Fight Club tells the story of an auto recall analyst as he traverses the agonies of living a consumer-driven life. The narrator, voiced and played by Edward Norton, is easily characterized by his lack of masculinity and nihilism towards existence. He begrudges each day through chronic insomnia and routine cross-country business trips, pained by a life devoid of true meaning. On one particular business trip, the film introduces Tyler Durden, a mysterious soap salesman with a unique interpretation of life.
After returning home to find his apartment demolished, the narrator goes to live with Tyler Durden, an act that introduces the extremism of Durden’s uber-masculine reality. Over the course of the film, the two build their relationship and create an underground fight club that slowly becomes a shadow organization called Project Mayhem, a countrywide assault of the emasculating and enslaving institutions of capitalism. Repulsed by his housemate’s sinister plan, the narrator finds and confronts Tyler Durden, where it is revealed that the two are actually the same person. This revelation comes as a glaring shock to the narrator, who begins to question his grip on reality. The film concludes with Tyler Durden attempting to sabotage his own plan, but after learning that he is incapable of stopping his own revolution, Tyler shoots himself in the ear, ridding himself of his alter ego, then looks out to see the beginning of his revolution taking form.
Fight Club excels in providing a compelling story from an unreliable narrator in Tyler Durden. His description of the film’s events, accompanied with visual cues throughout, convincingly establish the setting of the film as an ineffective, emasculating America. Furthermore, the themes discussed in Fight Club promote a compelling argument about the significance of mental health and of power in one’s own life.
For ease of discussion and identification of roles and objectives, this paper distinguishes the narrator (played by Edward Norton) from Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt). The protagonist in this film is the narrator, who throughout the film takes on a plethora on names. His anonymity throughout the film eludes to the narrator being an average American man, as opposed to Tyler Durden, whose name is dignified, treated with respect and surrounded with intrigue. The narrator’s objective is self-actualization. He exists in a world where all of his co-workers uniformly dress. He identifies most with the objects he buys, and persistent business trips limit his human connections to superficial “single-serving” friends. Finally, his insomnia dilapidates his sensitivity to life. In his desperation, the narrator creates Tyler Durden, an uber-masculine, authoritative man angry at the establishment for its oppression of its citizenry. This deep-seated schism of personality drives the main conflict in the film. The narrator wants to relieve the anguish of dehumanization: he wants to be heard, and his opinion respected. Tyler Durden, however, wants to inflict pain upon the profiteers of capitalism and liberate middle-class Americans from their “slavery”. His ideology is completely radical, while all the narrator wants to do is alleviate his pain.
From the first line of this film, the audience is cued to the power struggle between the narrator and Tyler Durden. The line reads, “people always ask me about Tyler Durden”. As this line is told in the third person, the identity of the narrator is submissive. He recognizes that there is a Tyler Durden, but that he operates independently from him. The distinction between Tyler and the narrator grows as the movie progresses, as well.
When the narrator first goes to live with Durden, the two have a discussion about their upbringing. Coincidentally, neither really knew their fathers, and both had a problem with women, albeit Tyler’s was more direct. In this scene, Tyler delivers his monologue that “we are a generation raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need”. This helps solidify the theme of power in the movie. By the sheer juxtaposition of the two character’s personalities, the film argues that power and authority are masculine. Therefore, submission and an utter lack of power are lesser, effeminate traits. Bob’s character cements this perfectly, as he literally went from being a masculine, capable bodybuilder to an ever-sobbing man with “bitch tits” after his balls were cut. The narrator has a submissive acceptance of his home being destroyed, claiming “the insurance will cover it”, while Tyler Durden routinely channels his rage in rituals of masculine brawn, beating up on other people. Strength in Tyler Durden’s personality contrasts the narrator’s feebleness, and by the end of the film, the narrator (and the audience) realize that Tyler Durden has been pulling strings at the expense of the narrator’s peace. Tyler Durden is the reason that the narrator can’t sleep. Over a series of months, Tyler Durden builds a nationwide network for Project Mayhem, maintains multiple night jobs, and has sex with Marla Singer. As a result, the narrator feels as though someone else is living his life. His performance at work steadily declines, bruises mark his body for days at a time, and his relationship with Marla Singer fails. This continually weakens his stamina and integrity as the “host personality”.
Eventually, there becomes a noticeable convergence in the two identities, with more and more likeness to the identity of Tyler Durden. Due to the immediate appeal of raging masculinity in contrast to his own monotonous life, the narrator seems excited, even amused to describe Tyler’s life. When asked who he would fight, the narrator claims he would fight Gandhi, a known pacifist. Multiple times in the film, the narrator describes the unity of his and Tyler’s speech, claiming “sometimes Tyler spoke for me” like when the narrator was in the operating room. Other similarities become prominent, too, like how there is a legend growing around Project Mayhem that Tyler Durden only sleeps one hour a day. That’s indicative of an insomniac, who the narrator claims to be. Both Tyler and the narrator are called crazy in this film, and Tyler even picks up the conversation with Marla Singer after the narrator leaves the phone.
At its best, Fight Club is a discussion about the sanctity of individualism in a world of conformity. In a society governed by consumerism and apathetic of the human condition, the narrator builds an alter ego that challenges his conformity to the world at larger and offers him a chance of life beyond another’s control.