Existentialism & Fight Club

After the narrator has met Tyler Durden, this is when the chaos and destruction has begun. Tyler was always telling the narrator how to make dynamite, napalm, and other gases that could blow up. Tyler had created a fighting club and a working club that would help him break down civilization. At first, the narrator did not know how to handle it but then started to become involved. The narrator’s apartment blew up from the home made dynamite that Tyler had made. Soon after, the narrator had asked Tyler if he could move in with him. Men were always having bruises or scars on their faces from “Fight Club” and later on, men would show up at their front door wanting to come in to be apart of Project Mayhem. The narrator always had to deal the dirty work, meaning telling the guys if they were not the right fit. Tyler had handed out proposals to each member, which involved in human scarifies, stealing identify cards, or destroying private property. After being around Tyler so much, the narrator had started to agree with Tyler about destroying civilization, “I wanted the whole world to hit bottom” (Palahniuk 123). The narrator finally realized that there has been way too much chaos when he notices Tyler has been gone. The narrator starts questioning every man he sees and tries to chase after Tyler. Towards the end of the novel after the

Tyler is also the son of Elizabeth (Arthur’s second wife) and had to move to Israel with her because it was written as one of her custody in their divorce papers. He was 8 when he heard that his father passed away and fled away from the country due to flu spreading vast fully throughout the world. 20yrs passes by and now he is known as the Prophet, the most feared person throughout the city, with a society of people who worship him because he is chosen by god. In chapter 53, we go back into the past 15mins before the play was about to start, Arthurs calls Tyler who’s angry at him because he attend his birthday but, they conversed over how great the comic book Station Eleven, not knowing that this would be their last discussion. This proves my thesis because it shows how Arthur didn’t really give/have enough time being with his son. Since he grew up without a father teaching him what’s right from wrong, Tyler became the fearful Prophet that ended up getting shot in the head by one of his believers. So in other words Arthur’s actions affected future events to become as what they are by making bad life choices that harmed Tyler’s path of life. If Arthur ending up as a loyal husband & father none of this would have

The sun hovered majestically over the edge of the horizon, its rays shimmering a last hurrah before it slowly dipped below the distant California skyline and vanished from sight. Tom sat alone in the Cadillac, his eyes unseeing, his body immobile, his mind locked within the trauma of his recent breakdown. He had fully intended to shoot Holland, to put a bullet straight between his eyes and end the vile man’s reign of terror forever. It had seemed the perfect solution at the time. But on reflection, sitting in solitude as the shadows of the approaching night shielded him from what was occurring within the walls of Holland’s home, Tom realized he had teetered close to the brink of insanity. For a split second, he had lost all rationality, and

The plot sequence is enacted in a way that the viewer would perceive the two personas as completely different people. Through various scenes, the narrator comes to realize that he had fabricated his second persona. Upon this realization, the narrator must accept the fact that he is the force behind the complex plans of destruction. He quickly focuses his efforts on the reversal of his alter ego’s plans that turned the fight club into the disparaging “Project Mayhem.” The ideas behind this project were based off of the principles of equality, minimalism, and anti-corporate America. The targets of the destruction were all of the major credit card company headquarters. The reason behind these plans was to eliminate the debt records, thus allowing everyone to “start at zero.” Tyler thought that with no debt record, problems surrounding materialism would vanish. The reversal process would take the narrator on an arduous journey across the country. He follows Tyler’s paper trail, uncovering the plans little by little; all while realizing what was upon him.

The psychopathy of Tyler Durden, in my view, is an expression of the inner conflict of the narrator due to a traumatic past experience that is part of a dissociative amnesiac state. These states are part of the DID diagnostic criteria. The trigger for the narrator seems to be the death of Chloe, one of the attendees at the brain parasite self-help group he attends at the behest of his doctor. His doctor’s thought is that if the narrator could experience real suffering he might understand that his desire to take sleeping pills to dull the pain of his life in order to fall asleep is part of an innate weakness in his beliefs, values, and subsequent choices. The doctor is, in essence, telling the narrator that he is a weak person with no real anxiety

While Jason’s life was starting to head back in the right direction, Tyler’s was doing quite the opposite. He was starting to get seriously messed up mentally and physically. He also owed a lot of people money and they were looking to find him. His life was at an all time

He asked himself, “Have I been going to bed earlier every night? Have I been sleeping later? Have I been Tyler longer and longer?” At this point, he saw flashbacks of himself doing the terrible acts. Once he figured out that he was Tyler he went to the police, however, Tyler was a step ahead of him and had already on this happening and infiltrated his plan. He confronted Tyler saying “Why do people think that I’m you?” “I think you know,” Durden replied. “No I don’t!” states the narrator. “Yes you do. Why would anyone possibly confuse you with me? ... Because we’re the same person.” He was his alter-ego, how he wished he was perceived, all

At first we do not know that Tyler Durden is the same person as the Narrator, but they use different types of subtle hints to show his decaying mental state. The first hint we are given is that he is a suspect in the destruction of his own home. It’s a very subtle suggestion, but it is still proof that they are the same person. One big motif was not an object, but what the Narrator repeated over and over again. “I know this because Tyler knows this.”

“Do you know what a duvet is? It's a blanket. Just a blanket. Is this essential to our survival? No. We're consumers. We're by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty...these things don't concern me. What concerns me is celebrity magazines, television with five hundred channels, some guy's name on my underwear”(29 min.) We are a generation comprised of invidious and conspicuous consumers, desperately trying to meet society’s consumerist criteria; seeking the false promise of the American dream. This is the reality presented in Fincher’s Fight Club (1999), one of “the rawest, most hot-blooded, provocatively audacious, dangerous movies to come of out Hollywood” (Morris, 1999). Through the diverging personalities of the

Tyler has a very strong drive. He put together Fight Club, and later Project Mayhem. No matter what he is involved in, Tyler makes the decisions. On the other hand, the Narrator is very quick to follow the instructions of others. This behavior started with his father early in life, then

Analysis of the Themes in Fight Club It is easy to understand how and why many who view Fight Club (Fincher, 1999) would argue that is in essence a critique of post modern consumer culture within America or indeed the western world. After all we are faced with Character(s) Jack (Edward Norton) who seems to gain no cultural sustenance from the world in which he inhabits. More over it seems to do him harm in the form of insomnia.

I knew things I shouldn’t know. I knew how to make bombs in a number of ways, but that was Tyler’s thing. I never saw Tyler and Marla in the same room. I knew things because Tyler knew them. He was a projection, a hallucination. He is doing bad things to my head and life. I need

In the movie Fight Club, directed by David Fincher, a group of disarrayed men search for the true meaning of their lives and what it means to be a man in the postmodern time period. Postmodernism is a period that followed modernism, portraying less organization and more freedom. Fight Club addresses the dominant mindsets, ideologies, and preoccupations of the postmodernism era found in the film. Throughout Fight Club the mindset of not conforming to the way other men live regularly is practiced religiously through the roles of Tyler Durden himself, and eventually the members of fight club in general.

He lives in an old house that was most likely condemned a century ago. It sits in front of an old factory. His nearest neighbor is a mile and half away. Tyler makes and sells soap. He also has other jobs that afford him time to do not so pleasant things such as urinate in soup at high class restaurants and splice objectionable images into family films in major theater chains. Tyler has no rules, no limits, but he gives no breaks either, you either follow him or are against him. Tyler tries to better people in weird off the wall ways. Whereas Jack is such the sheep that he follows everyone else as compared to Tyler who is the one who tries to change society and Jack follows him because Tyler is the way he is not. Jack is intoxicated by Pitt’s character, Tyler Durden, who lacks inhibition, just as Jack lacks personal freedom.

Mad Max is a movie from 1979 that I recently have watched with my brother over a weekend at home. As we were engaged in entertainment of this movie it was brought to my attention of the worldview that this particular movie presented to its viewers. This worldview is called Existentialism: a view that indicates that our lives are meaningless and it is up to us to create our own meaning from the day we are born to the last breath on earth. This is expressed consistently throughout the entirety of the movie and can be of concern if taken literally.