I’ve been in school for almost 15 years of my life, and I’m still using the same learning technique that taught me how to walk and talk. I imitated my parents. I imitated friends. I imitated the television. It is an efficient way to learn, much quicker than the alternative of trial and error. Whether or not all that copying is good for imagination and originality has yet to be determined. Regardless, one thing is clear: to pick up the basics, imitation is key. The writer my imitation piece was based on would have employed imitation at some point in his life; that is, until he moved on to develop his own Gonzo-style of journalism. Hunter S. Thompson’s writing is unique to say the least. He incorporated many literary techniques to aid in conveying …show more content…
The first device I noticed in Fear and Loathing was enumeration when he wrote, “The trunk of the car looked like a mobile police narcotics lab. We had two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid”. It is certainly the most memorable example of enumeration I have ever come across. Most people my age recognize that quote within seconds from the 1998 film adaptation. I attempted to emulate it when I imitated, “The backpack was void of foodstuff. It had all manners of scribblers, scratchers, scribers, one eraser, a broken calculator”. In Thompson’s writing, this device would let readers know that things were about to get weird; unfortunately, mine may not have had the same effect because school supplies are not nearly as interesting as a pile of drugs to younger readers. Thompson also scattered similes into his novel. One example of this was from the same quote I showed his use of enumeration with. He compared the trunk of his car to a “mobile police narcotics lab”. Likewise, I employed a simile when I wrote, “relentlessly, steadily, like the tide of the sea,” in paragraph two. In both of our pieces, similes were used to show without slowing the pace of the story; it is much less time consuming to describe by comparing something with a thing that the readers already know about. Lastly, there was …show more content…
Thompson’s writing is recognizably unique in his use of style, rhetorical devices, and mechanics. Each component within the three categories served a specific purpose and shared a common goal: captivating the attention of his readers. By analyzing and copying the techniques he used in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, I was able replicate that gonzo journalism aspect in my own work. The writing that I created would appeal most of all to people around my own age, similarly to that which I imitated. During the course of this assignment I learned how to imitate a writing style in order to appeal to a specific audience. I also came to the conclusion that despite the beauty of originality, imitation is a necessary first step when it comes to writing. Although I am not an English major I have had friends ask how they can improve their writing. Instead of answering with a shrugging and saying, “I am a science major,” I will say, “Step 1. Read more books, Step 2. Imitate, Step 3.