Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

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“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold” (3):

the opening sentence of Hunter S. Thompson’s

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

has become one of the most famous in American literature. It tells the reader exactly what the novel will deliver: a risky journey through a hostile environment by protagonists high on dangerous chemicals. Although influenced by sources such as Jack Kerouac’s

On the Road

(1957), Norman Mailer’s autobiographical fiction

The Armies of the Night

(1968) and the semi-fictional New Journalism of Tom Wolfe,

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

(hereafter

Vegas

) defined its own distinctive territory very clearly when first published in Thompson’s main outlet at the time, the San Francisco-based

Rolling Stone

magazine,…

2555 words

Citation: Stephenson, William. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 February 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=20177, accessed 28 March 2024.]

20177 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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