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Part 2, Chapter 5
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
American Culture and Counterculture
The American Dream
Drugs and American Society
News and Journalism
Violence
Summary
Analysis
The next day, Duke and Gonzo head off to the Dunes Hotel for the Drug Conference and find 1,500 officers of the law gathered in the main ballroom. There is a stage at one end of the room and at least a dozen speakers are scattered about. “This 1935 style of speaker placement” has something “ominous and authoritarian about it,” and both Duke and Gonzo are immediately uncomfortable. On the stage is a “drug expert” named Dr. E. R. Bloomquist. He is talking about “the Drug Culture” and the danger of acid “flashbacks.”
The “ominous and authoritarian” way in which the conference is presented makes it feel like the conference is taking place in the middle of Nazi Germany or some other similar society. Duke and Gonzo are immediately uncomfortable because such an authoritarian environment implies that law enforcement has absolute authority over their personal freedom.
Themes
Bloomquist is “a well known authority on the abuse of dangerous drugs,” and he is going on and on about the “‘four states of being’ in the cannabis society: ‘Cool, Groovy, Hip & Square.’” Duke has heard “dangerous gibberish” like this before. He remembers seeing bulletins in Police Department locker rooms that warned about the “DOPE FIEND.” The bulletins cautioned officers to beware of Dope Fiends with “white [knuckles] from inner tension” and pants that are “crusted with semen from constantly jacking off when he can’t find a rape victim.” According to the bulletins, “the Dope Fiend fears nothing” and will shoot a cop with his own gun.
For being such a “well known authority” on drugs, Dr. Bloomquist is painfully ill-informed on their use, and Thompson implies that the American government and actual law enforcement agencies are likewise clueless. The conference falsely paints every drug user as a violent criminal. The character of Gonzo seems to embody this, but Duke, while he certainly thinks violent thoughts, is generally harmless, albeit tolerant of violence in others.
Themes
Gonzo becomes visibly uncomfortable and tense, and Duke “tries to console him.” As Gonzo looks around the room at all the Midwestern cops, his anxiety continues to build. “I saw these bastards in Easy Rider, but I didn’t believe they were real,” Gonzo says. “Not like this. Not hundreds of them!” Gonzo begins to worry that the conference is infiltrated by a “dope-dealing bomb freak” who is sure to recognize him and “put the word out” that he is hanging around a bunch of cops. “This is a fucking nightmare!” Gonzo cries. Duke agrees and admits to feeling “a bit tense” because the check they had paid the registration fee with was “bad” and “absolutely worthless.”
Gonzo’s anxiety and reference to only seeing Midwestern cops in a magazine makes them seem like exotic animals in National Geographic. Gonzo is the counterculture, which was focused on the West Coast, specifically in San Francisco, and this passage implies that he is inherently at odds with those from middle America, so much so that he calls it a “fucking nightmare!” Duke and Gonzo’s attempt to pass a bad check again underscores their resistance to the establishment and mainstream society.
Themes
