Fight Club

Palahniuk alludes to various other literary works in Fight Club. One prevalent allusion is to Robin Hood. The Project Mayhem members take from those who they feel have too much and give it to those who are less fortunate, or just destroy it. The allusion to Robin Hood makes the narrator and Project Mayhem seem more like good guys, as the readers deem them similar to Robin Hood.

Palahniuk also alludes to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. The creation of an anarchy and the idea that not everyone plays by the rules reminds the readers of Carroll's novel and it's relaxed, dark, humor.

Fight Club By Chuck Palahniuk

By: Andrew Heisz & Drew Rust

Allusions

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What other literary works is this similar to?

Fight Club shares one very large similarity with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, this is mental illness and isolation from this. In Fight Club we are lead to believe the narrator has insomnia and that he and Tyler are different people, but in a turn of events we learn the narrator has split personality disorder and that he is Tyler. Whenever he does fall asleep he learns that he turns into his other self who is Tyler. The narrator feels isolated by his insomnia at several points throughout the story.

What makes this novel unique?

The writing style that Palahniuk utilized was interesting in that it started in the middle or the end of an event and worked backwards in the plot. The author said this allowed him to cover many more events fluently throughout the story. The message of the masculinization was also interesting, as stated earlier. The way the story line fit together was unique in that there was holes in the story that get covered when the narrator's split personality is revealed.

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Characters

How is Fight Club relevant culturally?

In many stories we see women fighting to find there place in the societal pyramid, working their way to the top while remaining feminine. Where as this novel shows the other side as men who were raised without father figures try to find there own masculinity. Today many popular novels such as The Hunger Games series and Divergent display females achieving superiority. Fight Club was different however, it didn't show that females were inferior or even that males were superior, it only justified that masculinity has its place in society. Furthermore, the book provides a point of view from the working class. Now is a time in which many people are out of a good job, and feel the government has failed them. Fight Club shows this perspective and provides and emotional release for the bitterness held by many. (so they don't need to start their own fight clubs and Project Mayhems)

What is Fight Club's Place in the literary repertoire?

Fight club is a story that addresses many modern day themes that the reader can digest and analyze, forming conclusions of their own. Having an understanding of this story would be a gateway into more focused works of literature that don't address so many themes but really drive one theme the entire way such as plays. A good time to read this novel would be at the beginning possibly as a summer reading assignment because of it isn't boring and it would be a good for analyzing overall themes and literary techniques to move on to much heavier works of literature.

Perspectives of the Author

Symbolism

What is the perspective of the author and how does this relate to the overall message?

Other Characters

Narrator: Feels the need to destroy things. Is scared to create things. Feels invisible. Desensitized to death by his job deciding if a lawsuit is cheaper than a recall in the case of deadly car accidents. Relates to readers who are unsatisfied with their job..

Tyler: Likes to create things. Needs attention. Cuts pornography into movies at the theater. Desensitized to death. Relates to reader's rebellious side.

Marla: Surrounds herself with death to feel alive, might have breast cancer. Her desire to feel alive relates to many people

Bob: Male who had testicular cancer, now has breasts, allows the narrator to express emotion and cry, he bridges the gap between masculinity and femininity in a book that lacks feminine emotion. His death allows the narrator to see that Project Mayhem must end. Bob appeals to people's sensitive side, a side not well represented in Fight Club.

• The other characters of the novel serve as symbols for the main theme. The narrator's boss serves to remind the readers of capitalism and materialism. The narrator pities his boss and his capitalistic lifestyle. Tyler does not see people like the boss as human but as robots who are better off dead. Also, the narrator and Tyler work as waiters at a restaurant in which many affluent citizens dine.
• They become "terrorists of the food industry" as they tamper with the food of those who they believe have too much and give too little. This connects to the theme of materialism, and alludes to Robin Hood.

Perspectives of the Author

In Fight Club, Palahniuk addressed many themes, including anti materialism through imagery and masculinity through diction. But he largest message was the inevitability of death. One way the author portrays this was with dark humor. One of the most memorable comedic quotes in the story was "Life insurance pays off triple if you die on a business trip." (26). It was quotes like these that exemplified the authors message of the inevitability of death. The book also starts out with a gun to the narrator's on top of a building that will implode within minutes. The author chose a beginning like this to let the reader know the narrator will die and that the main object of the story is what happened while he was alive, not how he dies. This supports the message that we are too afraid of dying and that fear can possibly detract from our lives when we are alive.

Symbolism is present throughout the novel.

• Tyler's house is broken down and decrepit, this signifies the broken life led by the narrator, and how his life seems to be crashing down around him.
• During the story, the narrator and Tyler operate a soap making operation out of their home. The soap is made from human fat. This symbolizes the sacrifices in which we must make to gain ground in society.
• Cancer symbolizes the narrators loss of self to Tyler and Project Mayhem. Both take over his life and body the way cancer would, and in the end the narrator feels he must cut the cancer from his life to keep it from taking over.
• All of these symbols connect to the main theme of death in the novel.

Important Parts of the Novel?

A very important part of the novel was the beginning, which in fact was the end and establishes the message that death is the inevitable end. The end of the first sentence in the book is "the first step to eternal life is you have to die" (pg 1). Palahniuk didn't make his message underlying, he blatently left it out in the open to enhance the story. Another event that exemplified the message was the number of support groups the narrator attends in order to make him more comfortable in his own dismal life. This establishes the message because it displays the acceptance by those who are terminally ill. Another event that supports the message is the fact that the narrator is a "recall campaign coordinator" who works for automotive companies. When your job is to decide if the cost of a recall is more than the lawsuits that will happen as a result of deaths, you know you have accepted death as part of life. Palahniuk could've chosen the narrator to have any job but the story wouldn't have felt right then. Recall campaign coordinator was a perfect fit in that it shows a devaluation(or valuation) of human life.

Author's Style

Discourse Of Literature

Throughout the novel, violent diction can be observed. This connects to the theme of masculinity, which the narrator states that he was fatherless when raised. This diction shows that a man can find his masculinity without a father figure. Throughout the work, the author repeated how to make explosives, the author specifically says 3 ways to make napalm, they are "One, you can mix equal parts of gasoline and frozen orange juice concentrate, two, you can mix equal parts of gasoline and diet cola. Three, you can dissolve crumpled cat litter in gasoline until the mixture is thick." (Pg. 170). This is a recurring description in the story along wit how to make other explosives such as nitroglycerin and gun powder. This diction was to display the masculinity the narrator has found through fight club, connecting to the major them of demasculanization of western society.

Is it a Classic?

Movie Trailer

How did the authors interaction with the intended audience enhance the meaning of the novel?

At the time the book was written in the late 1990's, Palahniuk was soaking up ideas from various literature and television programs. He stated he once saw a Bill Moyer television program which happened to be about young men who were raised without a father. This concept later became a major theme in Fight Club. Also he said he was influenced to write something different than the popular novels at the time because they were all about women banding together to dissolve there problems. This inspired him to write a book where men deal with there problems through an organization which became Fight Club.

Author's Style

The use of imagery by Palahniuk was very strong throughout the story. The main theme that the author conveyed through imagery was that our society is too materialistic. One recurring set of imagery was the "bare" essentials in which the narrator said he could survive, this was "Two black shirts. Two back pair of trousers. One pair of black heavy shoes. Two pair of black socks and two pair of plain underwear. One heavy black coat."(127-128). This displayed that we don't need all the items available to us to survive in our world. These items listed were for "Project Mayhem", a militia like group that the narrator started basically to cause trouble and bring society down. He had members only bring these things because he wanted them to focus on the overall goals of the group and not on what tangible things they had. Throughout various other images in the book it was clear that Palahniuk was criticizing western materialism.

We believe Fight Club will one day be a classic. It includes the age old battle of social classes and it confronts death in a way that classic novels do. It is similar to Frankenstein by Mary Shelley in several ways, it's theme and repetition of the theme of death. Also it's overwhelmingly masculine tones. The narrator could be compared to the monster in Frankenstein as he felt rejected by society and turned to violence as a result.

What makes the novel Fight Club unique is the author's diction and syntax, the book is inundated with choppy syntax and rough, masculine diction. This makes it different from other novels and provides further reason for it to be made a classic.

How did the authors life experience enhance the meaning of the novel

Palahniuk shared a story about having a black eye himself and that no asked him about it. This turned out to be an inspiring event in his life. The idea in that no one wants to know the details of someones personal life when they are left bruised was what he based the the storyline for Fight Club off of. This actually spoke for society as a whole in that we tend to ignore those who clearly have issues. Palahniuk addressed both the isolation and empowerment that can come through our society's tendency to look past a given persons personal issues. As in the story the narrator both felt isolation and empowerment at different parts of the story.