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
Duke and Gonzo sit quietly through the morning listening to the convention. Sitting there with a “headful of mescaline” is “easy enough” since these “poor bastards didn’t know mescaline from macaroni.” As the speakers drone on, Gonzo gets up to leave. “I’ll be down in the casino,” he says. “I know a hell of a lot better ways to waste my time than listening to this bullshit.” He crashes his way to the door, knocking over chairs and people on his way. “I have to get out!” he yells. “I don’t belong here!”
Duke again describes law enforcement as completely clueless since they don’t know mescaline, a powerful psychedelic drug, from “macaroni.” Gonzo’s reaction to his surroundings again reflects his commitment to counterculture and resistance—he doesn’t feel that he belongs with the establishment and therefore must get out.
Themes
Duke follows Gonzo out, pretending that he is going to be sick. The crowd quickly parts to let him by, and he finds Gonzo at the bar talking to a cop from Georgia. “We don’t have much of a problem with drugs down where I come from,” the man says as Duke approaches. “You will,” says Gonzo. “One of these nights you’ll wake up and find a junkie tearing your bedroom apart.” Junkies are everywhere, Gonzo says, and heading south. “Jesus God almighty,” the Georgia cop says. “What the hell’s goin’ on in this country?”
The cop from Georgia is a satirical representation of what Thompson sees as clueless and out-of-touch law enforcement.. He has zero professional experience with drugs, yet he easily believes the nonsense that Gonzo tells him.
Themes
Gonzo tells the Georgia cop that junkies have taken over California, and that now they are into “witchcraft.” He looks at the cop seriously and tells him about junkies “gone crazy for human sacrifice.” The cop is shaken. “But we can’t just lock ourselves in the house and be prisoners!” he says. Of course not, says Duke. That’s why we “cut their goddamn heads off” in California. Gonzo confirms. “It’s all on the Q.T.,” he says, “but everybody who matters is with us all the way down the line.” Duke explains they need to keep it “quiet,” and the cop agrees. “We’d never hear the goddamn end of it,” he says. Duke and Gonzo leave the man behind at the bar, shaking his head in disbelief.
Gonzo’s ridiculous story underscores how easy it is to criminalize an entire population of drug users only out of fear. He makes the Georgia cop think that junkies are dangerous and headed his way. The cop is very accepting of the idea of killing junkies, which is of course needless violence, but it also reflects the contempt society at large has for drug users. Thompson again uses a hyperbolic situation to satirize what he sees as an essentially violent establishment—they really would like to behead all junkies, he suggests, if they thought they could get away with it.
Themes
