The American Dream

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold,”(3). So begins Hunter S. Thompson’s epic quest to the center of the American Dream, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Raoul Duke and his Samoan attorney, Doctor Gonzo, are sent to Las Vegas to cover the Mint 400, an annual race. Upon hearing of his assignment, Duke uses the $300 expense account he had been given by his employer to rent a red convertible and load it up with every type of drug he could get his hands on. Raoul and his attorney are perpetually high, even while driving. Raoul hallucinates, at various times, that he is being attacked by bats and that giant lizards have gone on a bloody rampage in the hotel lobby. But it is not yet clear why Raoul and his attorney use drugs so heavily. Is it an escape from harsh realities? Are they addicts? Time will tell.

It is also unclear just how Thompson will go about exploring the American Dream. Duke appears to be rather sure that his covering the Mint 400 has some obvious relation to the American Dream, but it does not appear to be a connection that is obvious to…normal people, at least not yet. According to Duke, the story he will write is, “Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas,”(12). But Duke’s conception of the American Dream seems so different from its common perception, that is, prosperity and the ability to improve oneself, that it is hard for me to understand. His American Dream seems to have something to do with driving fast in a convertible and doing loads of drugs. Perhaps, then, freedom is Duke’s American Dream—freedom from authority and the normal bounds of human thought. It will be interesting to see how Thompson accentuates this over the course of the book.