Drug use in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test"
Summary:
The role of drugs in the creation of two "gonzo journalism" works of literature: "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter S. Thompson, and "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by Thomas Wolfe. The drugs in the both works served to both stimulate creativity and cause personal destruction.
Lots of people tend to look down upon drug related art and artists, as if it is the drug and not the artist that is doing the creating. The books Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test both show examples of how drugs can alter ones mind and their ability to create while under the influence. Fear and Loathing was written by Hunter S. Thompson and the book is based on a drug binge two people take in Las Vegas in search of "the American dream." Both people eventually become completely overcome at different points by their paranoia and their hallucinations.
In The Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, a group of people seek enlightenment through drugs such as LSD and peyote. They believed that hallucinogen drugs "open up doors in the mind" which would increase a person's creative capability.
Drugs such as LSD do cause a feeling of enlightenment but that can also relate to you being completely delusional. I think this is closer to being delusional then to actually be opening up doors in the mind. Although Kesey did write an amazing book (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) while under the influence of LSD, it would not have happened unless this talent of writing was already there. Some people just look at drug influenced art as if it were no more then the ramblings of a madman while it is actually still art. In the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, the people who did the acid did not get the same effects as the people who did it in Fear and Loathing. In the Acid Test, the people could function a lot better then Duke and Gonzo. Duke at one point in the book ate a sheet of LSD and he couldn't function even close to how a normal person would. He just went into his own little ramblings about golf shoes and lizards. The LSD did inspire Ken Kesey in a way, after working as a test subject for the hospital, he was able to get a job working as a psychiatric aide. This was a significant factor in writing the book. Sometimes he would go to work high on acid, by doing so, he was able to understand the pain felt by the patients on the ward. These things helped Kesey obtain insight for writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Kesey's use of drugs while writing allowed him to make scenes such as Chief Bromden's (The Chief is the narrator of the story. He is a Native American who is a paranoid schizophrenic) dreams much more vivid. As mentioned in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, "certain passages like Chief Broom [Chief Bromden] in his schizophrenic fogs it was true vision, a little of what you could see if you opened the doors of perception, friends" (pg 328). Ken Kesey's altered mental state while he wrote Cuckoo's Nest is what truly makes it unique. The novel's message of rebelling against authority was very influential to the 1960's generation.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas also took place in roughly the same time period as The Acid Test. In the book, Duke says" We had two bags of Grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.... also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls... but the only thing that worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge." It is obvious that nothing productive could possibly come out of what they were doing. Also Fear and Loathing was based on the real life of Hunter S. Thompson. Drugs helped influence him to write the book the way he did, in his unique style. Dr. Gonzo and Duke really over did it compared to the "merry pranksters" from the acid test.
Both books did also show the bad side of the drugs they were doing. In The Kool-Aid Acid Test, Ken Kesey and a group of people called the merry pranksters buy a bus and travel across the United States of America in it. One of the girls takes as much LSD as everyone else but it hits her bad and she ends up never coming down. She picks up a child that isn't related to her and starts to hug and kiss him as if it was her child. That gets her put in a mental institution. In Fear and Loathing, Dr. Gonzo comes really close to killing himself when he eats a full sheet of acid which is an obscene amount. He asks Duke to kill him and if he doesn't then he said he was going to kill Duke. Duke of course doesn't do it and he just throws an orange at his head and locks him in the bathroom. Dr. Gonzo comes out brandishing a hunting knife saying how he was going to carve a z in Duke's head.
As you can see, the use of acid in Fear and loathing reduced both men at different points to complete madness. They completely went over the limit where drugs can be used for creative purposes. All they were doing was bingeing. In the Kool-Aid Acid Test, Ken Kesey didn't quite get to the point that Duke and Gonzo did. Although some of the merry pranksters did go over their limits. In both books, the characters used drugs for different reasons. In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, drugs were used for self destruction while in the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, they were used for self enlightenment.
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