When comparing the style of one of Pulp’s best writers, Robert E. Howard, to that of Thompson one can see a clear indication that Gonzo journalism is just Pulp Fiction about real life. The evidence is in this analysis and critique which examines the use of language and linguistic principles shown in the fantasy short story from 1933 called “The Tower of the Elephant” by Robert E. Howard and a sports article from 1970 (which reads more like a short story) called “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved” by Hunter S. Thompson.
These pieces are from two very different periods and genres: fantasy and realism. However, the authors share some interesting connections. They were white, straight, American males who considered themselves to be Southern gentlemen. They had mental health problems, struggled with substance abuse, and—tragically—they both died by suicide.
As an amateur writer, the works of Howard and Thompson have always inspired me. Both authors used their talents to create new genres of fiction and non-fiction. Howard is considered by many to be the “father of the Sword and Sorcery Genre” (Tommasino). Most of his works were featured in the late 1920s and early 30s pulp magazines. During those years of economic turmoil, “the Pulps” were an inexpensive form of disposable entertainment that offered readers a quick escape. Sword and sorcery (S&S) tales were often told through episodic short stories where writers had to use strong, fast, and exciting language to quickly grab the readers’ attention and make them want to buy the next pulp issue. Despite being a subgenre of the more sophisticated fantasy genre, most critics do not respect S&S as genuine literature “likely due to its birth as a product of pulp magazines…which earned the moniker pulp because the paper was made of inexpensive wood pulp, which resulted in a belief that what was printed on it was as cheap and temporary” (Angus). As a young kid learning to read English, the only stories that interested me were the ones that some critics would consider to be “pulps” or “thrashy entertainment.” S&S stories had all the required elements to grab my attention: strong warriors fighting evil wizards and rescuing beautiful damsels in distress, ugly monsters, and other nightmarish creatures that made me grab an English-to-Spanish dictionary so I could fully understand what each word describing those horrors meant and properly imagine them. “The Tower of the Elephant” is one of the best examples of what S&S has to offer, and it stars Howard’s most famous creation: Conan the Barbarian. I grew up watching that character’s film adaptations; they were my first introduction to the S&S subgenre.
Another film also served as my introduction to the works of Thompson. The adaptation of his most famous novel, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” instantly made me want to read everything he had written. His use of profanity, offensive humor, and exaggeration helped him create colorful news and sports articles and invent “the genre known as gonzo journalism” (Britannica). When I began to read his works in my early teens, the fact that written words could make me laugh so hard surprised me. Before encountering his “gonzo journalism,” the only entertainment that made me laugh like that were cartoons or funny TV shows and movies. I didn’t know back then that the comedy genre could be so brilliantly shown in book form. As a more mature reader, I began to understand his works’ social and political commentary. No writer has ever helped me understand the 1960s and 70s like he has. “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved” is the prototype of what would later be called gonzo journalism.
Howard and Thompson were heavily influenced by the decades in which they wrote the works being analyzed in this paper. The 1920s and 1960s were famous for being times of excess. That excess is clearly shown in the openings of “The Tower…” and “The Kentucky…” as both writers use long sentences dominated by an overabundance of polymorphemic words. Howard begins “The Tower…” by capturing the chaos of the streets of a dangerous district: “Torches flared murkily on the revels in the Maul, where the thieves of the east held carnival by night” (Howard 61). He uses the free morpheme words like “torch,” “flare,” and “murk” one after the other and bounds them with suffixes “es,” “ed,” and “ily.” All those polymorphemic words emphasize the festiveness of the word “revels.” From a phonological perspective, “revels” sounds like “rebels.” A quick read of this sentence could make the reader understand that a party of “rebels” is partly illuminated by torches. According to Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, the word “revel” can mean “wild party or celebration,” and it comes from the “Anglo-French” word “reveler,” literally meaning “to rebel.” This sentence alone, with its use of “revels,” “thieves,” and “carnival by night,” can sum up what the “Roaring ’20s” represented. Like Howard, Thompson also begins “The Kentucky…” by capturing the chaos of an airport while at the same time showing a metaphor for what the 1960s represented:
“In the air-conditioned lounge I met a man from Houston who said his name was something or other— “but just call me Jimbo”– and he was here to get it on. “I’m ready for anything, by God! Anything at all. Yeah, what are you drinking?” (Thompson 25). What dominates this paragraph is the polymorphemic word “anything,” comprised of the two free morphemes “any” and “thing.” Thompson uses it to emphasize the wild behavior of this “Jimbo” character (who can represent the negative aspects 60s culture) and, phonetically speaking, to create a rhythm that goes along with the fact that he does not use a comma in the first sentence. This makes the whole paragraph sound like a story being told by a mumbling, fast-talking person, which is what Thompson sounded like in real life. His use of the other polymorphemic compound word “something,”—comprised of the two free morphemes “some” and “thing”—and the bound morpheme “drinking”— “drink” with the suffix “ing”—add to the rhythm of sounds that end with “ing.” Both writers use polymorphemic words to create a sense of urgency and liveliness in their stories that mirror the culture of their times.
Both Howard and Thompson heavily rely on creative connotations to drive the descriptive language of these pieces. However, Howard’s creativity can sometimes confuse the reader as his connotations can often stray too far from the denoted meanings of the words. In the opening paragraph of “The Tower…” he shows an example of connotations that can confuse some readers:
“Steel glinted in the shadows where wolf preyed on wolf, and from the darkness rose the shrill laughter of women, and the sounds of scufflings and strugglings” (Howard 61). His use of the word “wolf” takes on a negative connotation as he uses it to describe the predatory nature of the men who walk the streets of this dangerous district. At first glance, the reader can only see the denoted meaning of the word “wolf” and perhaps imagine that packs of wild animals are attacking each other in the shadows of those streets.
Thompson uses less confusing connotations without sacrificing his creativity. In the opening paragraph of “The Kentucky…” he uses more direct negative connotations to describe the weather of an airport: “The air was thick and hot, like wandering into a steam bath” (Thompson 24). He takes advantage of the denoted meaning of the words “thick” and “hot.” He creatively associates those words with “steam bath” to clearly cement the idea that the airport is suffering from unusually high temperatures.
While Howard uses a combination of Formal Register and Casual Register, Thompson only uses a Casual Register, which is full of slang and profanity that was popular in the 1960s. Howard also uses slang that was popular in his own time, but words like “bravoes” (Howard 61), which means “hired assassin” (Merriam-webster.com), “wenches”—meaning “female servants”—and “cut-purse”—meaning “pickpocket” or “thief”—are used in sentences told through a Formal Register. In a small paragraph of “The Tower…” Howard uses slang with a Formal Register to describe the characters inside a bar:
“There was a Shemitish counterfeiter, with his hook nose and curled blue-black beard. There was a bold-eyed Brythunian wench, sitting on the knee of a tawny-haired Gunderman—a wandering mercenary soldier, a deserter from some defeated army” (Howard 61). Howard does not use first-person pronouns or break away from the story’s seriousness. He just presents the facts as if he were writing a report of what is happening inside that bar. This combination of Formal and Casual Register presents a very different scene from the characters in a bar that Thompson describes in a paragraph of “The Kentucky…”:
“I ordered a margarita with ice, but he wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Naw, naw… what the hell kind of drink is that for Kentucky Derby time? What’s wrong with you, boy?’ He grinned and winked at the bartender. ‘Goddam, we gotta educate this boy. Get him some good whiskey…’” (Thompson 25). The informal, Casual Register that Thompson uses makes this piece sound like a verbal story being told in public. Instead of directly describing the characters in the bar, he uses their dialogue to describe their character.
Howard uses authentic dialect that goes with the fantastical world he has created in “The Tower…”. He was born and raised in Texas, and his choice of words sometimes reflects his upbringing. The Natives in the story are described as being “dark-skinned, dark-eyed, with daggers at their girdles and guile in their hearts” (Howard 61). While the description goes with the fantasy setting of the story, it can also reflect how Howard, as a white male from 1920s Texas, viewed the Native Americans and other minorities of that time. Thompson is also a southerner. He was born and raised in Kentucky. Moreover, while Howard died in June of 1936, a whole year before Thompson was born in July of 1937, their use of dialect shares some similarities when they show male characters talking about female characters:
“Then blowing the foam from his fat lips, he said, ‘By Bel, god of all thieves, I’ll show them how to steal wenches: I’ll have her over the Zamorian border before dawn, and there’ll be a caravan waiting to receive her. Three hundred pieces of silver, a count of Ophir promised me for a sleek young Brythunian of the better class. It took me weeks, wandering among the border cities as a beggar, to find one I knew would suit. And is she a pretty baggage!’” (Howard 62). This male character is in a bar talking about women as if they were objects. Thompson also shows a character in a bar talking about women in the same way, but the dialect he uses is more of a caricature: “‘The little lady won’t come anymore,’ he said. ‘She just grits her teeth and turns me loose for this one. And when I say loose I do mean loose! I toss ten-dollar bills around like they were going outa style! Horses, whiskey, woman… shit, there’s woman in this town that’ll do anything for money.’” (Thompson 27). Through the use of dialect, Thompson and Howard seem to be criticizing the same type of misogynistic characters.
Howard uses euphemisms and idioms to enhance the entertainment value of “The Tower…” the same way that Thompson uses them in “The Kentucky…”. Howard uses “wolves” (Howard 61) as a euphemism for “predatory men,” and Thompson uses “moon-faced young swinger” (Thompson 26) as a euphemism for an overweight promiscuous young man. Howard uses the idiom “He blew a slobbery kiss in the air” (Howard 62) to describe the mannerism of a lascivious character, and Thompson describes how his lies psychologically damaged a character by saying he felt guilty for “jangling the poor bugger’s brains with that evil fantasy’’ (Thompson 27). Both writers use figurative language that goes with the established settings of their stories.
Despite the creative use of some words like “a shock of tousled black hair crowned his broad forehead” (Howard 62), Howard uses standard alignment with linguistic principles. On the other hand, Thompson relies heavily on nonstandard use of English, including slang and profanity. His characters mostly begin or end sentences with the clipped word “Goddam.” They also use words like “nekkid” (Thompson 25) to replace “naked,” the derogatory word “fa**ot” to replace homosexual, and “Chemical Billy” (Thompson 29) to replace mace.
To change Howard’s “The Tower…” to fit the time period of Thompson’s “The Kentucky…” several slang terms that Howard uses would need to be changed. Terms like “rags and tatters” and “cut-purses” need to be explained, and “dens” can be replaced by “the back room of the bar,” because in the 70s, that is where most people with criminal intentions—or any individuals who wanted to avoid being seeing through the windows—would gather. “Rascals”—meaning “mischievous person” (Merriam-Webster.com) is another word that was not used much by people in the 70s and can be replaced by slang terms of that period like “dudes” and “freaks.” “Freak” is a word that had different meanings at that time, it could be “a person who uses an illicit drug” (Merriam-webster.com), a “hippie” or a person from “the counterculture movement” (britannica.com). With those kinds of changes, this passage:
“In one of these dens merriment thundered to the low smoke-stained roof, where rascals gathered in every stage of rags and tatters—furtive cut-purses, leering kidnappers, quick-fingered thieves, swaggering bravoes with their wenches, strident-voiced women clad in tawdry finery” (Howard 61), can be updated as:
“The dudes and freaks gathering in the back of the bar were celebrating loud enough to raise the low smoke-stained roof. Some of them wore the kind of hand-me-downs that not even the Goodwill store would accept as a donation. This was definitely a dangerous crowd—full of paranoid purse-snatchers, perverted human traffickers, thieves who were faster than a speeding bullet, bikers with their ol’ ladies acting tough, and boisterous scantily clad chicks.”
Howard effectively uses language to build the fantastical setting of his story, just like Thompson uses it to create a chaotic mood for his piece. Both show paragraphs dominated by the idioms and dialects that were popular in their time and regions. However, Howard’s connotations and use of a Formal Register mixed with a Casual Register can sometimes make his intended message unclear. In this sentence, “There was a giant Hyperborean renegade, taciturn, dangerous, with a broadsword strapped to his great gaunt frame—for men wore steel openly in the Maul” (Howard 61), he describes a character as being a “giant” while at the same time having a “great gaunt frame.” The word “gaunt” is most commonly used to describe someone who is “thin and bony (as from hunger or suffering)” (Merriam-Webster.com), and that meaning would contradict the intimidation presence of this “Hyperborean renegade.” Only through the context of the rest of the story can the reader understand that the character is just tall and has a grim attitude. Howard also ends that sentence with the connotation of “men wearing steel.” The literal meaning of those words can make the reader think that the men were wearing some sort of armor instead of the actual intended meaning of them just carrying swords and daggers. Thompson is more straightforward in his use of idioms but still leaves room for confusion as this sentence shows, “Then, when you see them notice it, that’s the time to strike. They’ll go belly up every time…” (27). “Go belly-up” is an idiom that in the 2020s can mean “to fail completely” (Merriam-Webster.com), but in the context surrounding that sentence, “go belly-up” means that a person will collapse with excitement. The culture of the 1970s influenced the different meanings of that idiom. In that time period, phrases that sounded like the opposite of their intended meaning were very popular. “Far out!” and “Outta sight” were used to describe something that was great or “anything fun, cool, or interesting” (randyspecktacular.com). With that context in mind, it is easy to understand how “go belly-up” can be used to describe a person who is very impressed or full of excitement. However, for a reader unfamiliar with the culture of the 70s, that idiom can get in the way of the intended message of that sentence.
For both pieces to align with the standard use of English all slang terms and profanity would need to be removed. Howard’s sentence, “This man halted in his description of an intended victim’s charms, and thrust his muzzle into a huge tankard of frothing ale” (Howard 61), would be rewritten as, “This man paused in his description of an intended victim’s charms, and pushed his mouth into a big glass of beer.” Thompson’s short sentences like “The next day was heavy” (Thompson 27) would be revised to “The next day was stressful,” and his used of profanity, “This is no town to be giving people the impression you’re some kind of fa**ot,” (Thompson 25) can be replaced by proper terms like, “In this town, you should not give people the impression that you are a gay man.”
The fantasy setting of “The Tower…” mostly hides the time period when it was written. But Howards uses a few slang terms and words that, according to Yourdictionary.com’s “1930s Slang and Phrases,” were popular in the early 1930s, like “rascals,” “carouse,” and the idiom “make tracks” (Gormandy). The time period of “The Kentuky…” is easier to spot because Thompson mentions historical events from 1970, like a newspaper headline that says, “Nixon Sends GI’s into Cambodia to Hit Reds…” (Thompson 26). That sentence alone is a representation of that time period, with its usage of the abbreviation “GI”—meaning Government Issue, a term that describes supplies distributed by the government, or Galvanized iron, which was the primary material used to make military items, such as buckets and trash cans (Merriam-webster. com)—and “Reds” which was a term used to describe people who were related “to a communist country and especially to the former Soviet Union” (Merriam-webster.com). 1970 was a peak period for the Vietnam War (history.army.mil), and “GI” was a slang term used to describe American soldiers, while “Reds” was used to describe the South Vietnamese communist guerrilla soldiers better known as “The Viet Cong”—another term that Thompson uses.
As mentioned before, the fantasy setting of “The Toward…” hides the influence of its time period. However, Howard’s description of misogynistic drunken men can reflect some of the negative social norms of the 1930s. During that time, gender equality was almost nonexistent, and the stress of the Great Depression and Prohibition pushed many Americans to seek comfort in alcohol (ushistory.org). Sentences like “he was a professional kidnapper come up from distant Koth to teach woman-stealing to Zamorians” (Howard 61) and “The lurid lights and drunken revelry fell away behind the Cimmerian” (Howard 64) capture the misogyny and alcoholism of 1930s culture.
Works Cited
Tommasino, John. Exploring the Worlds of Robert E. Howard: Father of the Sword and Sorcery Genre. Los Angeles Public Library, 2022, https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/exploring-worlds-robert-e-howard-father-sword-and-sorcery-genre
Angus, Tiffani. Subgenre deep dive: Sword & Sorcery. The British Fantasy Society, 2023,
Subgenre deep dive: Sword & Sorcery
Britannica.com. Hunter S. Thompson, American journalist. Britannica, 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fear-and-Loathing-in-Las-Vegas-by-Thompson
“Revel.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revel. Accessed 13 Jul. 2024.
“Bravo.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bravo. Accessed 23 Jul. 2024.
“Wench.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wench. Accessed 23 Jul. 2024.
“Go belly-up.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/go%20belly-up. Accessed 3 Aug. 2024. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/go%20bellyup#:~:text=informal,up%20during%20the%20long%20recession.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rascal
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/freaks
https://www.britannica.com/topic/1960s-counterculture
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gaunt
70’s Slang Words/Phrases, https://www.randyspecktacular.com/2016/01/70s-slang-wordsphrases.html
Gormandy White, Mary. Aces! 1930s Slang and Phrases From the Dirty Thirties, Yourdictionary.com, 2024, https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/1930s-slang
“Gi.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gi. Accessed 3 Aug. 2024.
“Red.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/red. Accessed 3 Aug. 2024.
U.S. Army Center of Military History, https://history.army.mil/html/reference/army_flag/vn.html
Social and Cultural Effects of the Depression, https://www.ushistory.org/us/48e.asp#:~:text=The%20Great%20Depressio
Howard, Robert E. The Tower of the Elephant. The coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Ballantine books, 1933, 2002, pp 61-62.
Thompson, Hunter S. The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved. The Great Shark Hunt, gonzo papers, volume 1, Simon & Schuster paperbacks, 1970, 2003, pp 25-29.
Neo-Pulps! 
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