Summary Of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas

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Hunter S. Thompson’s, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” is a self reflection of a journey to Vegas as a journalist for a sports magazine in which Thompsons persona, “ Raoul Duke” is accompanied by his Samoan “attorney” whose only counsel seems to consist of recommending illegal drugs. It is this drug counter-culture, which exposes Thompson’s desire of obtaining the “American Dream”. Thompson’s abstracted idea surrounding the “American Dream” arises primarily from the 60s, when America possessed the qualities of innocence and with the emerging drug culture promised a new perspective on reality. This quest for the ”American Dream” subsequently comes directly from the books subtitle, “A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream”. Though…show more content…
Thompson’s pursuit fell under the ultimate rag to riches kind of story. Thompson’s pursuit of the American Dream is perhaps a distorted representation in which he finds Vegas as being the central place where the American Dream lies. Vegas ideally represents a fast paced, quick buck kind of American dream rather than working towards achieving something. Thompson’s pursuit for the American Dream alters throughout his journey in Vegas, the drugs somehow allow a more realistic perspective for Thompson on where the American Dream can be found. His constant state of drug induced realities focuses on the people that are in Vegas searching for the same thing he is which introduces the idea that maybe Vegas alludes to the American Dream without truly possessing it. Thompson’s realization that Vegas may actually be the death of the “American Dream” comes when he is amazed by the people at 4:30 am sitting around all the gambling tables looking for the big win, he ultimately describes them as “ still humping the American Dream, that vision of the Big Winner somehow emerging from the last minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale Vegas”.(Thompson 57) This scene that Thompson is witnessing basically depicts the way in which the city itself represents and distorted version of the American Dream, where people can try their luck over and over again in hopes of winning everything in one ultimate moment. The 60s represents a time in which experimentation lead to differing interpretations of what the American Dream truly is(Gair 140), it’s within Thompson’s pursuit of the American Dream in Vegas that the realization that it may no longer exists becomes a

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