FIGHT CLUB
BY CHUCK PALAHNIUK
PLOT SUMMARY
Flight Club is based on the societal disintegration that occurs due to extensive commercialism. Palahniuk brings this thought to the forefront by demonstrating the destruction of that Narrator’s sheltered life, establishing a new purposeful existence founded on acts of violence. He satirizes the difficulty faced by those who retain the wish of exiting the traditional norms of a typical American lifestyle. The book was written to spur a reaction to this phenomenon in the everyday citizen.
The majority of the opening six chapters are delivered through first person narration. However, at specific instances, namely throughout the third chapter while detailing personal experiences faced at several different airports, the narrative drifts into second person. “You wake up at LAX.” The change in perspective allows the reader to become more immersed into a seemingly difficult and scattered opening, but additionally makes reference to how delusional the Narrator veritably is. For example, pondering over his misfortunes that have led to his inevitable death in the first chapter, rather than taking into consideration a method of bettering his predicament.
Ultimately, the Narrator flashes back to what has led to his endgame position by detailing the primary occurrences, evidently that he is plagued by his discontent with his employment and the manner in which he lives. He mentions that has been jaundiced by the overwhelming sense of conformity that consumerism retains. His inability to find satisfaction with his lifestyle and the demanding travel associated with his career gives way to his insomnia.
As the story progresses through the second chapter, the Narrator is forced to visit a series of support groups only to come to the realization that his insomnia that causes him great discomfort, is insignificant in comparison to those with greater issues, for example testicular cancer. Nevertheless his difficulty to sleep is only amplified upon meeting Marla Singer, an individual that exposes his lies and the fact that he is truly a faker for attending the meetings. Following a confrontation between the two, they mutually accept the fact that they should no longer interact with each other anymore.
Eventually profound movement is made in regards to the life of the Narrator after encountering Tyler Durden, an anomalous individual that possesses a charismatic charm that harbors his psychopathic tendencies. A bond between them becomes evident following the destruction of the Narrator’s condominium, where Tyler provides aid to the homeless Raconteur. Nonetheless, in return for his benevolence, he asks the Narrator to strike him with his utmost force. What supersedes is an altercation that captures the attention of a horde of men. The “Flight Club” emerges, that is a unique method of mental healing through physical “bare-knuckle” sparring.
The men that enter the “Fight Club” are force to abide by a set of established rules:
1st RULE: You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB.
2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about FIGHT CLUB.
3rd RULE: If someone says "stop" or goes limp, taps out the fight is over.
4th RULE: Only two guys to a fight.
5th RULE: One fight at a time.
6th RULE: No shirts, no shoes.
7th RULE: Fights will go on as long as they have to.
8th RULE: If this is your first night at FIGHT CLUB, you HAVE to fight.
The novel continues with the Fight Club being and established and running in full effect . The Narrator and his companion, Tyler, attend it Saturday nights from 2 a.m.- 7 a.m. and they attempt to live their normal lives with the bruises and lacerations that have been brought to light by the fights. Additionally, they are constantly questioned about where they come from. They can only cover up by making excuses about being blunderous. The Narrator is eventually sent home from work for the amount of dried blood on his pants.
The Narrator has been dreaming about having sex with Marla Singer, the unstable woman from the support groups. Meanwhile, Tyler has been sleeping with her in their apartment. This cannot be contributing positively to his state of mind, which is actually seeming to be improving. Judging his mindset through the authors writing style, it is noticeable that he is regaining his composure and his insomnia is diminishing somewhat as the writing is becoming less jumpy and is becoming more proper. As the novel is written through the Narrator's train of thought, the style is an extremely important factor in order to understand his character.
It is no coincidence that the Narrator is regaining his grasp at sanity. Early in these chapters are when he begins his participation in the fight club. The Narrator uses the hand to hand combat as an escape from the reality that he lives in. He mentions his curiosity of how far someone can get beaten before they die and this highlights his level of psychopathy.
It was mentioned many times throughout these chapters about the characters "hitting bottom". They derive this term from "hitting rock bottom", which is the moment of one's life where they are the most morose. More specifically, Tyler says "it's only after we've lost everything that were free to do anything." He means that once you've experience the worst, everything after that will be better. This is an intelligent method of thought, as a result the norm would be to do everything possible to avoid hitting bottom. Tyler is not exactly a normal person, but this theory, logically, can be possible.
The idea that life will always be better than that point can positively effect the mentality of someone. The downside of wanting to hit bottom could possibly be devastating. If someone believe they hit bottom, and then they live on for a short period of time believing that it can't possibly get any worse. If something happens to them that sinks them to even farther below they have ever been, they might begin to lose the idea of hitting bottom. Hitting rock bottom is only a state of mind, it does not necessarily mean that everything will be better than that. There is always the possibility of something going even more wrong.
The characters begin the operation of making "soap" out of their apartment. Nonetheless, "soap" is a representation of explosives made of a combination of nitroglycerin, sodium nitrate, and sawdust. This mixture is used to make dynamite and according to Tyler Durden, "You can blow up bridges." When nitroglycerin is mixed with more nitric acid and paraffin, gelatin explosives are made. Tyler explains, "You could blow up a building, easy." This brings the readers train of thought back to the very first chapter of the novel where the two men are on top of the Parker-Morris Building where Tyler is pointing a gun to the Narrator.
The Narrator has been dreaming about having sex with Marla Singer, the unstable woman from the support groups. Meanwhile, Tyler has been sleeping with her in their apartment. This cannot be contributing positively to his state of mind, which is actually seeming to be improving. Judging his mindset through the authors writing style, it is noticeable that he is regaining his composure and his insomnia is diminishing somewhat as the writing is becoming less jumpy and is becoming more proper. As the novel is written through the Narrator's train of thought, the style is an extremely important factor in order to understand his character.
It is no coincidence that the Narrator is regaining his grasp at sanity. Early in these chapters are when he begins his participation in the fight club. The Narrator uses the hand to hand combat as an escape from the reality that he lives in. He mentions his curiosity of how far someone can get beaten before they die and this highlights his level of psychopathy.
It was mentioned many times throughout these chapters about the characters "hitting bottom". They derive this term from "hitting rock bottom", which is the moment of one's life where they are the most morose. More specifically, Tyler says "it's only after we've lost everything that were free to do anything." He means that once you've experience the worst, everything after that will be better. This is an intelligent method of thought, as a result the norm would be to do everything possible to avoid hitting bottom. Tyler is not exactly a normal person, but this theory, logically, can be possible.
The idea that life will always be better than that point can positively effect the mentality of someone. The downside of wanting to hit bottom could possibly be devastating. If someone believe they hit bottom, and then they live on for a short period of time believing that it can't possibly get any worse. If something happens to them that sinks them to even farther below they have ever been, they might begin to lose the idea of hitting bottom. Hitting rock bottom is only a state of mind, it does not necessarily mean that everything will be better than that. There is always the possibility of something going even more wrong.
The characters begin the operation of making "soap" out of their apartment. Nonetheless, "soap" is a representation of explosives made of a combination of nitroglycerin, sodium nitrate, and sawdust. This mixture is used to make dynamite and according to Tyler Durden, "You can blow up bridges." When nitroglycerin is mixed with more nitric acid and paraffin, gelatin explosives are made. Tyler explains, "You could blow up a building, easy." This brings the readers train of thought back to the very first chapter of the novel where the two men are on top of the Parker-Morris Building where Tyler is pointing a gun to the Narrator.
Throughout the chapters 12 and 18, the reader sees a clear shift in the Narrator's personality and thought process as the "Fight Club" and those around him begin to have a greater influence on him. The Narrator's perception begins to change even more compared to how he was in the beginning of the novel.
Fight Club begins to show up at the Narrator’s work when his boss brings a paper regarding the rules of Fight Club that the main character left in the photocopier. As the boss begins to read the paper, the protagonist quickly joins in when the boss expected him to remain silent. The protagonist continued to recite the rules. Although both of these character’s know that the paper belongs to the Narrator, neither of them continue the discussion as the Narrator has stunned his boss as such a reply was not expected. “No, I say, the paper’s not mine. I take the paper between two fingers and jerk it out of his hand. [...] Maybe, I say, you should not be bringing me every little piece of trash you pick up”. The theme of man and dominance is present in this scene as the boss is in charge at work throughout the novel, but as the Narrator’s perception changes from the Fight Club, the power shifts from the boss to the Narrator after this encounter.
Tyler and our Narrator begin to realize that in order to have the Fight Club functioning every night of the week, they would have to find a way to raise funds.Throughout the novel, Tyler had been radical, and all the means of his actions had been to cause chaos to those around him. Due to Tyler’s dark personality, he persuades the Narrator into doing something he'd never see him do. After blackmailing the Projectionist Union revolving the incident with the porno slides in a child’s movie, Tyler made the Narrator confront the manager of the Pressman Hotel. The Narrator begins to tell the hotel manager that if he did not get his money, he’d tell everyone that the Pressman Hotel is “where the richest people in the world ate pee.” When the hotel manager doesn’t believe him, the Narrator quickly loses his sanity and begins to beat himself up to a point where blood is everywhere, due to the fact that no one would have the morality to do that to themselves. Continuous shift is present in the Narrators lifestyle, as he begins to solve everything with violence.
As these chapters progress, Tyler has created a new group, Project Mayhem. The intentions of this assortment of individuals was to end social and economic inequality through methods of radical acts. Tyler and the Narrator both begin share a common idea about this project, and both of their intentions are to “[...] destroy everything beautiful. [...] Burn the Amazon Rainforest. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight to gobble the ozone. Open the dump valves on the supertankers [...] I wanted the whole world to hit bottom” This new group soon begins to appear everywhere throughout the new for their acts of trying to hit bottom.
Crucial modifications have been made to the Narrator's perception. Upon the realization that he had fallen asleep at work, the Narrator receives a call from Tyler explaining that there is someone waiting for him in a car. Throughout this chapter the protagonist continues to question whether or not what is happening is a dream, as he had under a lot of stress recently, a commodity that may alter is judgement. By the time he gets into the car, night had already fallen, and the protagonist is feeling lugubrious, and nothing seems real. All goes well until the driver of the car begins racing in the opposite lane shooting towards oncoming vehicles.
The Narrator begins to realize he is going to die, and the adrenaline forces emotions and ideas which ultimately make him want to die. Traveling in the opposite lane with the mayhem in the car alludes to how quickly someone can die. This experience is very significant as it demonstrated that law and order in society forces man to do nothing with their lives. Like the author explains, if he was to die during the moment they were driving towards oncoming traffic, he would have lived a life doing nothing except sitting in an office all day, which is why he encourages Project Mayhem to bring back rock bottom in society.
Fight Club begins to show up at the Narrator’s work when his boss brings a paper regarding the rules of Fight Club that the main character left in the photocopier. As the boss begins to read the paper, the protagonist quickly joins in when the boss expected him to remain silent. The protagonist continued to recite the rules. Although both of these character’s know that the paper belongs to the Narrator, neither of them continue the discussion as the Narrator has stunned his boss as such a reply was not expected. “No, I say, the paper’s not mine. I take the paper between two fingers and jerk it out of his hand. [...] Maybe, I say, you should not be bringing me every little piece of trash you pick up”. The theme of man and dominance is present in this scene as the boss is in charge at work throughout the novel, but as the Narrator’s perception changes from the Fight Club, the power shifts from the boss to the Narrator after this encounter.
Tyler and our Narrator begin to realize that in order to have the Fight Club functioning every night of the week, they would have to find a way to raise funds.Throughout the novel, Tyler had been radical, and all the means of his actions had been to cause chaos to those around him. Due to Tyler’s dark personality, he persuades the Narrator into doing something he'd never see him do. After blackmailing the Projectionist Union revolving the incident with the porno slides in a child’s movie, Tyler made the Narrator confront the manager of the Pressman Hotel. The Narrator begins to tell the hotel manager that if he did not get his money, he’d tell everyone that the Pressman Hotel is “where the richest people in the world ate pee.” When the hotel manager doesn’t believe him, the Narrator quickly loses his sanity and begins to beat himself up to a point where blood is everywhere, due to the fact that no one would have the morality to do that to themselves. Continuous shift is present in the Narrators lifestyle, as he begins to solve everything with violence.
As these chapters progress, Tyler has created a new group, Project Mayhem. The intentions of this assortment of individuals was to end social and economic inequality through methods of radical acts. Tyler and the Narrator both begin share a common idea about this project, and both of their intentions are to “[...] destroy everything beautiful. [...] Burn the Amazon Rainforest. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight to gobble the ozone. Open the dump valves on the supertankers [...] I wanted the whole world to hit bottom” This new group soon begins to appear everywhere throughout the new for their acts of trying to hit bottom.
Crucial modifications have been made to the Narrator's perception. Upon the realization that he had fallen asleep at work, the Narrator receives a call from Tyler explaining that there is someone waiting for him in a car. Throughout this chapter the protagonist continues to question whether or not what is happening is a dream, as he had under a lot of stress recently, a commodity that may alter is judgement. By the time he gets into the car, night had already fallen, and the protagonist is feeling lugubrious, and nothing seems real. All goes well until the driver of the car begins racing in the opposite lane shooting towards oncoming vehicles.
The Narrator begins to realize he is going to die, and the adrenaline forces emotions and ideas which ultimately make him want to die. Traveling in the opposite lane with the mayhem in the car alludes to how quickly someone can die. This experience is very significant as it demonstrated that law and order in society forces man to do nothing with their lives. Like the author explains, if he was to die during the moment they were driving towards oncoming traffic, he would have lived a life doing nothing except sitting in an office all day, which is why he encourages Project Mayhem to bring back rock bottom in society.
The Narrator becoming fully involved with Project Mayhem is forcing his state of mind to become very bleak and dreary. After his near death experience, his thoughts become very focused on Tyler and what he is planning. He is still on the quest for fat, along with the mechanic, in order to fabricate the soap for Tyler.
In the quest to retrieve twelve drivers’ licences, a task assigned by Tyler for homework, the Narrator holds a gun to a corner store worker at a bus stop. The “hold up” results in the Narrator telling the man what to do with his goal of becoming a veterinarian. He does this by threatening him, saying that he will come back in a few months checking up on him.
In the quest to retrieve twelve drivers’ licences, a task assigned by Tyler for homework, the Narrator holds a gun to a corner store worker at a bus stop. The “hold up” results in the Narrator telling the man what to do with his goal of becoming a veterinarian. He does this by threatening him, saying that he will come back in a few months checking up on him.
As the narrator continues his job flying to different cities, he notices fight clubs are everywhere. He is persistent on finding where Tyler is, but no one seems to know where he is. When he asks people if they know who Tyler Durden is, they answer oddly. Later, in a phone conversation with Marla, he asks what his name is, and her answer is Tyler. That explains why is was said that he was in Seattle, but he says that he's never been there ber
Asking for Marla’s help, the narrator tries to take her advice and stay awake. Although the narrator suffers from insomnia irony is present as he tries to stay awake when most insomnia patients are desperately trying to sleep. The narrator not wanting to sleep shows how desperate he is to suppress Tyler’s presence, and preventing Tyler from doing what he does best, not abiding by the law.
The narrator soon finds himself has waking up in disbelief that he is responsible for his bosses death. This moment is significant as he begins to recall the moment in which he woke up in his office with the smell of gasoline on his hands. He realizes that no matter when he falls asleep, Tyler will be using his body.
Upon this realization, the narrator catches a bus to get home, but before he knows it, he’s stuck between the space monkeys and the cops, both looking for him. As he jumps out the window, he is pulled back in by the space monkeys, who threaten to cas trate him. The scene is a depiction of the narrator trying to escape Tyler, but no matter what he does, Tyler will always pull him back into chaos. As he panics, he is put to sleep by a cloth.
After finally waking up, the narrator finds himself in his old apartment. Due to all the unbelievable events he is caught in, he calls Marla for help. The troubled narrator meets up with Marla at the first place they ever met, the cancer support group. Marla begins ranting about the vandalism, terrorism, and murder Project Mayhem made the narrator do, but not a single cancer patient is discomforted, as they have nothing to live for anymore, and these people have hit bottom.
After the argument, it is evident that the narrator has truly hit bottom when flashback everything Tyler has done, and he begins to see himself in Tylers shoes. Throughout the novel we see that Tyler Durden had already hit bottom and had been educating the narrator towards how to hit bottom.
The narrator comes to a realization when he is at the Paper Street House, a house that is empty and deserted. The house is a symbol of how empty and deserted the narrator has become as he no longer makes connections with those around him, and not a single one around him seems to care about what he’s going through, except for Marla. The narrator realizes that the only way Tyler Durden can be put away for good is if he pulls a trigger on himself.
The book then brings the audience back to the opening scene of the book. This time, it is understandable that the narrator is pointing the gun in his own mouth, not Tyler, on top of the burning building. The whole cancer group followed Marla there, but no one can help, except for the narrator himself. Before anyone can react, the trigger is pulled.
Our narrator convinces himself he is in heaven, although those around them still walk around with bruised faces, and broken noses. All those around him continue to talk about fight club, and it goes on, despite Tylers “death.”
Asking for Marla’s help, the narrator tries to take her advice and stay awake. Although the narrator suffers from insomnia irony is present as he tries to stay awake when most insomnia patients are desperately trying to sleep. The narrator not wanting to sleep shows how desperate he is to suppress Tyler’s presence, and preventing Tyler from doing what he does best, not abiding by the law.
The narrator soon finds himself has waking up in disbelief that he is responsible for his bosses death. This moment is significant as he begins to recall the moment in which he woke up in his office with the smell of gasoline on his hands. He realizes that no matter when he falls asleep, Tyler will be using his body.
Upon this realization, the narrator catches a bus to get home, but before he knows it, he’s stuck between the space monkeys and the cops, both looking for him. As he jumps out the window, he is pulled back in by the space monkeys, who threaten to cas trate him. The scene is a depiction of the narrator trying to escape Tyler, but no matter what he does, Tyler will always pull him back into chaos. As he panics, he is put to sleep by a cloth.
After finally waking up, the narrator finds himself in his old apartment. Due to all the unbelievable events he is caught in, he calls Marla for help. The troubled narrator meets up with Marla at the first place they ever met, the cancer support group. Marla begins ranting about the vandalism, terrorism, and murder Project Mayhem made the narrator do, but not a single cancer patient is discomforted, as they have nothing to live for anymore, and these people have hit bottom.
After the argument, it is evident that the narrator has truly hit bottom when flashback everything Tyler has done, and he begins to see himself in Tylers shoes. Throughout the novel we see that Tyler Durden had already hit bottom and had been educating the narrator towards how to hit bottom.
The narrator comes to a realization when he is at the Paper Street House, a house that is empty and deserted. The house is a symbol of how empty and deserted the narrator has become as he no longer makes connections with those around him, and not a single one around him seems to care about what he’s going through, except for Marla. The narrator realizes that the only way Tyler Durden can be put away for good is if he pulls a trigger on himself.
The book then brings the audience back to the opening scene of the book. This time, it is understandable that the narrator is pointing the gun in his own mouth, not Tyler, on top of the burning building. The whole cancer group followed Marla there, but no one can help, except for the narrator himself. Before anyone can react, the trigger is pulled.
Our narrator convinces himself he is in heaven, although those around them still walk around with bruised faces, and broken noses. All those around him continue to talk about fight club, and it goes on, despite Tylers “death.”