Tracing 1960s Counterculture's Social Reality in Hunter S. Thompson's Hell’s Angels and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in View of Georg Lukács' Theories[Latin Thesis]

Ali Masoudi

Perhaps the 1960s movement was among the last times the United States’ Capitalism was ideologically and socially. How the system reacted to the ideological collision, and even established a more powerful system can be studied further through a study of Hunter S. Thompson’s early novels. Hunter S. Thompson wrote Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas respectively in 1967 and 1971 to depict historical collisions he was at center of it. Although Thompson’s style of writing, Gonzo Journalism, attracted the interest of the critics from the very beginning, the pieces fell out of the literary canon. Still, a Lukácsian analysis of these two novels can be fruitful for the query of the social/ideological essence of their time and the evolution of Thompson’s writing style. Starting from a Lukácsian reportage in Hell’s Angels, Thompson’s poetic prose in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a radical shift of form compared to his first novel which surprisingly provide more factuality than his strictly journalistic novel, Hell’s Angels. Hence, a proper study of Thompson’s two early works can bring us a great perception of the social truth in the ideological battleground of the post-Vietnam United States as well as the reasons and results of the 60s counterculture, and the most important part of the historical depiction, portraying the Capital at a point of its evolvement and struggle as Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas will be debated in heights of a historical novel. This constant struggle of form will be discussed through Lukács aesthetical philosophy, especially through the dialogue he submits between form and content of a literary piece. The main source of study of the novel will be Lukács’ three aesthetic books, Soul and Form, The Historical Novel, and Essays on Realism. It will be shown how all-inclusive attitude of the movement became fatal to their social and ideological demands and how Capitalism uses their shortcomings to empower itself. Hunter S. Thompson, Georgy Lukács, Counterculture, Historical Novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hell’s Angels