Fear and Loathing: Raoul Duke

What Fear and Loathing mainly tries to convey is it's perception of the 1960's hippie era, and how it affected an entire generation of young people. The narrator, Raoul Duke, an alter-ego of Hunter S. Thompson, described the hippie generation as a generation of broken souls and lost dreams. He came to the conclusion that the flower-power, peace movement was admirable, noble and ultimately doomed to failure. He blames much of this failure on the use of drugs. While he himself is a heavy drug user, his use is more of a reaction to the enlightenment principles that were espoused by the hippies. His drug use isn't meant to enlighten him, but to intentionally render him a mess. Raoul Duke is a grand figure in that he is a product of enlightened hedonism. He is aware of the consequences, but simply doesn't care about them. While this path is not meant for everyone, he is an exemplary figure in that he lives as a product of human waste, an outcast, yet could care less about his status in the world.