Our Penguin Colony
In American society men and women alike fight a constant battle to find their identity and individuality. In a society where everyone is bombarded, through media, with the ideal lifestyle, finding ones identity becomes an intricate task. It becomes an even harder task for men because everyday women are becoming more recognized as men’s equals. So, how do we find our identity in this homogenous society? Is it even possible to establish your identity in a world where everyone around you is trying to do the same? No matter how much effort is put forth in establishing our identity one becomes just another penguin in this colony that is American society. In our search we all end up in the same tired old suits and marching robotically to the same beat as the penguin adjacent to us.
In Fight Club this struggle is depicted throughout the entire movie from beginning to end. Ironically enough, the narrator begins the movie nameless as to imply that he has no identity, such that he doesn’t require a name. As the movie unfolds the viewer is let into the daily, boring life that the narrator lives everyday after day. The narrator is the average blue collar American. He comes home to a perfectly Ikea furnished apartment after his 8 hour job as do most Americans to prepare to do all over again the following day. Through the complaints of the narrator we learn early on that he is unhappy with this daily routine where he robotically operates doing the same thing from day to day. He becomes so bothered by this lack of identity that he has become and insomniac. It is only after he sees a doctor whom he tells “ this is painful” that the doctor advises him to attend a testicular cancer patient meeting that he realizes that through attendance of these meeting he becomes and individual. At these meetings the narrator finds that only “when people think you’re dying, they really listen to you.” These men are no longer just another man they become individuals...