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Fight Club Essay

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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 in the text: “Nothing was solved when the fight was over, but nothing mattered”. According to the text “The Crisis of Manliness”, The Narrators problems stem from being fostered in a home absence of a clear idea of what it means to be a mean, causing them to react against their jobs by revering to the crudest form of macho violence. In the case of Fight Club, the crudest form of macho violence is simply beating up your other man to the point of them giving up or going limp. In “Fight Club” the movie, it is also mentioned that The Narrator (and Tyler Durden) both grew up without their fathers, and being raised by their mothers. The Narrator himself realizes this is the problem of society, as he describes the members of his newly founded fight club to be a “Generation raised by women”.
The Narrator explains the rules of the fight club, the first 2 being “Do not talk about fight club”. Even though the members don’t talk about it in public, The Narrator often meets these people, recognizable by their equally visible scars and bruises. This signifies a brotherhood amongst the members of the fight club, who have regained their masculinity, and now stand together as a new people in society. This later lead to a revolution spearheaded by Tyler Durden, unbeknownst to The Narrator, involving a plan to blow up large skyscraper simply to cause chaos in society. This conflict leads to The Narrator killing his alter ego Tyler in the last scene of the movie.
To sum up, Fight club is a reflection on a society of men lacking manliness and masculine role figures. Both Fight Club and The Crisis of Manliness show the effects this can have on society, and what effects the solution to the problem can have.

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