Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
American Culture and Counterculture
The American Dream
Drugs and American Society
News and Journalism
Violence
Summary
Analysis
By the time Duke and Gonzo park the Great Red Shark in front of their hotel, they are both “hyper-tense.” Duke decides the car will be safer in the parking garage, and he leaves Gonzo in the room alone and goes to tend to the car. He walks out through the gaming floor. It is now four thirty Sunday morning, but the casino is still crowded, full of people “humping the American Dream, that vision of the Big Winner somehow emerging from the last-minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas casino.”
This passage again underscores the power of capitalist greed in society and the widespread desire to make it rich. Duke’s reference to the people as “humping the American Dream” when they should be asleep implies that Americans are naturally drawn to the idea of wealth and excess in a way that is innate—like a physiological desire for sex.
Themes
After Duke parks the car, he returns to the room to find Gonzo soaking in the bathtub, the water a sickly green color from a bag of Japanese bath salts. Gonzo tells Duke to put the cassette tape he has just bought, Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow, into the tape player. “’White Rabbit,’” Gonzo orders. “I want rising sound.” Duke notices that Gonzo has eaten an entire sheet of acid. “You evil son of a bitch,” Duke says. “You better hope there’s some Thorazine in that bag, because if there’s not you’re in bad trouble tomorrow.”
Gonzo’s radio, new cassette tape, and bath salts again recall consumerism and capitalism, but his love for Jefferson Airplane is a reflection of his identity as part of the American counterculture. “White Rabbit” an iconic song from the late ‘60s, is widely regarded as the anthem of the countercultural movement.
Themes
Gonzo wants Duke to play “White Rabbit” as loud as it will go and then throw the radio in the bathtub “when it comes to the fantastic note where the rabbit bites its own head off.” Gonzo wants to get “Higher!” and he is convinced electrocution is the way to go. Duke tries to talk Gonzo out of it without much success, and begins to formulate a plan. As the song builds, Duke reaches for a ripe grapefruit near the tub, and then throws it “like a cannonball” into the water. Gonzo begins to thrash around violently and Duke grabs the radio and runs out of the bathroom.
Gonoz’s prolific drug use also reflects his support of the counterculture. Psychedelic drugs were at the center of the movement, and Gonzo’s desire to get “Higher!” suggests that he hasn’t left his dedication to psychedelic drugs in the ‘60s. At the same time, his idea of “higher” at this point means a violent death, suggesting that the whole counterculture has devolved into a horrifying “bad trip.”
Themes
Gonzo comes out of the bathroom waving a knife, and Duke quickly reaches for a can of mace. “You want this?” he asks, waving the can around. “You bastard!” Gonzo yells. Duke threatens to call the police and have Gonzo arrested. He doesn’t have a choice, he tells Gonzo. “I wouldn’t dare go to sleep with you wandering around in this condition—with a head full of acid and wanting to slice me up with that goddamn knife.” Gonzo shrugs and lights a cigarette. “Try to get some rest,” Gonzo says. “Don’t let me keep you up.” Duke agrees and closes his eyes. He knows “the acid has shifted gears on [Gonzo].” For the next four hours or so, Gonzo will be in the grips of “catatonic despair,” and will not be physically dangerous.
Both Duke and Gonzo again have a baseline response of violence. While it could be easily argued that Duke only responds aggressively because Gonzo comes at him in a violent way, the fact that Duke even has a can of mace in the first place suggests that he expects violence and will need protection from it. Furthermore, both Duke and Gonzo quickly recover and seem to forget the incident easily enough, which again implies that they frequently encounter violence and are used to responding to it.
Themes
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