Dreaming of America: the Destruction of the American Dream
The sub-title of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is “A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream” – and the word “savage” suggests Thompson’s overall feelings about the American Dream: he disapproves of it. The epigraph to the book is important too. It is a quotation from the English man of letters Samuel Johnson: “He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” In the context of the book, this implies that Duke and Dr. Gonzo turn themselves into beasts in order to cope with the sordid materialistic ...
