Fight Club is a 1996 novel by 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. He lives near Vancouver, Washington. It follows the experiences of an unnamed protagonist A protagonist is the main character (the central or primary personal figure) of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, video game, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to share the most empathy. In the theatre of Ancient Greece, three actors played all of the main dramatic struggling with insomnia Insomnia is a symptom that can accompany several sleep, medical and psychiatric disorders, characterized by persistent difficulty falling asleep and/or difficulty staying asleep. Insomnia is typically followed by functional impairment while awake. 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 A Combat sport, also known as a Combative 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. Boxing, kickboxing, amateur wrestling, puroresu, mixed martial arts and fencing are examples of combat sports club as radical psychotherapy Psychotherapy, or personal counselling with a psychotherapist, is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a client or patient in problems of living.[1]

In 1999, director David Fincher David Leo Fincher is an American filmmaker and music video director, known for his dark and stylish thriller movies, such as Se7en (1995), The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999), and Zodiac (2007). He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button adapted the novel into a film of the same name Fight Club is a 1999 American film adapted from 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 in American society. He forms a ", starring 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. He has been described as one of the world's most attractive men, a label for which he has received substantial media attention and Edward Norton Edward Harrison Norton is an American film actor, screenwriter and director. In 1996, his supporting role in the courtroom drama Primal Fear garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Two years later, his lead role as a reformed white power skinhead in American History X earned a nomination for Academy Award for. The film acquired a cult following A cult film is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside of the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences. Many cult movies have gone on to transcend their original cult status and have become despite lower than expected box-office results. The film's notoriety heightened the profile of the novel and that of Palahniuk.

Contents

History

The novel was inspired by an altercation Palahniuk once had while camping.[2] 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, 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)[3]

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 Club The 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. The book is structured somewhat like a mahjong game, with four and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and How to Make an American Quilt. 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 Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published on April 10, 1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City during the summer of 1922 and is a critique of the American Dream. It is considered one of the greatest novels of the 20th century 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, August Olsen, and co-producers Conor Strait and Aaron Curry joined with director David Fincher David Leo Fincher is an American filmmaker and music video director, known for his dark and stylish thriller movies, such as Se7en (1995), The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999), and Zodiac (2007). He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The film "failed" at the box office,[4] but nevertheless a cult following A cult film 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. Many cult movies have gone on to transcend their original cult status and have become emerged with the DVD edition and as a result an original, hardcover edition of the novel is now a collector's item.[5]

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 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.[6]

Fight Club's cultural impact is evidenced by U.S. teenagers' and techies' establishment of fight clubs.[7] Pranks, such as food-tampering, have been repeated by fans of the book, documented in Palahniuk's essay "Monkey Think, Monkey Do",[8] in the book 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. The book is divided into three sections: "People Together", articles 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.[3]

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 Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Since the early 20th century, musical, developed by Palahniuk, Fincher, and Trent Reznor Michael Trent Reznor is an American singer-songwriter, musician, producer and multi-instrumentalist. Founder of the industrial rock musical project known as Nine Inch Nails, he was previously associated with the bands Option 30, Exotic Birds, and Tapeworm, among others. Reznor left Interscope Records in 2007, and is now an independent, unsigned.[9] A dramatic version was penned by Dylan Yates and has been performed in Seattle and in Charlotte, North Carolina.[10]

Plot summary

An unnamed narrator works as a Product Recall Specialist for an unnamed car company. He is responsible for determining if product recalls A product recall is a request to return to the maker a batch or an entire production run of a product, usually due to the discovery of safety issues. The recall is an effort to limit liability for corporate negligence and to improve or avoid damage to publicity. Recalls are costly to a company because they often entail replacing the recalled of defective models meet cost-benefit analysis Under both definitions the process involves, whether explicitly or implicitly, weighing the total expected costs against the total expected benefits of one or more actions in order to choose the best or most profitable option. The formal process is often referred to as either CBA or BCA (Benefit-Cost Analysis). The stress of his job combined with his frequent business trips leads to perpetual jet lag Jet lag, medically referred to as "desynchronosis," is a physiological condition which is a consequence of alterations to circadian rhythms; it is classified as one of the circadian rhythm sleep disorders. Jet lag results from rapid long-distance transmeridian travel, as on a jet plane. He comes to recognize that his identity is imposed on him by his job and by his possessions and that he is not in control of his life.

At his doctor's - perhaps facetious - recommendation, the narrator attends a support group for men suffering from testicular cancer Testicular cancer is cancer that develops in the testicles, a part of the male reproductive system, to "see what real suffering is like". He finds that crying and listening to the problems of others cures his insomnia. This treatment works until he meets another impersonator, Marla Singer.

The possibly disturbed Marla reflects the narrator's "tourism", reminding him that he is a faker and does not belong there. He begins to hate Marla for keeping him from crying, and, therefore, from sleeping. After a confrontation, they agree to attend separate support group meetings to avoid each other. The truce is uneasy, however, and the narrator's insomnia returns.

Soon after, he 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".[11]

Following the fight, they move in together and expand their fight circle. Countless men with similar temperaments congregate in basements where they engage in bare-knuckle Bare-knuckle boxing is the original form of boxing closely related to ancient combat sports. It involves two individuals fighting without any boxing gloves or other form of padding on their hands. The difference between a streetfight and a bare-knuckle boxing match is the following of rules, such as not striking a downed opponent, unlike a " fighting, set to rules:

  1. You don't talk about fight club.
  2. You don't talk about fight club.[12]
  3. When someone says stop, or goes limp, even if he's just faking it, the fight is over.[13]
  4. Only two guys to a fight.
  5. One fight at a time.
  6. They fight without shirts or shoes.
  7. The fights go on as long as they have to.
  8. If this is your first night at fight club, you have to fight.

– Fight Club, pages 48–50[14]

Later in the book, the mechanic tells the narrator two new rules of the fight club. The first new rule is that nobody is the center of the fight club except for the two men fighting. The second new rule is that the fight club will always be free.

The narrator calls Marla to attend a support group and ensure that she will not be present. During this call, Marla claims to have overdosed on Xanax Alprazolam is a potent short-acting drug of the benzodiazepine class. It is primarily used to treat moderate to severe anxiety disorders (e.g., social anxiety disorder) and panic attacks, and is used as an adjunctive treatment for anxiety associated with moderate depression. It is available in an instant release and an extended-release (Xanax XR) in a suicide attempt. Tyler returns from work, picks up the phone to Marla's drug-induced rambling, and rescues Marla from the suicide attempt. Tyler and Marla embark on an uneasy affair that confounds the narrator and confuses Marla. Throughout this affair, Marla is unaware of the existence of fight club and completely unaware of Tyler and the narrator's interaction with one another. Because Tyler and Marla are never seen at the same time, the narrator wonders if Tyler and Marla are the same person.

As the fight club's membership grows (and, unbeknownst to the narrator, spreads to other cities across the country), Tyler begins to use it to spread anti-consumerist ideas and recruits its members to participate in increasingly elaborate pranks on corporate America. This was originally the narrator's idea, but Tyler takes control from him. Tyler eventually gathers the most devoted fight club members (referred to as "space monkeys Before humans went into space, several animals were launched into space, including numerous monkeys, so that scientists could investigate the biological effects of space travel. The United States launched monkey flights primarily between 1948-1961 with one flight in 1969 and one in 1985. France launched two monkey space flights in 1967. The Soviet") and forms "Project Mayhem," a cult The word cult pejoratively refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are reasonably considered strange. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices. The narrower, derogatory sense of the word is a product of the 20th century, especially since the 1980s, and is considered subjective, and is a result of the anti-cult movement, which-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:

  1. You don't ask questions.
  2. You don't ask questions.
  3. No excuses.
  4. No lies.
  5. You have to trust Tyler.

– Fight Club, pages 119, 122, 125[15]

The narrator starts off as a loyal participant in Project Mayhem, seeing it as the next step for fight club. However, he becomes uncomfortable with the increasing destructiveness of their activities after it results in the death of Bob, a member from the testicular cancer support group and of Project Mayhem.

As the narrator endeavors to stop Tyler and his followers, he learns 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. It was the hero's sudden awareness of a real situation, the realisation of things as they stood, and finally, the hero's insight that he is Tyler;[16] Tyler is not a separate person, but a separate personality Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities or personalities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment. In the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems the name for this. As the narrator's mental state deteriorated, his mind formed a new personality that was able to escape from the problems of his reality. 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 condo.

The narrator also learns that Tyler plans to blow up the Parker-Morris building (the fictional "tallest building in the world") using homemade bombs An improvised explosive device is a homemade bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. One may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery round, attached to a detonating mechanism created by Project Mayhem. The actual reason for the explosion is to destroy the nearby national museum. During the explosion, Tyler plans to die as a martyr A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for the people, a country or an organization, or refusing to renounce a belief, usually religious, political or rights for Project Mayhem, taking the narrator's life as well. Realizing this, the narrator sets out to stop Tyler, although Tyler is always thinking ahead of him. In his attempts to stop Tyler, he makes peace with Marla (who has always known the narrator as Tyler) and explains to her that he is not Tyler Durden. The narrator is eventually forced to confront Tyler on the roof of the building. The narrator is held captive at gunpoint by Tyler, forced to watch the destruction wrought on the museum by Project Mayhem. Marla comes to the roof with one of the support groups. Tyler vanishes, as "Tyler was his hallucination, not hers."[17]

With Tyler gone, the narrator waits for the bomb to explode and kill him. However, the bomb malfunctions because Tyler mixed 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 liquid phase past approximately 37°C into the explosives, which the narrator says early in the book "has never, ever worked for me." Still alive and holding the gun that Tyler used to carry on him, 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 dead and has gone to heaven. The book ends with members of Project Mayhem who work at the institution telling the narrator that their plans still continue, and that they are expecting Tyler to come back.

Characters

Narrator

An employee specializing in recalls for an unnamed car company, he is extremely depressed and suffers from insomnia. He is usually described by fans as a "ticking time-bomb", meaning that as his life is sinking lower and lower he explodes and creates Tyler. At first, he is not into the idea of a Fight Club, but the more he fights with Tyler, the more he seeks self destruction. The narrator in Fight Club is unnamed throughout the novel. In the novel and film, he uses fake names in the support groups. In the film, Bob calls him "Cornelius" on the street after his testicular cancer support group name tag.

Tyler Durden

The narrator's alter-ego, Tyler is a charismatic yet nihilistic Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. Moral nihilists assert that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established anarcho-primitivist Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation. Anarcho-primitivists advocate a return to non-"civilized" ways of life through with a strong hatred for consumer culture Consumerism is the idea that personal happiness can be obtained through consumption, the purchase of goods and services. One of the phrases supporting consumerism is "Money can buy happiness". The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen or, more recently by a movement[citation needed] called. He frequently describes and acts on his opposition to mass society Mass society is a description associated with society in the modern, industrial era. Descriptions of society as a "mass" took form in the 19th century, referring to the leveling tendencies in the period of the Industrial Revolution that undermined traditional and aristocratic values. More broadly, this term can be applied to any society, materialism Materialism refers to how a person or group chooses to spend their resources, particularly money and time. Literally, a materialist is a person for whom collecting material goods is an important priority. In common use, the word more specifically refers to a person who primarily pursues wealth and luxury. Sometimes such a person displays, property Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of persons. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property has the right to consume, sell, rent, mortgage, transfer, exchange or destroy their property, and/or to exclude others from doing these things. Important widely recognized types of, capitalism Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned; supply, demand, price, distribution, and investments are determined mainly by private decisions in the free market, rather than by the state through central economic planning or through democratic planning; profit is distributed to owners who invest in, and almost all technology Technology is a term referring to whatever can be said at any particular historical period, concerning the state of the art in the whole general field of practical know-how and tool use. It therefore encompasses all that can be said about arts, crafts, professions, applied sciences, and skills. By extension it can also refer to any systems or and social order Social order is a concept used in sociology, history and other social sciences. It refers to a set of linked social structures, social institutions and social practices which conserve, maintain and enforce "normal" ways of relating and behaving, going as far as vowing to annihilate civilization Civilization is a term used to describe a certain kind of development of a human society. A civilized society is often characterized by advanced agriculture, long-distance trade, occupational specialization, and urbanism. Aside from these core elements, civilization is often marked by any combination of a number of secondary elements, including a itself. Tyler's desired utopia is a neo-paleolithic Lower Paleolithic (genus Homo) paradise established in the post-apocalyptic Apocalyptic fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction that is concerned with the end of civilization either through nuclear war, plague, or some other general disaster. Post-apocalyptic fiction is set in a world or civilization after such a disaster. The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe, focusing on the travails or psychology of ruins of industrial civilization.

Throughout the book, he becomes more and more enigmatic as men across the country start their own Fight Clubs. Tyler becomes a god-like figure among the members of the Fight Club and Project Mayhem.

"Because of his nature,"[18] 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" (even though in the film Tyler has brown hair). The unhinged but magnetic Tyler becomes the antagonist An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or an institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend. In other words, 'A person, or a group of people who oppose the main character, or the main characters.' In the classic style of story where in the action consists of a hero fighting a villain, the two can 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 meets Tyler and becomes his lover. She shares many of Tyler's thoughts on consumer culture.

Robert "Bob" Paulson

A man that the narrator meets at a support group for testicular cancer Testicular cancer is cancer that develops in the testicles, a part of the male reproductive system. A former bodybuilder 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 bodybuilding, bodybuilders display their physiques to a panel of judges, who assign points based on their appearance. The muscles are revealed through a process known as the &, Bob lost his testicles to cancer caused by the steroids A steroid is a type of organic compound that contains a specific arrangement of four rings that are joined to each other. Examples of steroids include cholesterol, the sex hormones estradiol and testosterone, and the anti-inflammatory drug dexamethasone he used to bulk up his muscles and had to undergo testosterone injections; this resulted in his body increasing its estrogen Estrogens , oestrogens (BE), or œstrogens, are a group of steroid compounds, named for their importance in the estrous cycle, and functioning as the primary female sex hormone, their name comes from estrus/oistros (period of fertility for female mammals) + gen/gonos = to generate, causing him to grow large "Bitch Tits Gynecomastia, pronounced /ˌɡaɪnɨkɵˈmæstiə/, is the development of abnormally large mammary glands in males resulting in breast enlargement. The term comes from the Greek γυνή gyne meaning "woman" and μαστός mastos meaning "breast". The condition can occur physiologically in neonates (due to female hormones" and develop a softer voice. Because of this, Bob is the only known member that is allowed to wear a shirt (breaking the sixth rule of Fight Club). 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. 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 all those who died names. 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. The movie differs from the book in that it only states that people in other fight clubs were chanting "His name is Robert Paulson" for the same reason as mentioned above. When the narrator goes to a fight club to shut it down for this reason, Tyler orders them to make him a "homework assignment".

Motifs

At two points in the novel, the narrator claims he wants to "wipe [his] ass with the Mona Lisa Mona Lisa is a sixteenth-century portrait painted in oil on a poplar panel in Florence, Italy by Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci during the Renaissance. The work is currently owned by the Government of France and is on display at the Louvre museum in Paris under the title Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo. Arguably, it is"; a mechanic who joins fight club also repeats this to him in one scene.[19] 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."[20] 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.[21] This is most explicitly stated in the scene that the mechanic appears in:

The mechanic says, “If you’re male and you’re Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never at home, what do you believe about God? ... How Tyler saw it was that getting God’s attention for being bad was better than getting no attention at all. Maybe because God’s hate is better than His indifference. If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? We are God’s middle children, according to Tyler Durden, with no special place in history and no special attention. Unless we get God’s attention, we have no hope of damnation or redemption. Which is worse, hell or nothing? Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved. “Burn the Louvre,” the mechanic says, “and wipe your ass with the Mona Lisa. This way at least, God would know our names.”

– Fight Club, page 141[22]

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".[23] 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.

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.[20] 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."

Themes

An editor has expressed a concern that this article lends undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, controversies or matters relative to the article subject as a whole. Please help to create a more balanced presentation. Discuss and resolve this issue before removing this message. (June 2010)

Much of the novel comments on how many men in modern society have found dissatisfaction with the state of masculinity. 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,"[24] 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.

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.[25] 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.[26]

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."[27]

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.[28]

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."[29] 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.[30] This new structure is ended by the narrator's elimination of Tyler, allowing him to decide for himself how to determine his freedom.

Awards

The novel won the following awards:

U.S. editions

See also

Notes

  1. ^ In the novel, the club's name is in lower case; it is only spelled with initial caps as a title. In this article, "fight club" denotes the fighting club, "Fight Club" denotes the novel.
  2. ^ Jemielity, Sam. "Chuck Palahniuk:The Playboy.comversation"
  3. ^ a b Tomlinson, Sarah. "Is it fistfighting, or just multi-tasking?". Salon.com. October 13, 1999.
  4. ^ Linson, Art (Fight Club producer), What Just Happened?: Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line (New York: Grove Press, 2008) pp. 125–127.
  5. ^ Offman, Craig. "Movie makes "Fight Club" book a contender". Salon.com. September 3, 1999.
  6. ^ Palahniuk, Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories, pp. 228–229.
  7. ^ "Fight club draws techies for bloody underground beatdowns". Associated Press. May 29, 2006.
  8. ^ Palahniuk, Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories, pp. 212–215.
  9. ^ Chang, Jade. "tinseltown: fight club and fahrenheit". BBC.co.uk. July 2, 2004.
  10. ^ Overcash, Anita (June 30, 2009). "Theatre: Fight Club". CreativeLoafing.com. http://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/theater_fight_club/Content?oid=661053. Retrieved March 31, 2010.
  11. ^ Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1999, p. 46.
  12. ^ The first rules of both fight club and Project Mayhem are repeated for emphasis. Fans of the novel and the film have latched on to the first two rules of fight club as a meme and have made it into a catchphrase (although slightly changed to "you do not talk about fight club", based on the variation in the film).
  13. ^ Shortly after the third rule is introduced, it is dropped from the club and the other rules move up one numbered position. It is mentioned by the narrator the first time he states the rules, but it is not mentioned by Tyler when he states them. Tyler also adds the eighth rule, which becomes the seventh rule in his version of the rule set. This may have been the result of a continuity error, though it is also possible that Tyler changed the rules to allow the narrator to break the third rule later in the novel. Another interpretation could be that the first set of rules are easier on combatants than the amended rules (ways out if unconscious and not having to fight compared to no ways out and having to fight), proving the more aggressive Tyler is taking a stronger hold of the narrator. Palahniuk (1999), pp. 49–50.
  14. ^ Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1999, pp. 48–50.
  15. ^ Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1999, pp. 119, 122 & 125. also pg 69
  16. ^ The narrator's inability to explain Tyler's existence earlier on in the story is a classic example of an unreliable narrator.
  17. ^ Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1999, p. 195.
  18. ^ Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1999, p. 25.
  19. ^ Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1999, pp. 124, 141 & 200.
  20. ^ a b Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1999, p. 49.
  21. ^ Kennett, pp. 50–51.
  22. ^ Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1999, p. 141.
  23. ^ Kennett, pp. 51–52.
  24. ^ Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1999, p. 50.
  25. ^ Kavadlo, p. 5.
  26. ^ Kavadlo, p. 7.
  27. ^ Palahniuk, Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories, p. xv.
  28. ^ Kennett, pp. 53–54.
  29. ^ Kennett, p. 55.
  30. ^ Kennett, p. 56.
  31. ^ Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Awards. http://www.pnba.org/awards.htm. Retrieved June 20, 2005.
  32. ^ Oregon Book Awards. Literary Arts, Inc. Retrieved June 20, 2005. Archived April 3, 2005 at the Wayback Machine.

References

In addition, the following editions of the novel were used as references for this article:

Further reading

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Fight Club
Works by Chuck Palahniuk
Novels Fight Club (1996) · Survivor (1999) · Invisible Monsters (1999) · Choke (2001) · Lullaby (2002) · Diary (2003) · Haunted (2005) · Rant (2007) · Snuff (2008) · Pygmy (2009) · Tell-All (2010) · Damned (2011)
Non-fiction Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon (2003) · Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories (2004)
Film adaptations Fight Club (1999) · Choke (2008)

Categories: Fight Club | 1996 novels | American novels | Novels by Chuck Palahniuk | Fictional clubs | Debut novels | Postmodern literature | Existentialist works | Satirical books | Cacophony Society | Fiction with unreliable narrators | Metafictional works | Novels adapted into films

 

The above information uses material from Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Some facts may not have been fully verified for accuracy. [Disclaimers]
This page was last archived by our server on Fri Jul 30 16:49:04 2010. [ refresh local cache ]
Displaying this page or its contents does not use any Wikimedia Foundation's resources.
The owners of this site proudly support the Wikimedia Foundation.

[Hide]▼
'Fight Club' News
Escape To Victory Vs Mean Machine: Metro Film Fight Club - Metro
metro.co.uk
Escape To Victory Vs Mean Machine: Metro Film Fight Club - Metro
Tue, 01 Jun 2010 14:20:53 GMT+00:00
Metro With the World Cup only around the corner, Ross McD and Ross McG from movie site www.rossvross.com have decided to set up a little match themselves. ...
Google News Search: Fight Club,
Wed Jun 16 17:10:53 2010
'Fight Club' Images
wallpaper fighttigerclub tiger 800x600 jpg
wmaker.net
wallpaper fighttigerclub tiger 800x600 jpg
600px x 800px | 106.70kB

[source page]

http www wmaker net fighttigerclub docs wallpaper fighttigerclub tiger 640x480 jpg http www wmaker net fighttigerclub docs wallpaper fighttigerclub tiger 800x600 jpg

Yahoo Images Search: Fight Club,
Sat Apr 3 08:53:05 2010
'Fight Club' Blogs
Ferris Club (or maybe Fight Bueller?)
kottke.org
Ferris Club (or maybe Fight Bueller?)

Jason Kottke

hu, 15 Jul 2010 15:59:59 GM

Ferris Club (or maybe Fight Bueller?) Ferris Bueller. . Fight Club. . You see where this is headed, right? Well done. (via matt). By Jason Kottke Jul 15, 2010 at 11:59 am Ferris Bueller's Day off . Fight Club. movies remix ...

Google Blogs Search: Fight Club,
Tue Jul 20 22:18:47 2010
'Fight Club' Answers
What movies are similar to Wanted and Fight Club?
Q. I'm very interested in the movies that make you really think, especially about what your purpose is and what really matters. Fight Club and Wanted especially portray this. Would anyone bothering to read this know of any other movies that are like this? It doesn't have to be real close, just a 'think about it' movie.
Asked by Ginger Ninja - Wed Jan 7 02:17:12 2009 - - 14 Answers - 0 Comments

A. American Beauty Donnie Darko The Fountain In Bruges Into the Wild Memento Mystic River No Country for Old Men Oldboy One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Requiem for a Dream Schindler's List V for Vendetta
Answered by Monsta - Wed Jan 7 02:40:43 2009

Yahoo Answers Search: Fight Club,
Sun Oct 4 11:35:17 2009
[Hide]▲