Fight Club Analysis

Fight Club Analysis

“I want you to hit me as hard as you can” (37)—the line that made Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club famous. The book, Palahniuk’s first to be published, was an anything but shy debut for the author. Its putrid language, grotesque fight scenes, and anarchist overtones were adored by some and abhorred by many others. Its victims range from cancer support groups to Ikea. Its bruised and bloodied flesh depicts a tasteless work of mockery and assault. A Palahniuk book requires much further dissection. The skeleton. Bare bone. A true evaluation must dig to the very foundation. In its raw essentials, Fight Club is the perfect specimen for this generation. It has the rage. It has the love. It reaches the highs. It hits bottom. It starts with two. It grows to thousands. It ends with one.
Palahniuk could have used his characters as tools to prove a point. Indeed, in the beginning they do seem unrealistic and inhuman. As the book progresses, however, the author does the word character justice. “It’s easy when you realize that everyone you love will reject you or die. On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone is zero” (7). Jack seems empty inside. Readers cannot relate to Jack anymore than Jack can relate to his insomnia-marked world. This bitterness, while charming at first, cannot last long on its own. Enter Marla Singer. “This is cancer, right?” (13) At first glance, Marla appears to be just as empty and cold as Jack. Somehow, two wrongs make a right. Jack and Marla, rejected to nothing by so many, bring out the humanity in each other. At one point, Marla fears that she has cancer after feeling a lump in her breast and convinces Jack to help her examine since she can’t afford a doctor. He finds nothing, but the two then exchange stories, however pathetic in reality, to make the other feel better. “To warm her up, to make her laugh, I tell Marla about…” (97) As his characters evolve, Palahniuk quells any doubts of their humanity...

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