induced eye so