‘Fight club’ is David Fincher directed movie which is based on acclaimed novel written by Chuk Palahniuk in the year 1996. The movie is not for everybody but it is for certain kind of readers. The movie as the novel relies on the accounts of an unpredictable narrator who suffers from insomnia. Tyler Durden, the narrator gets inspiration from his doctor who said him that insomnia is not any problem but does not hesitate from getting sympathy of several people by impersonating himself as a severely sick person. This paper intends to discuss the movie and its character, Tyler Durden or the narrator, along with several other related aspects.
Unnamed protagonist of Fight club, the narrator establishes the fight club with his friend cum hero, Tyler Durden. He also works as a specialist in automobile industry and attends several meetings in this course. Narrator also has a tendency to gain sympathy of people by posing as a very ill person and attends support groups made for severely sick people. He avoids disclosing his name and tells fake names in the support groups where he goes regularly. During one of such meetings, he meets up with Marla singer who also in course of faking her illness attends such meetings. Marla also has the same tendency to seek people’s sympathy by attending such support groups.
Narrator also meets Tyler Durden on a beach whose jolliness impresses narrator and he requests to reside with him after his own house is destroyed in an explosion. Tyler Dudler agrees to keep narrator with him on a condition that if he can hit him hard, he can reside with him. This is how fight club comes into existence and story moves ahead. Movie moves gradually and once narrator comes to know that he and Tyler Durden are same and not different person. Marla is the one who broke his false impression and told him that he is a hit person who should not come into support groups. Tyler is actually a persona that narrator takes up as it suits to him. Narrator works in the day while Tyler in night.
If we analyze narrator and his relation with Tyler Durden, it becomes clear that narrator is highly frustrated with him, society and materialistic world. Narrator finds himself in a suffocating environment and finds his hero in Tyler Durden. It shows that his ego and ambitions are high and instead of succumbing to the problems of daily real life, he creates an illusionary world where he assures himself that a better future awaits for him.
Narrator is actually fed up with problems of his daily life that he comes across in his real life. He feels frustrated and wants to create chaos everywhere which, in his eyes, is necessary for a better future. The reason behind his frustration and creating chaos is his ego and feeling lack of significance. Narrator wants to see himself at a better position and wants to destruct everything in order to make everything afresh where his importance gets assured.
Narrator adopts more than a few behaviors of different kind. Ego is a very common thing which surfaces by his acts at different places. Feeling ignored and isolated also compels him to destroy everything ad make a new world so that he could get a better position. He is a Catalyst who keeps reminding about the triviality of consumerist world and place of people in it. Narrator is an egoistic person who is not ready to accept his current situation and keeps imagining that change is about to come.
Narrator and Tyler both are same person but difference in their circumstances seem to affect their thoughts and behavior in a significant manner. Dissatisfaction from the consumerism also affects narrator negatively and in a substantial way. He feels very suffocated and detached at times when he finds himself in a less significant position. He believes when there is everything chaotic, his situation would be comparatively better.
Narrator’s feelings of suffocate and his effort of rebutting it, surfaces in his fights with Tyler. Narrator fights with Tyler, means he fights with himself and in order to prove his supremacy, he fights with himself in front of his boss and wants to prove that he does not care about anybody and he is his own boss. Author, through the fights of narrator, has portrayed a unique aspect of human beings and which is their tendency to revolt and feel happier after gaining importance. Narrator does not fight to prove his existence and supremacy only but also in order to feel that he is a free man unlike others who work day and night just to gain materialistic things which are even not necessary.
Narrator meets with Marla so meets Tyler with her and competition begins to win her. Narrator, frustrated man finds himself in competition with Tyler who is a hero and perfect than anyone else in the eyes of narrator. He becomes sad when he sees Marla developing intimacy with Tyler and also thinks to win this competition. Narrator’s ego comes in the way of Tyler who used to be a hero figure for him. Narrator also fears to be neglected by Tyler since he will give his time and importance to Marla instead of the narrator. Narrator starts feeling jealous with Tyler who holds a heroic image in narrator’s mind. Narrator develops a complex feeling for Tyler who just stole his girlfriend from him.
The behavior and ego of narrator are not baseless and reflect a daily real life of today. People are under different kinds of pressure and are struggling at different fronts at the same time. Narrator is also frustrated and finds him unable to fulfill all his desires. He is under pressure which causes insomnia and he started living in an illusionary life. He developed an imaginary figure of Tyler Durden and tried to find himself in Tyler who according to narrator is more than a hero.
Narrator and Tyler both represent two different faces of today’s society. Narrator is a common man who, due to his work, liabilities and pressure, has been converted into a frustrated insomniac. Narrator wants chaos because it gives him a hope of better future for him. He has no any other hope of improving his life and waits for chaos to happen which will remove all his problems. On the other hand is Tyler Durden who represents elite. Tyler is happy, masculine, rich, fearless, unstressed and a literal hero for the narrator or any common man of today. People like Tyler are ideal for common people in whom he sees himself and feel happy as narrator used to do in the movie.
Narrator is just a fan of Tyler Durden, he describes Tyler in these words, “I love everything about Tyler Durden, his courage and his smarts. His nerve, Tyler is funny and charming and forceful and independent, and men look up to him and expect him to change their world. Tyler is capable and free, and I am not" (Hell 12). Narrator just wants to be like Tyler and imagines himself in Tyler.
Narrator also finds himself detached with the consumer culture of today. He believes people are mad for the things which are eve not necessary for them in order to lead a good life but on the other hand, he himself purchases a lot of consumer goods to pacify his ego and pretends to be a happier man. He is a desperate man who is neither satisfied with his life or with his job and in order to fulfill his empty life, tries everything that he can do. Author has portrayed today’s life and how people live different kinds of frustrations.
After having observed above mentioned detailed analysis of the subject, it is good to conclude that narrator or Tyler is a portrayal of common man of modern times who lives in materialistic society under more than a few pressures. Narrator resembles common man for more than a few reasons. People today live in illusions as narrator of the story, lives in illusions because real life is very tough and frustrating. A common man also suffers as narrator used to suffer in the movie, fight club.
Work Cited
Hell, Johannes. 'Fight Club' - A Model of a Social Revolution. Norderstedt Germany: GRIN Verlag, 2004.
