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
As Duke walks around the airport, he realizes that he is still wearing his police badge from the conference. He rips it off. The conference “had been a waste of time, a lame fuckaround” that was “a cheap excuse for a thousand cops to spend a few days in Vegas.” The cops hadn’t learned a thing about “the Drug Culture” in “this foul year of Our Lord, 1971.” They are still talking about LSD, but the “popularity of psychedelics has fallen off so drastically” over the last couple of years.”
When Duke rips off his conference badge, he is metaphorically rejecting the American establishment, which he considers a “lame fuckaround,” much like the conference itself. The Drug Culture of the 1960s was fueled by LSD and other psychedelics, drugs that suited their optimistic agenda. With the fall of the ‘60s counterculture came the fall of optimism and LSD.
Themes
“The big market, these days,” Duke says, “is in Downers.” Today, what sells is “whatever Fucks You Up—whatever short circuits your brain and grounds it out for the longest possible time.” Psychedelics “are no longer stylish,” Duke clarifies. “’Consciousness Expansion’ went out with LBJ…and it is worth noting, historically, that downers came in with Nixon.”
“Consciousness Expansion” with psychedelic drugs in the 1960s was an effort to find peace and understanding in society, but Duke claims that this was never really possible, and became abundantly clear with the election of Nixon. Nixon’s corrupt administration led to increased violence in the Vietnam War, which caused a national crisis with “Downers.”
Themes
Duke boards his plane and enjoys a pleasant flight, but when he lands, he notices the Rocky Mountains out the window. “What the fuck am I doing here?” Duke asks. He decides to call Gonzo and figure it out, but first he goes to a drug store for some amyls. The woman at the counter refuses to sell them without a prescription. “But you see, I’m a doctor,” Duke says. “I don’t need a prescription.” He produces his Ecclesiastical Discount Card that “identifies him as a Doctor of Divinity, a certified Minister of the Church of the New Truth. “I hope you’ll forgive me, Doctor,” the woman says. “We get some real freaks in this place.”
Duke frequently claims to be a Doctor of Journalism and here he claims to be a Doctor of Divinity. He identifies Gonzo as a doctor (although he fails to mention in what), and even the expert at the drug conference, E. R. Bloomquist, is a doctor; however, Thompson doesn’t depict these doctors in a flattering light. Duke and Gonzo are obviously violent and unreliable, and Bloomquist doesn’t actually know anything about his specialty. In this way, Thompson again resists the American establishment and makes a mockery out of doctors, who fill a widely trusted and respected role in society.
Themes
Duke nods and walks away, snorting an amyl. He passes a couple of Marines near the bathroom. “God’s mercy on you swine!” Duke yells at them as he walks by. He sniffs another amyl and walks toward a bar, feeling “like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger…a Man on the Move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.”
Duke again resists the establishment when he refers to members of the United States military as “swine.” Duke’s reference to Horatio Alger implies that he is still searching for the American Dream, or whatever it has or will become, and his continued drug use suggests that he will continue to resist the American establishment in any way he can.
Themes
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