Essay On Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas

Meta-fiction is a huge part of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, really the whole book is meta-fictional. Thompson is telling the story of a trip he took at a different time, with a lot of imagined details thrown in. In the text there are countless examples of different meta-fictions, but perhaps the most important one is the illustrations throughout the book. Again, pretty much every illustration is it’s own meta-fiction, but one in particular stands out in my mind, the one with the caption that reads “As your attorney I advise you to slow down- I can’t keep up man!” This image, like all images in the book is drawn in a very cartoonlike manner, which is important because it helps to distort reality even farther. These two men are so far removed from reality with the drugs they are on, that they can’t even distinguish between reality and their hallucinations half the time. …show more content…
It makes it more real and much more powerful than if there was just pages and pages of words talking about the drugs and hallucinations, and no images to help really drive the point home. The images also make the reader stop and think. Think about what is going through the character’s mind, what it would be like if they were in the same situation, how they would react and how they would respond. For many readers it opens their eyes to a world they otherwise would never have known, and it makes them think about that world compared to the world they live in now. Another instance of the use of meta-fiction in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the using of relevant topics that the audience can relate to. Throughout the book Thompson mentions ‘the American dream’ when Duke and his attorney are on their drug infused road