The Hitchhiker Character Analysis

Duke and Gonzo pick up the hitchhiker just outside of Barstow on their way to Las Vegas, and Duke describes him as a “poor Oakie kid” who has never been in a convertible before. Thompson includes an illustration of the hitchhiker in which he appears as a balding hippie, but Duke’s reference to him as an “Oakie” suggests that he isn’t from California. While the hitchhiker may want to appear as a member of the counterculture, he is easily shaken by Duke and Gonzo’s drug use and references to violence, and he jumps out the back of the moving convertible the first chance he gets. Duke again encounters the hitchhiker near a desert town named Baker after a run-in with the California Highway Patrol. Drunk and tripping on acid, Duke is struck with crippling paranoia at the sight of the hitchhiker and immediately runs back to Vegas—in the opposite direction of the hitchhiker. Duke and Gonzo represent 1960s American counterculture, a movement that was centered largely on the West Coast. The hitchhiker, on the other hand, represents middle America, a place and people Duke and Gonzo feel completely at odds with.