Fight Club (novel)
Encyclopedia
Fight Club is a 1996
novel by Chuck Palahniuk
. It follows the experiences of an unnamed
protagonist
struggling with insomnia
. Inspired by his doctor's exasperated remark that insomnia is not suffering, he finds relief by impersonating a seriously ill person in several support groups. Then he meets a mysterious man named Tyler Durden and establishes an underground fighting
club as radical psychotherapy
.
In 1999, director David Fincher
adapted the novel into a film of the same name
, starring Brad Pitt
and Edward Norton
. The film acquired a cult following despite lower than expected box-office results. The film's notoriety heightened the profile of the novel and that of Palahniuk.
Palahniuk first tried to publish his novel Invisible Monsters
, but it was rejected by publishers due to the novel being too disturbing. Instead he concentrated on Fight Club, intending it to be more disturbing. Initially Fight Club was published as a seven-page short story in the compilation Pursuit of Happiness, but Palahniuk expanded it to novel length (in which the original short story became chapter six)
Fight Club was re-issued in 1999 and 2004, the latter edition including an author's introduction about the conception and popularity of novel and movie, in which the author states
He later goes on to explain
The original hardcover edition of Fight Club was well reviewed. The book received critical interest and eventually generated cinematic-adaptation interest. In 1999, screenwriters Jim Uhls
, August Olsen, and co-producers Conor Strait and Aaron Curry joined with director David Fincher
. The film "failed" at the box office, but nevertheless a cult following
emerged with the DVD edition and as a result an original, hardcover edition of the novel is now a collector's item.
In interviews, the writer has said he does not know, yet still is approached by aficionados wanting to know—Where is the local fight club?—insisting there is no such real organization, like in the novel. However, he has heard of real fight clubs, some said to have existed before the novel. The novel's current introduction refers to actual, fight-club-style mischief, by a "waiter from one of London's two finest restaurants" who said he ejaculated into Margaret Thatcher's food. Moreover, Project Mayhem is lightly based on the Cacophony Society
, of which he is a member, and other events derived from stories told to him.
Fight Clubs cultural impact is evidenced by U.S. teenagers' and techies' establishment of fight clubs. Pranks, such as food-tampering, have been repeated by fans of the book, documented in Palahniuk's essay "Monkey Think, Monkey Do", in the book Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories
and in the introduction to the 2004 re-issue of Fight Club. Other fans have been inspired to pro-social activity, telling Palahniuk the novel had inspired them to return to college.
Besides Fight Club, few of Palahniuk's writings have been adapted, although his novel Choke
was made into a movie
in 2008. In 2004 Fight Club was to be transformed into musical theater, developed by Palahniuk, Fincher, and Trent Reznor
. A dramatic version was penned by Dylan Yates and has been performed in Seattle and in Charlotte, North Carolina.
brought upon by frequent business trips, he begins to suffer from recurring insomnia
. When he seeks treatment, the Narrator's doctor advises him to visit a support group for testicular cancer
victims to "see what real suffering is like". The Narrator finds that sharing the problems of others -- despite not actually having testicular cancer himself -- alleviates his insomnia.
The Narrator's unique treatment works until he meets Marla Singer, another "tourist" who visits the support group under false pretenses. The possibly disturbed Marla reminds the Narrator that he is a faker who does not belong there. He begins to hate Marla for keeping him from crying, and, therefore, from sleeping. After a confrontation, the two agree to attend separate support group meetings to avoid each other. The truce is uneasy, however, and the Narrator's insomnia returns.
Whilst on a nude beach, the Narrator meets Tyler Durden, a charismatic extremist of mysterious means. After an explosion destroys the narrator's condominium
, he asks to stay at Tyler's house. Tyler agrees, but asks for something in return: "I want you to hit me as hard as you can." Both men find that they enjoy the ensuing fistfight
. They subsequently move in together and establish a "fight club", drawing countless men with similar temperaments into bare-knuckle
fighting matches, set to the following rules:
Later in the book, a mechanic tells the Narrator about two new rules of the fight club: that nobody is the center of the fight club except for the two men fighting, and that the fight club will always be free.
Marla, noticing that the Narrator hasn't recently attended his support groups, calls him to claim that she has overdosed on Xanax
in a half-hearted suicide attempt. Tyler returns from work, picks up the phone to Marla's drug-induced rambling, and rescues her. Tyler and Marla embark on an uneasy affair that confounds the Narrator and confuses Marla. Throughout this affair, Marla is unaware both of fight club's existence and the interaction between Tyler and the Narrator. Because Tyler and Marla are never seen at the same time, the Narrator wonders if Tyler and Marla are the same person.
As fight club attains a nationwide presence, Tyler uses it to spread his anti-consumerist ideas, recruiting fight club's members to participate in increasingly elaborate pranks on corporate America
. He eventually gathers the most devoted fight club members and forms "Project Mayhem," a cult
-like organization that trains itself as an army to bring down modern civilization
. This organization, like fight club, is controlled by a set of rules:
While initially a loyal participant in Project Mayhem, the Narrator becomes uncomfortable with the increasing destructiveness of its activities. He resolves to stop Tyler and his followers when Bob, a friend of his from the testicular cancer support group, is killed during one of Project Mayhem's sabotage operations. However, the Narrator learns
that he himself is Tyler; Tyler is not a separate person, but a separate personality
.
As the Narrator's mental state deteriorated, his mind formed a new personality that was able to escape from the problems of his life. Marla inadvertently reveals to the Narrator that he and Tyler are the same person. Tyler's affair with Marla -- whom the Narrator professes to dislike -- was actually his own affair with Marla. The Narrator's bouts of insomnia had actually been Tyler's personality surfacing. Tyler would be active whenever the Narrator was "sleeping." The Tyler personality not only created fight club, but also blew up the Narrator's condo.
Tyler plans to blow up a skyscraper using homemade bombs
created by Project Mayhem; the actual target of the explosion, however, is the nearby national museum. Tyler plans to die as a martyr
during this event, taking the Narrator's life as well. Realizing this, the Narrator sets out to stop Tyler, although Tyler is always thinking ahead of him. The Narrator makes his way to the roof of the building, where he is held at gunpoint by Tyler. However, when Marla comes to the roof with one of the support groups, Tyler vanishes, as he "was his hallucination, not hers."
With Tyler gone, the Narrator waits for the bomb to explode and kill him. However, the bomb malfunctions because Tyler mixed paraffin
into the explosives. Still alive and holding Tyler's gun, the narrator decides to make the first decision that is truly his own: he puts the gun in his mouth and shoots himself. Some time later, he awakens in a mental hospital, believing that he is in Heaven
and imagines an argument with God over human nature. The book ends with the Narrator being approached by hospital employees who reveal themselves to be Project members. They tell him that their plans still continue, and that they are expecting Tyler to come back.
articles in which human organs write about themselves in the first person, with titles such as "I Am Joe's Liver". The film adaptation replaces "Joe" with "Jack", inspiring some fans to call the narrator "Jack". In the novel and film, he uses fake names in the support groups. His subconscious is in need of a sense of freedom, he inevitably feels trapped within his own body and when introduced to Tyler Durden, he begins to see all of the qualities he lacks in himself, "I love everything about Tyler Durden, his courage and his smarts. His nerve. Tyler is funny and forceful and independent, and men look up to him and expect him to change their world. Tyler is capable and free, and I am not"
of the novel later in the story.
. A former bodybuilder
, Bob lost his testicles to cancer caused by the steroids he used to bulk up his muscles and had to undergo testosterone injections; this resulted in his body increasing its estrogen
, causing him to grow large "Bitch Tits
" and develop a softer voice. Because of this, Bob is the only known member who is allowed to wear a shirt. The narrator befriends Bob and, after leaving the groups, meets him again in Fight Club. Bob's death later in the story, while carrying out an assignment for Project Mayhem, causes the narrator to turn against Tyler because the members of Project Mayhem treat it as a trivial matter instead of a tragedy. In the film version, when the narrator explains that the dead man had a name and was a real person, a member of Project Mayhem interprets this as an order to give names to all those who had died. The unnamed member begins chanting "His name is Robert Paulson," and this phrase becomes a mantra that the narrator encounters later on in the story multiple times. In the novel, the origin of chanting Robert Paulson's name is not described, and when narrator confronts a fight club meeting to discuss the implications of Paulson's death, he is thrown outside.
"; a mechanic who joins Fight Club also repeats this to him in one scene. This motif shows his desire for chaos, later explicitly expressed in his urge to "destroy something beautiful". Additionally, he mentions at one point that "Nothing is static. Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart." University of Calgary literary scholar Paul Kennett claims that this want for chaos is a result of an Oedipus complex
, as the narrator, Tyler, and the mechanic all show disdain for their fathers. This is most explicitly stated in the scene that the mechanic appears in:
Kennett further argues that Tyler wants to use this chaos to change history so that "God's middle children" will have some historical significance, whether or not this significance is "damnation or redemption". This will figuratively return their absent fathers, as judgment by future generations will replace judgment by their fathers.
After reading Reader's Digest
articles written from the perspective of the organs of a man named Joe, the narrator begins using similar quotations to describe his feelings, often replacing organs with feelings and things involved in his life ("I am Joe's smirking revenge", etc.).
The color cornflower blue
first appears as the color of the narrator's boss's tie and later is requested as an icon color by the same boss. Later, it is mentioned that his boss has eyes of the same color. These mentions of the color are the first of many uses of cornflower blue in Palahniuk's books.
Isolationism
, specifically directed towards material items and possessions, is a common theme throughout the novel. Tyler acts as the major catalyst behind the destruction of our vanities, which he claims is the path to finding our inner-selves. "I'm breaking my attachment to physical power and possessions," Tyler whispered, "because only through destroying myself can I discover the greater power of my spirit."
. The characters of the novel lament the fact that many of them were raised by their mothers because their fathers either abandoned their family or divorced their mothers. As a result, they see themselves as being "a generation of men raised by women," being without a male example in their lives to help shape their masculinity. This ties in with the anti-consumer culture theme, as the men in the novel see their "IKEA
nesting instinct" as resulting from the feminization
of men in a matriarchal culture. The anti-consumer culture theme present in the novel is very enforced by the Narrator and his fascination with his apartments purchases,"You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you."
Maryville University of St. Louis professor Jesse Kavadlo, in an issue of the literary journal Stirrings Still, claimed that the narrator's opposition to emasculation is a form of projection and that the problem that he fights is himself. He also claims that Palahniuk uses existentialism
in the novel to conceal subtexts of feminism
and romance in order to convey these concepts in a novel that is mainly aimed at a male audience.
Palahniuk gives a simpler assertion about the theme of the novel, stating "all my books are about a lonely person looking for some way to connect with other people."
Paul Kennett claims that because the narrator's fights with Tyler are fights with himself and because he fights himself in front of his boss at the hotel, the narrator is using the fights as a way of asserting himself as his own boss. He argues that these fights are a representation of the struggle of the proletarian
at the hands of a higher capitalist power and by asserting himself as capable of having the same power he thus becomes his own master. Later when fight club is formed, the participants are all dressed and groomed similarly, allowing them to symbolically fight themselves at the club and gain the same power.
Afterwards Kennett says Tyler becomes nostalgic for the patriarchical power controlling him and creates Project Mayhem to achieve this. Through this proto-fascist power structure, the narrator seeks to learn "what, or rather, who, he might have been under a firm patriarchy." Through his position as leader of Project Mayhem, Tyler uses his power to become a "God/Father" to the "space monkeys", who are the other members of Project Mayhem (although by the end of the novel his words hold more power than he does as is evident in the space monkeys' threat to castrate the narrator when he contradicts Tyler's rule). According to Kennett, this creates a paradox in that Tyler pushes the idea that men who wish to be free from a controlling father-figure are only self-actualized once they have children and become a father themselves. This new structure is ended by the narrator's elimination of Tyler, allowing him to decide for himself how to determine his freedom.
"Paper Street," the location of Tyler Durden's home, is a pun
on the term paper street
meaning a street depicted on a map but not actually in existence.
Johannes Hell claims that Palahniuk's use of the Narrator's somnambulism is a simple attempt at emphasizing the dangerous yet daring possibilities of life. Hell enforces the importance of the Narrator's sleep walking and intense deprivation for they have a firm influence on suffering readers," from a twisted perspective this is solace for everybody who suffers from somnambulism in a sense, that things could be worse, much worse in fact. Hell, p. 3.
1996 in literature
The year 1996 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is removed from an advanced placement English reading list in Lindale, Texas because it "conflicted with the values of the community."* In the United Kingdom, the first...
novel by Chuck Palahniuk
Chuck Palahniuk
Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk is an American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter...
. It follows the experiences of an unnamed
Anonymity
Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
struggling with insomnia
Insomnia
Insomnia is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions:...
. Inspired by his doctor's exasperated remark that insomnia is not suffering, he finds relief by impersonating a seriously ill person in several support groups. Then he meets a mysterious man named Tyler Durden and establishes an underground fighting
Combat sport
A Combat sport, also known as a Fighting sport, is a competitive contact sport where two combatants fight against each other using certain rules of engagement , typically with the aim of simulating parts of real hand to hand combat...
club as radical psychotherapy
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
.
In 1999, director David Fincher
David Fincher
David Andrew Leo Fincher is an American film and music video director. Known for his dark and stylish thrillers, such as Seven , The Game , Fight Club , Panic Room , and Zodiac , Fincher received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and...
adapted the novel into a film of the same name
Fight Club (film)
Fight Club is a 1999 American film based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. The film was directed by David Fincher and stars Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter. Norton plays the unnamed protagonist, an "everyman" who is discontented with his white-collar job...
, starring Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
and Edward Norton
Edward Norton
Edward Harrison Norton is an American actor, screenwriter, film director and producer. In 1996, his supporting role in the courtroom drama Primal Fear garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor...
. The film acquired a cult following despite lower than expected box-office results. The film's notoriety heightened the profile of the novel and that of Palahniuk.
History
The novel was inspired by an altercation Palahniuk once had while camping. Though he was bruised and swollen, his co-workers avoided asking him what had happened on the camping trip. Their reluctance to know what happened in his private life inspired the writing of Fight Club.Palahniuk first tried to publish his novel Invisible Monsters
Invisible Monsters
Invisible Monsters is a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, published in 1999. It is his third novel to be published, though it was his second written novel . The novel was originally supposed to be Palahniuk's first novel to be published, but it was rejected by the publisher for being too disturbing...
, but it was rejected by publishers due to the novel being too disturbing. Instead he concentrated on Fight Club, intending it to be more disturbing. Initially Fight Club was published as a seven-page short story in the compilation Pursuit of Happiness, but Palahniuk expanded it to novel length (in which the original short story became chapter six)
Fight Club was re-issued in 1999 and 2004, the latter edition including an author's introduction about the conception and popularity of novel and movie, in which the author states
...bookstores were full of books like The Joy Luck ClubThe Joy Luck ClubThe Joy Luck Club is a best-selling novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese American immigrant families in San Francisco, California who start a club known as "the Joy Luck Club," playing the Chinese game of mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods...
and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and How to Make an American QuiltHow to Make an American QuiltHow to Make an American Quilt is a 1995 movie which was directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse and stars Winona Ryder, Maya Angelou, Ellen Burstyn and Anne Bancroft...
. These were all novels that presented a social model for women to be together. But there was no novel that presented a new social model for men to share their lives.
He later goes on to explain
Really, what I was writing was just The Great GatsbyThe Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....
updated a little. It was "apostolic" fiction - where a surviving apostle tells the story of his hero. There are two men and a woman. And one man, the hero, is shot to death.
The original hardcover edition of Fight Club was well reviewed. The book received critical interest and eventually generated cinematic-adaptation interest. In 1999, screenwriters Jim Uhls
Jim Uhls
Jim Uhls born as James Walter Uhls is an American screenwriter and producer who rose to fame with his script adaptation of the critically acclaimed novel Fight Club...
, August Olsen, and co-producers Conor Strait and Aaron Curry joined with director David Fincher
David Fincher
David Andrew Leo Fincher is an American film and music video director. Known for his dark and stylish thrillers, such as Seven , The Game , Fight Club , Panic Room , and Zodiac , Fincher received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and...
. The film "failed" at the box office, but nevertheless a cult following
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
emerged with the DVD edition and as a result an original, hardcover edition of the novel is now a collector's item.
In interviews, the writer has said he does not know, yet still is approached by aficionados wanting to know—Where is the local fight club?—insisting there is no such real organization, like in the novel. However, he has heard of real fight clubs, some said to have existed before the novel. The novel's current introduction refers to actual, fight-club-style mischief, by a "waiter from one of London's two finest restaurants" who said he ejaculated into Margaret Thatcher's food. Moreover, Project Mayhem is lightly based on the Cacophony Society
Cacophony Society
The Cacophony Society is “a randomly gathered network of free spirits united in the pursuit of experiences beyond the pale of mainstream society.” It was started in 1986 by surviving members of the now defunct Suicide Club of San Francisco....
, of which he is a member, and other events derived from stories told to him.
Fight Clubs cultural impact is evidenced by U.S. teenagers' and techies' establishment of fight clubs. Pranks, such as food-tampering, have been repeated by fans of the book, documented in Palahniuk's essay "Monkey Think, Monkey Do", in the book Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories
Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories
Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories is a non-fiction book by Chuck Palahniuk, published in 2004. It is a collection of essays, stories, and interviews written for various magazines and newspapers. Some of the pieces had also been previously published on the internet...
and in the introduction to the 2004 re-issue of Fight Club. Other fans have been inspired to pro-social activity, telling Palahniuk the novel had inspired them to return to college.
Besides Fight Club, few of Palahniuk's writings have been adapted, although his novel Choke
Choke (novel)
-Plot summary:Choke follows Victor Mancini and his friend Denny through a few months of their lives with frequent flashbacks to the days when Victor was a child. He had grown up moving from one foster home to another, as his mother was found to be unfit to raise him...
was made into a movie
Choke (film)
Choke is a 2008 American black comedy film directed by Clark Gregg. The film stars Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston. Production took place in New Jersey in 2007. It premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and was purchased by Fox Searchlight Pictures for distribution...
in 2008. In 2004 Fight Club was to be transformed into musical theater, developed by Palahniuk, Fincher, and Trent Reznor
Trent Reznor
Michael Trent Reznor is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, record producer, and leader of industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. Reznor is also a member of How to Destroy Angels alongside his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, and Atticus Ross. He was previously associated with bands Option 30,...
. A dramatic version was penned by Dylan Yates and has been performed in Seattle and in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Plot
Fight Club centers on an anonymous Narrator, who works as a product recall specialist for an unnamed car company. Because of the stress of his job and the jet lagJet lag
Jet lag, medically referred to as desynchronosis, is a physiological condition which results from alterations to the body's circadian rhythms; it is classified as one of the circadian rhythm sleep disorders...
brought upon by frequent business trips, he begins to suffer from recurring insomnia
Insomnia
Insomnia is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions:...
. When he seeks treatment, the Narrator's doctor advises him to visit a support group for testicular cancer
Testicular cancer
Testicular cancer is cancer that develops in the testicles, a part of the male reproductive system.In the United States, between 7,500 and 8,000 diagnoses of testicular cancer are made each year. In the UK, approximately 2,000 men are diagnosed each year. Over his lifetime, a man's risk of...
victims to "see what real suffering is like". The Narrator finds that sharing the problems of others -- despite not actually having testicular cancer himself -- alleviates his insomnia.
The Narrator's unique treatment works until he meets Marla Singer, another "tourist" who visits the support group under false pretenses. The possibly disturbed Marla reminds the Narrator that he is a faker who does not belong there. He begins to hate Marla for keeping him from crying, and, therefore, from sleeping. After a confrontation, the two agree to attend separate support group meetings to avoid each other. The truce is uneasy, however, and the Narrator's insomnia returns.
Whilst on a nude beach, the Narrator meets Tyler Durden, a charismatic extremist of mysterious means. After an explosion destroys the narrator's condominium
Condominium
A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...
, he asks to stay at Tyler's house. Tyler agrees, but asks for something in return: "I want you to hit me as hard as you can." Both men find that they enjoy the ensuing fistfight
Fistfight
Russian fist fighting is the traditional bare-knuckle boxing of Russia.-History:The earliest accounts concerning the sport date to the 13th century...
. They subsequently move in together and establish a "fight club", drawing countless men with similar temperaments into bare-knuckle
Bare-knuckle boxing
Bare-knuckle boxing is the original form of boxing, closely related to ancient combat sports...
fighting matches, set to the following rules:
Later in the book, a mechanic tells the Narrator about two new rules of the fight club: that nobody is the center of the fight club except for the two men fighting, and that the fight club will always be free.
Marla, noticing that the Narrator hasn't recently attended his support groups, calls him to claim that she has overdosed on Xanax
Alprazolam
Alprazolam is a short-acting anxiolytic of the benzodiazepine class of psychoactive drugs. Alprazolam, like other benzodiazepines, binds to specific sites on the GABAA gamma-amino-butyric acid receptor...
in a half-hearted suicide attempt. Tyler returns from work, picks up the phone to Marla's drug-induced rambling, and rescues her. Tyler and Marla embark on an uneasy affair that confounds the Narrator and confuses Marla. Throughout this affair, Marla is unaware both of fight club's existence and the interaction between Tyler and the Narrator. Because Tyler and Marla are never seen at the same time, the Narrator wonders if Tyler and Marla are the same person.
As fight club attains a nationwide presence, Tyler uses it to spread his anti-consumerist ideas, recruiting fight club's members to participate in increasingly elaborate pranks on corporate America
Corporate America
Corporate America is an informal phrase describing the world of corporations within the United States not under government ownership....
. He eventually gathers the most devoted fight club members and forms "Project Mayhem," a cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
-like organization that trains itself as an army to bring down modern civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
. This organization, like fight club, is controlled by a set of rules:
While initially a loyal participant in Project Mayhem, the Narrator becomes uncomfortable with the increasing destructiveness of its activities. He resolves to stop Tyler and his followers when Bob, a friend of his from the testicular cancer support group, is killed during one of Project Mayhem's sabotage operations. However, the Narrator learns
Anagnorisis
Anagnorisis is a moment in a play or other work when a character makes a critical discovery. Anagnorisis originally meant recognition in its Greek context, not only of a person but also of what that person stood for...
that he himself is Tyler; Tyler is not a separate person, but a separate personality
Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....
.
As the Narrator's mental state deteriorated, his mind formed a new personality that was able to escape from the problems of his life. Marla inadvertently reveals to the Narrator that he and Tyler are the same person. Tyler's affair with Marla -- whom the Narrator professes to dislike -- was actually his own affair with Marla. The Narrator's bouts of insomnia had actually been Tyler's personality surfacing. Tyler would be active whenever the Narrator was "sleeping." The Tyler personality not only created fight club, but also blew up the Narrator's condo.
Tyler plans to blow up a skyscraper using homemade bombs
Improvised explosive device
An improvised explosive device , also known as a roadside bomb, is a homemade bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action...
created by Project Mayhem; the actual target of the explosion, however, is the nearby national museum. Tyler plans to die as a martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
during this event, taking the Narrator's life as well. Realizing this, the Narrator sets out to stop Tyler, although Tyler is always thinking ahead of him. The Narrator makes his way to the roof of the building, where he is held at gunpoint by Tyler. However, when Marla comes to the roof with one of the support groups, Tyler vanishes, as he "was his hallucination, not hers."
With Tyler gone, the Narrator waits for the bomb to explode and kill him. However, the bomb malfunctions because Tyler mixed paraffin
Paraffin
In chemistry, paraffin is a term that can be used synonymously with "alkane", indicating hydrocarbons with the general formula CnH2n+2. Paraffin wax refers to a mixture of alkanes that falls within the 20 ≤ n ≤ 40 range; they are found in the solid state at room temperature and begin to enter the...
into the explosives. Still alive and holding Tyler's gun, the narrator decides to make the first decision that is truly his own: he puts the gun in his mouth and shoots himself. Some time later, he awakens in a mental hospital, believing that he is in Heaven
Heaven
Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
and imagines an argument with God over human nature. The book ends with the Narrator being approached by hospital employees who reveal themselves to be Project members. They tell him that their plans still continue, and that they are expecting Tyler to come back.
Narrator
A modern day every man figure as well as an employee specializing in recalls for an unnamed car company, he is extremely depressed and suffers from insomnia. The narrator in Fight Club is unnamed throughout the novel. Some readers call him "Joe" because of his constant use of the name in statements such as "I am Joe's boiling point". The quotes "I am Joe's [blank]" refer to the narrator's reading old Reader's DigestReader's Digest
Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...
articles in which human organs write about themselves in the first person, with titles such as "I Am Joe's Liver". The film adaptation replaces "Joe" with "Jack", inspiring some fans to call the narrator "Jack". In the novel and film, he uses fake names in the support groups. His subconscious is in need of a sense of freedom, he inevitably feels trapped within his own body and when introduced to Tyler Durden, he begins to see all of the qualities he lacks in himself, "I love everything about Tyler Durden, his courage and his smarts. His nerve. Tyler is funny and forceful and independent, and men look up to him and expect him to change their world. Tyler is capable and free, and I am not"
Tyler Durden
"Because of his nature," Tyler works night jobs where he sabotages companies and harms clients. He also steals left-over drained human fat from liposuction clinics to supplement his income through soap making and create the ingredients for bomb manufacturing, which will be put to work later with his fight club. He is the co-founder of Fight Club, as it was his idea to instigate the fight that led to it. He later launches Project Mayhem, from which he and the members commit various attacks on consumerism. Tyler is blond, as by the narrator's comment "in his everything-blond way". The unhinged but magnetic Tyler becomes the antagonistAntagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
of the novel later in the story.
Marla Singer
A woman whom the narrator meets during a support group. The narrator no longer receives the same release from the groups when he realizes Marla is faking her problems just like he is. After he leaves the groups, he meets her again when she becomes Tyler's lover. Marla is shown to be extremely grungy and uncaring, and sometimes even suicidal. At times though, she does show a softer, more caring side.Robert "Bob" Paulson
A man that the narrator meets at a support group for testicular cancerTesticular cancer
Testicular cancer is cancer that develops in the testicles, a part of the male reproductive system.In the United States, between 7,500 and 8,000 diagnoses of testicular cancer are made each year. In the UK, approximately 2,000 men are diagnosed each year. Over his lifetime, a man's risk of...
. A former bodybuilder
Bodybuilding
Bodybuilding is a form of body modification involving intensive muscle hypertrophy. An individual who engages in this activity is referred to as a bodybuilder. In competitive and professional bodybuilding, bodybuilders display their physiques to a panel of judges, who assign points based on their...
, Bob lost his testicles to cancer caused by the steroids he used to bulk up his muscles and had to undergo testosterone injections; this resulted in his body increasing its estrogen
Estrogen
Estrogens , oestrogens , or œstrogens, are a group of compounds named for their importance in the estrous cycle of humans and other animals. They are the primary female sex hormones. Natural estrogens are steroid hormones, while some synthetic ones are non-steroidal...
, causing him to grow large "Bitch Tits
Gynecomastia
Gynecomastia or Gynaecomastia, , is the abnormal development of large mammary glands in males resulting in breast enlargement. The term comes from the Greek γυνή gyné meaning "woman" and μαστός mastós meaning "breast"...
" and develop a softer voice. Because of this, Bob is the only known member who is allowed to wear a shirt. The narrator befriends Bob and, after leaving the groups, meets him again in Fight Club. Bob's death later in the story, while carrying out an assignment for Project Mayhem, causes the narrator to turn against Tyler because the members of Project Mayhem treat it as a trivial matter instead of a tragedy. In the film version, when the narrator explains that the dead man had a name and was a real person, a member of Project Mayhem interprets this as an order to give names to all those who had died. The unnamed member begins chanting "His name is Robert Paulson," and this phrase becomes a mantra that the narrator encounters later on in the story multiple times. In the novel, the origin of chanting Robert Paulson's name is not described, and when narrator confronts a fight club meeting to discuss the implications of Paulson's death, he is thrown outside.
Angel Face
A man who joins Fight Club. He is very loyal to Project Mayhem, laughing at the vandalism he and a group of 'space monkeys' caused as their crimes appear on the evening news. Angel Face is considered to be very beautiful, hence the name 'Angel face'. The blond-haired beauty suffers a savage beating at the hands of the Narrator during a session at Fight Club, the Narrator states that he "wanted to destroy something beautiful". The next time Angel Face is heard of in the novel, he is described as not being quite as beautiful anymore.Motifs
At two points in the novel, the narrator claims he wants to "wipe [his] ass with the Mona LisaMona Lisa
Mona Lisa is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519...
"; a mechanic who joins Fight Club also repeats this to him in one scene. This motif shows his desire for chaos, later explicitly expressed in his urge to "destroy something beautiful". Additionally, he mentions at one point that "Nothing is static. Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart." University of Calgary literary scholar Paul Kennett claims that this want for chaos is a result of an Oedipus complex
Oedipus complex
In psychoanalytic theory, the term Oedipus complex denotes the emotions and ideas that the mind keeps in the unconscious, via dynamic repression, that concentrate upon a boy’s desire to sexually possess his mother, and kill his father...
, as the narrator, Tyler, and the mechanic all show disdain for their fathers. This is most explicitly stated in the scene that the mechanic appears in:
Kennett further argues that Tyler wants to use this chaos to change history so that "God's middle children" will have some historical significance, whether or not this significance is "damnation or redemption". This will figuratively return their absent fathers, as judgment by future generations will replace judgment by their fathers.
After reading Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...
articles written from the perspective of the organs of a man named Joe, the narrator begins using similar quotations to describe his feelings, often replacing organs with feelings and things involved in his life ("I am Joe's smirking revenge", etc.).
The color cornflower blue
Cornflower blue
Cornflower blue, a shade of azure, is a shade of light blue with relatively little green compared to blue. This color was one of the favorites of the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, the other being yellow....
first appears as the color of the narrator's boss's tie and later is requested as an icon color by the same boss. Later, it is mentioned that his boss has eyes of the same color. These mentions of the color are the first of many uses of cornflower blue in Palahniuk's books.
Isolationism
Isolationism
Isolationism is the policy or doctrine of isolating one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, etc., seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement and remain at peace by...
, specifically directed towards material items and possessions, is a common theme throughout the novel. Tyler acts as the major catalyst behind the destruction of our vanities, which he claims is the path to finding our inner-selves. "I'm breaking my attachment to physical power and possessions," Tyler whispered, "because only through destroying myself can I discover the greater power of my spirit."
Themes
Much of the novel comments on how many men in modern society have found dissatisfaction with the state of masculinityMasculinity
Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
. The characters of the novel lament the fact that many of them were raised by their mothers because their fathers either abandoned their family or divorced their mothers. As a result, they see themselves as being "a generation of men raised by women," being without a male example in their lives to help shape their masculinity. This ties in with the anti-consumer culture theme, as the men in the novel see their "IKEA
IKEA
IKEA is a privately held, international home products company that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture such as beds and desks, appliances and home accessories. The company is the world's largest furniture retailer...
nesting instinct" as resulting from the feminization
Feminization (sociology)
In sociology, feminization is the shift in gender roles and sex roles in a society, group, or organization towards a focus upon the feminine. This is the opposite of a cultural focus upon masculinity....
of men in a matriarchal culture. The anti-consumer culture theme present in the novel is very enforced by the Narrator and his fascination with his apartments purchases,"You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you."
Maryville University of St. Louis professor Jesse Kavadlo, in an issue of the literary journal Stirrings Still, claimed that the narrator's opposition to emasculation is a form of projection and that the problem that he fights is himself. He also claims that Palahniuk uses existentialism
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
in the novel to conceal subtexts of feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
and romance in order to convey these concepts in a novel that is mainly aimed at a male audience.
Palahniuk gives a simpler assertion about the theme of the novel, stating "all my books are about a lonely person looking for some way to connect with other people."
Paul Kennett claims that because the narrator's fights with Tyler are fights with himself and because he fights himself in front of his boss at the hotel, the narrator is using the fights as a way of asserting himself as his own boss. He argues that these fights are a representation of the struggle of the proletarian
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
at the hands of a higher capitalist power and by asserting himself as capable of having the same power he thus becomes his own master. Later when fight club is formed, the participants are all dressed and groomed similarly, allowing them to symbolically fight themselves at the club and gain the same power.
Afterwards Kennett says Tyler becomes nostalgic for the patriarchical power controlling him and creates Project Mayhem to achieve this. Through this proto-fascist power structure, the narrator seeks to learn "what, or rather, who, he might have been under a firm patriarchy." Through his position as leader of Project Mayhem, Tyler uses his power to become a "God/Father" to the "space monkeys", who are the other members of Project Mayhem (although by the end of the novel his words hold more power than he does as is evident in the space monkeys' threat to castrate the narrator when he contradicts Tyler's rule). According to Kennett, this creates a paradox in that Tyler pushes the idea that men who wish to be free from a controlling father-figure are only self-actualized once they have children and become a father themselves. This new structure is ended by the narrator's elimination of Tyler, allowing him to decide for himself how to determine his freedom.
"Paper Street," the location of Tyler Durden's home, is a pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
on the term paper street
Paper street
A paper street is a road or street that appears on maps but does not exist in reality. Paper streets generally occur when city planners or subdivision developers lay out and dedicate streets that are never built...
meaning a street depicted on a map but not actually in existence.
Johannes Hell claims that Palahniuk's use of the Narrator's somnambulism is a simple attempt at emphasizing the dangerous yet daring possibilities of life. Hell enforces the importance of the Narrator's sleep walking and intense deprivation for they have a firm influence on suffering readers," from a twisted perspective this is solace for everybody who suffers from somnambulism in a sense, that things could be worse, much worse in fact. Hell, p. 3.
Awards
The novel won the following awards:- the 1997 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award
- the 1997 Oregon Book AwardOregon Book AwardThe Oregon Book Awards are presented annually by Literary Arts, Inc. for "the finest accomplishments by Oregon writers who work in genres of poetry, fiction, literary nonfiction, drama and young readers literature." -History:...
for Best Novel
U.S. editions
- New York: W. W. Norton & Company, August 1996. HardcoverHardcoverA hardcover, hardback or hardbound is a book bound with rigid protective covers...
first edition. ISBN 0-393-03976-5 - New York: Owl BooksGeorg von Holtzbrinck Publishing GroupVerlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck is a Stuttgart-based publishing holding company which owns publishing companies worldwide. Holtzbrinck has published everything from Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses to classics by Agatha Christie, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway and John Updike...
, 1997. First trade paperback. ISBN 0-8050-5437-5 - New York: Owl Books, 1999. Trade paperback reissue (film tie-in cover). ISBN 0-8050-6297-1
- Minneapolis, MN: HighBridge Company, 1999. Unabridged audiobook on 4 cassettes, read by J. Todd AdamsJ. Todd AdamsJ. Todd Adams is an American stage, film, and television actor who lives and works primarily in Southern California.Adams attended Brigham Young University where he was a student in the theater and film program. Some of his first professional roles were with the annual Utah Shakespearean Festival...
. ISBN 1-56511-330-6 - Minneapolis, MN: Tandem Books, 1999. School & library binding. ISBN 0-613-91882-7
- New York: Owl Books, 2004. Trade paperback reissue, with a new introduction by the author (bloody lip cover). ISBN 0-8050-7647-6
- New York: Owl Books, 2004. Trade paperback reissue, with a new introduction by the author (film tie-in cover). ISBN 0-8050-7655-7
- New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005. Trade paperback (fist cover). ISBN 0-393-32734-5
- New York: Recorded Books LLC, 2008. Unabridged audiobook on 5 CDs, Read by James Colby. ISBN 978-1-4361-4960-0
See also
- 1996 in literature1996 in literatureThe year 1996 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is removed from an advanced placement English reading list in Lindale, Texas because it "conflicted with the values of the community."* In the United Kingdom, the first...
- Dissociative identity disorderDissociative identity disorderDissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....
- Transgressive fiction