![]() ![]() Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas" (12). So we would have to drum it up on our own. ![]() However, he later indicates how the pathway to the American Dream has become convoluted as of late, wondering, "but what was the story? Nobody had bothered to say. When he receives the call for the assignment in Las Vegas, Duke exclaims to his attorney, "This is the American Dream in action! We'd be fools not to ride this strange torpedo all the way out to the end" (11). With this in mind, Duke's references to Alger and the American Dream are heavily ironic. In his study, Weiss referred extensively to Alger’s work, claiming that the novelist is “identified with the golden age of American plutocracy” (48). Only two years before Thompson wrote Fear and Loathing, the scholar Richard Weiss published The American Myth of Success, a scathing critique of the notion that hard work is all that is necessary to succeed in America. Critics also accused him of equating personal fulfillment with material wealth (Weiss). In the 20th century, many scholars argued that Alger’s stories glossed over the dramatic economic inequalities of Gilded-Age America. His work is often associated with the concept of the 'American Dream' because his heroes are rewarded for their hard work with happy nuclear families and a solid place in the middle class. ![]() Alger was a 19th century American novelist who is best known for his stories about young boys working hard to lift themselves out of poverty. Horatio Alger and the American Dream form an ongoing motif throughout Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Buy Study Guide The American Dream/Horatio Alger (Motif) ![]()
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