...Jason Caprioni Professor O’Hara Sociology 12/10/15 Fight Club: Sociological Analysis Fight Club is one of the most bizarre but fantastic movies I have ever seen. The story starts about showing us the life of Jack (the mostly nameless narrator played by Edward Norton), attending a support group to help subdue his insomnia which emerges from his tasteless life and boring career as an office worker. He begins to attend many support groups, even though he is not diagnosed with any of those illnesses since it helps him feel better. Eventually, he meets Tyler Durden. The "two of them" create a men-only underground fight club which later evolves into Project Mayhem, while also creating soap from human fat stolen from liposuction clinics. While the...
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...his boss who’ll do the presentation. While he does that, the narrator tells us about fight club and its eight rules. The first and second rule is that you don’t talk about fight club. The following rules are that when someone says stop, or goes limp, the fight is over, two men per fight, one fight at a time and no shoes or shirts are allowed during fights. The fights go on as long as they have to, and if it’s your first night at fight club, you have to fight. Fight club used to be just Tyler and himself, pounding each other, but it grows and is now held every Saturday. The story takes place at an office at the narrator’s work. It’s not directly written that it takes place there, but the reader can assume so by the fact that the narrator and his boss are doing a presentation for their client Microsoft. The narrator describes the location of fight club as well, which is set in the basement of a bar, after the bar closes on Saturday night. The basement is portrayed as dark with a single lamp. The lamp is placed in the middle of the room where the fights take place. That contributes towards creating an atmosphere where it’s the fight that’s in focus. The narrator of the story is also the protagonist. He lives two lives, “Who I am in fight club is not someone my boss knows” ; one as a recall campaign coordinator and one as a member of fight club. Before starting fight club, he was bored with his life and he felt that his “life just seemed too complete” . He...
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...Introduction Mass culture would have most readers and viewers believing that the Post-modern American male is a simple creature. Common stereotypes margin male satisfaction in a minimal setting – a Lazyboy armchair in a lounge with a flat screen TV playing ‘the game’ along with primal banter regarding women. More often than not, this is washed down with a beer. With this array of comfort and leisure we are inclined to believe that male lifestyle has reached its peak on the timeline of satisfaction. This was until David Fincher took Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club and made it into a big budget Hollywood blockbuster. With the male demographic being the hardest to pinpoint in the literature sense, David Fincher’s adaptation helpfully put Palahniuk’s thoughts into the cinematic forefront. This increased the popularity of Palahniuk’s other works and placed him in the cannon of Post-modern American fiction. It is the issues of modern masculinity that grasps critics’ attention more so than any other Palahniuk themes. It is very apparent that masculinity has changed as a natural progression of modernisation. This dissertation will analyse masculinity as it is depicted in Palahniuk’s writings and explore Palahniuk’s intentions and beliefs. I will interpret the responses of select critics in order to gain some understanding of what Palahniuk deems to be the ideal model of masculinity in the modern world, beneath his post-modern twists, transgressive characterization and...
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...Description: The “Fight at the Investment Club” is a case that has shown me how one person can have the ability to manipulate others into doing the things that they may want done. The individual in this case is a man by the name of Lenn Width. Lenn Width was the one who always had the final decision in what the “Golden Years Investment Club” would invest in and his method has been proven based off of the great track record that the club has had over the past 34 years. The Golden Years Investment Club is a club that is primarily made up of middle aged professionals and retirees and a new comer by the name of David Korn. David Korn became a member of the group after attending a presentation by the “Golden Years Investments Clubs” leader Lenn Width. After a year of being in the club Korn started to get frustrated with the way that Width was running the way that the company was investing their money in and it was becoming frustrating. Throughout the year of frustration Korn would bring up more and more of his ideas on where the club should invest. Now yes of his ideas showed of being possibly good choices, but there were a few that would not have panned out if they invested at the time. As time went on and after hearing all of the different investments that Korn wanted the club to invest in Width started to see that he may be losing his power of having the final say and seeing he knew he had to do something to stop that. Width had decided that it was time to get rid of Korn and...
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...Minimalist contentions: Fight Club Introduction Chuck Palahniuk is one of the most influential American fiction writers who emerged in the 1990s. His debut novel, Fight Club (hereafter: FC) reached cult status after the film adaptation by David Fincher was released in 1999, and widespread and divided critical reception was soon to follow. Much of the current debate about Fight Club focuses on the political implications of the text, but most often recourse to it by way of referencing the film. These arguments usually question or celebrate the transgressive potentials of the book (Giroux; Mendieta), or address issues of masculinity brought into the fore by their literary and cinematic representations emergent in the same decade (Tuss; Friday). However, few, if any, have addressed the literary aspirations of the text and its author. Although none of the approaches to the thematic concerns of Fight Club are unjustified, in the argument that follows I will suggest that conclusions drawn and critical judgments passed have been hasty, and not only failed to take into account the formal aspects of story-telling, but that the narrative features of Palahniuk’s text have largely went unexplored, and constitute a blind spot of the reception. Critics condemning or acclaiming the novel, and, indeed, many a cultic reader of Palahniuk ignored Fight Club as a literary narrative, and have inadvertently been repeating the catchphrases of the text, either reinforcing or trying to undermine what...
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...Alan Badel English 100/Major Essay #2 Professor Raymond Morris 23 October 2015 The Fight Club Aims to Free Individuals from Society’s Emasculating Shackles Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club is an exciting fictional novel that will hold the audience captive following three revolving main characters in Marla Singer, Tyler Durden, and the narrator himself as they take the reader through confusing twists and perspectives, while providing a most revealing closure. Although the title suggests an exclusive organization focused on violence, the novel describes the emasculation of man in today’s modern age of consumerism, societal associations and family structure along with the main and sub-characters’ exercising of power and submission to power as evident throughout the novel. Chuck Palahniuk’s values illustrate in the novel how humanity is being enslaved by the power of consumerism, brought to general awareness a new mental disorder, and how he portrayed the narrator having experienced or enacted numerous anarchistic efforts in the hopes of being freed from the confines of an industrialized and necessity-driven society. It should also be noted that several rebellious acts were performed by the fight club members and subsequently members of Project Mayhem in order to gain notoriety and power in response to being economically and socially subdued. To understand the novel’s numerous projection of emasculation, masculinity will need to be established. Man’s foundation of masculinity...
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...Fight Club is a story of the narrator’s struggle to gain control over his life. He is in search for an identity in the form of manhood. His masculinity is so repressed because of the absence of a father figure in his life. Because of this he creates Tyler, his alternate personality. Tyler is nothing like anyone the narrator has met, he is self assured and completely free. The narrators alternate personality Tyler Durden is the ultimate alpha-male. Tyler becomes the narrator’s hero and he envied him. After creating Tyler the narrator’s view on the world is adjusted. Tyler ends up changing the narrators life and has him doing things he never thought he would do. Both the narrator and Tyler bond over the fact that both their fathers were not major factors in their lives. The narrator says “ Me, I knew my dad for about six years, but I don’t remember anything”(50). Tyler goes to say that his father was distant and he would only speak to him once a year. Being raised mainly by woman, they both feel they never had a man around to teach them what being a man is. Tyler and the narrator and the generation of men they represent have been trying for years to regain their masculinity and at the same time find a sense of direction. At the support group for men with testicular cancer the narrator meets Bob. Bob later enters fight club and shows he is one of the better fighters that is there. He is seen as a “true man” for his physical abilities. Later on in the book Bob also joins Tyler’s...
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...Fight Club In “Fight Club” by Chuck Palahniuk we follow The Narrator in his problem-riddled everyday life, and his attempt to escape it by fabricating an alternate identity. The essay focuses on themes such as masculinity vs. emasculation, violence and the connection inbetween. Secondly, the essay includes references to the theoretical text “The Crisis of Manliness”. In the text “Fight Club” we follow the unnamed narrator or The Narrator in his daily life at Microsoft. Suffering from relationship problems, self-esteems problems and an insufferable boss, The Narrator has a hard time suffering from insomnia because of this. To handle his problems, he starts a fight club with his alter ego, also known as Tyler Durden. The text uses first person narration, as we see through The Narrators eyes, but also the thought of Tyler Durden, as they are the same person, even though he is written as an independent character in chapter 6. The Narrator and Tyler Durden start fight club as a way to regain their masculinity. This violence begins in the parking lot behind a bar, where Tyler tells the Narrator to hit him. The Narrator is reluctant at first, but gives in. In return he receives a punch to the chest by Tyler. This is the beginning of The Narrators self-realization. The Narrator agrees with Tyler that self-destruction is the way to self-improvement. The Narrator mentions the fight club as not being a solution to his problem, but rather a way to escape from the problems, as mentioned...
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...“It takes a little bit of crazy to make a difference in the world,” said Steven Tallarico, or more commonly known as Steven Tyler. Born on March 26, 1948 in Yonkers, New York, Steven grew up in a musical family with a father who was a Juilliard trained pianist. With this musical influence, he started his first band at 16 called the Strangeurs. As he started to get older, as teenager, he was very rebellious. He was in gangs, got into fights, did drugs, etc. Even though he may have had a rough start as a child and through his teenage years, Steven Tyler, the lead singer of Aerosmith, is a significant person because he is an influential musician since has won many awards, supports charities and owns his own charity, and has overcome a horrible alcohol and drug addiction. First off, Steven Tyler is a significant person because he is an influential musician since has won...
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...Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club is a narration on the separation and attempt to find oneself. The men in Fight Club battle each other and every time they hit their opponent, this helps the fighters find a sense of masculinity that has not been corrupted by the consumerism society they live in. The novel takes place in the nineties in a society that gets overpowered by large corporations. The narrator is not playing with a full deck, so to speak. He is only a depiction of one's ego and sometimes he lets Tyler(id) take over for him. Throughout the novel Tyler takes the narrator and himself on a quest to make the narrator's dreams come true. The twist comes in when the narrator becomes stronger from the help of Tyler(id) and he takes control again....
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...Firstly, Tyler faces social discrimination through various types of conflict that affect Tyler negatively. One type of conflict that Tyler confronts in the novel is external conflict. This kind of conflict is when one character and another character are having conflict. This is represented in the following quotation, “Chip reached out and patted me on the back like his father did. But instead of a friendly pat, he smacked me as hard as he could.” and “It started. Not the beating of a lifetime, not bad enough to put me in the hospital, but painful. A fist to my head kicks to my legs.” It is vividly apparent that Tyler is being bullied physically by Chip Milbury. Ever since middle school Chip has been making life worse for Tyler. This predicament has especially fired up since Tyler was accused of posting an inappropriate picture of Bethany Milbury who is twin Chip’s sister. The form of external conflict is extremely prominent in our society; it is distinguished as bullying. Bullying is the most common form of social discrimination in our society and this novel. Tyler also faces internal conflict due to social discrimination, especially since in the school he attends he is considered socially inferior. This quote that is one of the many examples of internal conflict, “I will pull this trigger and a bullet will rip through my skull at eight hundred miles and hour. I will pull this trigger and my brains will detonate. I will pull this trigger and fall.... I stuck the gun...
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...Hunter Davis-Interpersonal Communication Fight Club Fight Club, a 1999 American film, is a brilliantly constructed film of escaping reality and dealing with pain in the famous art form of fighting. Director David Flincher adapted the film from the 1996 novel. Main actors, Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden and Edward Norton as the narrator, act excellently as they deal with their reality by celebrating violence in underground fight clubs. The narrator becomes involved in a relationship triangle between Durden and a self-indulgent woman, Helena Bonham-Carter as Marla Singer. This Rated R action/drama film takes you on a psychological twist as you learn about how a soap maker and a white collar employee seek out freedom and restoration of masculinity. I would rate this movie 4 out of 5 brains because although it gets confusing, it makes you think and as long as you pay attention you will be able to grasp the concept. On top of making you think, I believe it has educational value, such as for a psychology or English class, it is great to pick apart and analyze many of its aspects. This is a film you’ll be talking and thinking about for days. Edward Norton plays an unnamed narrator who is an everyman and a chronic insomniac. With an unfulfilling white collar job, his only dream is to own all of the contents in an IKEA catalogue. To deal with his pain, he seeks 12-step meetings where he can find comfort in people less fortunate than him and find relief in their distress. These meetings...
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...Don DeLillo’s book, White Noise, tells the story of Jack Gladney and his family. Throughout the book, Jack takes on a professional, fictional persona resembling that of Hitler, being the Chairman of Hitler Studies at the College-on-the-Hill (DeLillo 4). Jack turns his professional persona into this fictional character, something he could transform himself into, as if he was filling a Hitler mold. Jack relies on this Hitler-esque persona to sustain his own personal identity and self-worth, although in his mind, this fake persona is only subsidiary to his own personality. Jack struggles with ascertaining the importance of himself as compared to the importance of his own made-up persona and this notion of fabricated reality becoming more important that actual reality is offered throughout White Noise. While in his role of Chairman of Hitler Studies, he refers to himself as J.A.K. Gladney and dresses in sweeping, dramatic robes while teaching. Jack also takes into consideration the advice of the chancellor, “He wanted me to “grow out” into Hitler. He himself was tall, paunchy, ruddy, jowly, big-footed and dull. A formidable combination. I had the advantages of substantial height, big hands, big feet, but badly needed bulk” (DeLillo 16). This impression of J.A.K. Gladney differed greatly from Jack’s own character, and the fact that he does not know German only adds to the plasticity of his fabricated self. The idea of false reality overtaking actual reality is shown by Jack and...
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...Fight Club In the book Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk, the narrator is an employee for a travelling car company, who suffers from insomnia. When he asks his doctor for medication the doctor refuses and advises him to visit a support group to witness what suffering really is. The first group the narrator attends is for testicular cancer victims. He finds an emotional release that relieves his insomnia and becomes addicted to support groups. After a flight home from a business trip, the narrator realizes that his apartment was destroyed by a homemade explosion. He calls Tyler Durden, a man who he met on the flight. Tyler and the narrator meet at a bar, and start to fight. They continue to fight, and they start to attract crowds of men. Then they come to an idea to start “Fight Club.” The narrator believes that Tyler Durden is the manifestation of the protagonists attempt to exert control over his own life. The Formation of Fight Club, Project Mayhem, the relationship with Marla Singer, and killing Tyler at the end make him realize what he had become and make him come back into full control of himself. The formation of fight club is the physical aspect of why the narrator has lost control of himself. Fight Club. Fight Club was formed when Tyler and the narrator engaged in a fist fight outside the bar. At the starts of fight club, the narrator could gain control of himself because he could release all of his emotions while in a fight. When the narrator can release...
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..."To Fight For What We Are Or What We Need?" People have always had a deep violent nature in their roots as human beings. Although modern American culture tends to suppress this trait, under the right conditions this aggression can be harnessed with positive results. However, before this can happen, eyes must be opened to the realization that life, core values, and everything society has conditioned us to believe is not necessarily the best way to take on the world in which we live. Though its content is both graphic and highly controversial, the film Fight Club is a film that every American man and woman should see. The film tells the story of how “a ticking-time bomb insomniac... and a slippery soap salesman... channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy.” (FIGHT CLUB) The film is arguably one of the best examples of masterful film making coupled with deep philosophical content and key concepts which analyze modern American society giving new insight to ways of finding purpose and meaning in everyday life. Without a doubt, Fight Club’s name can easily be misinterpreted to many who hear or read it. While it is easy to assume that the film has nothing more to it than men simply fighting each other, in reality “Fight Club presents an overload of thought-provoking material that works on so many levels as to offer grist for the mills of thousands of reviews, feature articles, and post-screening conversations.” (Review: Fight Club) The film was directed...
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