A miniature silver car sits beside a curled dry root on a cracked desert plain.

Original artwork, not a still

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas  ·  1971

Hunter S. Thompson

Old elephants limp off to the hills to die; old Americans go out to the highway and drive themselves to death with huge cars.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The passage sets two images of old age beside each other: elephants heading for the hills and Americans taking huge cars onto the highway. Both lead toward death. The bleak comparison makes driving look like a human version of that final journey, marked by conspicuous excess.

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