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Fear and loathing in las vegas literary analysis
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Fear and loathing in las vegas literary analysis
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In a complex world, are things as they seem, or are they a simple misconception? Without complexity there are limited possibilities to a simple stimulus. A limited world is a simple world, thus boring and unsatisfying. Thompson’s book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has been misunderstood, and dismissed without further exploration, it needs to be analyzed and interpreted from three different aspects to acquire true apprehension : superficial, analytical, and core.
Lead in “No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted” (Thompson 47). Psychedelic drugs alter the perception of the user, thus twisting an already twisted community. Las Vegas is a strange and bazaar town, one could not foreshadow what lies beyond the next turn or bend in a conscious mind; to fathom being in the heart of this city, while in an altered state of mind due to the influence of psychedelic drugs is overwhelming. What is intriguing is this idea is conveyed in two sentences, but only if analyzed below the surface. This book has gold hidden beneath the words, ready for the harvest of the reader.
These words lay to waste when they lack the attention of the reader, or to the superficial mind. Perception is reality, reality is what is perceived and altered accordingly. For example in Thompson’s book it is stated, “Always quit winners” (Thompson 72). Seems crude, does it not? Only at first, see the winners did not build Las Vegas, and winners are only winners while they are winning, but luck runs out. There may be even more to this than explained, less than explained, or the explanation is invalid to another perception. While in a drug induced psychosis, Duke tells his attorney, “No more of that talk, or I’ll put the leeches on I
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...ew, March 1990." Hunter S. Thompson. William McKeen. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991. 105-109. Twayne's United States Authors Series 574. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 13 Jan. 2014.
Metzger, Lynn. "Las Vegas in fiction and nonfiction." Bookmarks Sept.-Oct. 2012: 21+. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 13 Jan. 2014.
"Rolling Stoned." Hunter S. Thompson. William McKeen. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991. 47-61. Twayne's United States Authors Series 574. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 13 Jan. 2014.
Thompson, Hunter S. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream. London: Paladin Grafton, 1971. Print.
"When the Going Gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro”." Hunter S. Thompson. William McKeen. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991. 101-104. Twayne's United States Authors Series 574. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 13 Jan. 2014.
Psychedelic drugs were an icon of the 1960s, its role embedded within the rising counterculture in response to the economic, social, and political turmoil throughout the United States. As a means to impose a central power and control social order, federal authorities were quick to ban the recreational and medical use of psychedelic drugs without consideration of its potential benefits. The recent state laws on the legalization of marijuana in Oregon and Colorado with others soon to follow, is a sure sign of an eventual collective shift in the perceptions of psychedelic drugs. Not only does Daniel Pinchbeck document his reflections on the personal consumption of psychedelic drugs in his unconventional novel Breaking Open the Head, he also advances several assertions on modern Western society in his exploration of polarized attitudes on this controversial topic.
Boyer, B., Boyer, R., & Basehart, H. 1973. Hallucinogens and Shamanism M. Hamer, Ed.. England: Oxford University Press.
Studies in American Fiction 17 (1989): 33-50.
Vonnegut, Kurt. “Harrison Bergeron.” Short Stories Characters In Conflict. Ed. John E. Warner. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981. 344-353
Pynchon designed The Crying of Lot 49 so that there would be two levels of observation: that of the characters such as our own Oedipa Maas, whose world is limited to the text, and that of the reader, who looks at the world from outside it but who is also affected by his relationship to that world.3 Both the reader and the characters have the same problems observing the chaos around them. The protagonist in The Crying of Lot 49, Oedipa Mass, like Pynchon's audience, is forced to either involve herself in the deciphering of clues or not participate at all.4
Cather, Willa. “Paul’s Case.” The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Eds. R.V. Cassill and Richard Bausch. Shorter 6th ed. New York: Norton, 2000. 198-207.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., “Harrison Bergeron,” Welcome to the Monkey House (New York: Dell Publishing, 1968)
Shear, Walter. "Cultural Fate and Social Freedom in Three American Short Stories", Studies in Short Fiction, Newberry, S.C., 1992 Fall, 29:4, 543-549.
Self, Will. "Hell, High Water and Heroin: On the Trail of a British Gonzo Journalist to Compare with Hunter S Thompson." New Statesman 10.445 (21 Mar. 1997): 46-47. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
" American Literature 58.2 (May 1986): 181-202. Wright, Richard. A.
Drugs are used to escape the real and move into the surreal world of one’s own imaginations, where the pain is gone and one believes one can be happy. People look on their life, their world, their own reality, and feel sickened by the uncaringly blunt vision. Those too weak to stand up to this hard life seek their escape. They believe this escape may be found in chemicals that can alter the mind, placing a delusional peace in the place of their own depression: “Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly halucinant,” (52). They do this with alcohol, acid, crack, cocaine, heroine, opium, even marijuana for the commoner economy. These people would rather hide behind the haze than deal with real problems. “...A gramme is better than a damn.” (55).
McMichael, G., et. al., (1993) Concise Anthology of American Literature- 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Krakauer, Jon. Into the wild. New York: Anchor Books , a division of Random House Inc.,, 1997. Print.
Jackson, Kevin. “The great bad writer.” Prospect Magazine. 22 Feb 2012. Web. 20 April 2014.
Heller, Joseph. The Chelsea House Library of Literary Criticism. Twentieth-Century American Literature Vol. 3. New York. Chelsea House Publishers, 1986.