Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Themes

At its core, Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is an examination of the fall of American counterculture. During the 1960s, young people began to reject the conservative views of their parents and took to the streets in a collective rebellion to protest society’s greatest ills—specifically the mounting violence and corruption of the Vietnam War and the racial, social, and gender inequality of American society. By 1970, it became clear that the…

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas focuses on Raoul Duke, a California journalist, and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo, as they travel from Los Angeles, California, to Las Vegas, Nevada, in a drug-fueled search for the American Dream. Duke’s understanding of the American Dream assumes that anyone, with a little luck and “true grit,” can succeed and prosper in America, and when he is assigned a story in Las Vegas, he figures it…

Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a piece of “Gonzo journalism”—a form of “New journalism” invented by Thompson himself that rejects the objectivity of traditional journalism and instead relies on an individual, first-person account of any given event. Whereas traditional journalism seeks to disclose objective and absolute truth, Gonzo journalism assumes that absolute truth does not exist, which results in a strange blend of fact and fiction that reveals personal truth…

Violence is everywhere in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. As Duke and Dr. Gonzo travel to Las Vegas in a drug-fueled search for the American Dream, they both engage in violent behavior and see violence reflected in the world around them. Television and newspapers are filled with the violence of the Vietnam War, and the people on the streets of Vegas and Hollywood are no different. Duke and Dr. Gonzo intimidate an innocent…