Fear, Fiction and Subjectivity: The Individual in the Writings of Hunter Thompson

Abstract

This thesis researches the relationship between the climate of paranoia in the U.S. in the seventies and Hunter S. Thompson's choice to resort to subjective journalism. The thesis looks at how several of Thompson's contemporaries, be they philosophers, sociologists, film makers, writers or fellow journalists were advocating subjectivity as a means to reach an objective truth and which factors might explain such a radical stance. The thesis further examines how Thompson's ontological convictions led to the creation of his famous gonzo style and to which extent his fiction and distorted realism can be said to communicate an objective truth