Fight Club: Film Analysis
David Finchers, Fight Club, analyzes the psychological effects of modern culture and societal expectations of the American male. It examines the extreme materialistic nature that seems to define individuals; caught in a perpetual “sleepwalking” state, in which they work to perpetuate these economic and societal expectations. Tyler Durden, the narrator’s eccentric alternate personality, frees Norton’s character from his previous perceptions, “awakening” him to a life counter intuitive to societal norms and “correctness”. The actual fight club venue, created by the narrator/Durden, provides a taboo avenue of psychological therapy, for other such males, trapped in their very own repressive states. Fincher’s adaptation of “Fight Club” provides an insightful look at the affects of consumerism on the male psyche, as well as the repression of animalistic masculinity in a culture no longer defined by masculine/combatant dominance.
The narrator of Fincher’s adaptation works for a major unnamed car company; it is his duty to calculate the need for recall on faulty parts, which may lead to accidental mortality. Traveling from airport to airport, the narrator finds himself in a state of perpetual conscious “sleepwalking”; in which he states, “your never really asleep, and never really awake.” Along many of his trips, the narrator
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meets many “single serving” friends, although on this certain trip, he meets his most interesting of all, Tyler Durden. After a witty conversation ensues, Tyler provides the narrator with his business card and explains that he is in the profession of making and selling soap.
Upon arriving home, the narrator finds the remnants of his apartment scattered and burning along the sidewalk outside his building. Unsure and in a state of shock, the narrator calls upon Tyler from a pay phone, meeting him at a local pub. Explaining his plight to Tyler, he exclaims, such things as, “I was finally beginning to...