Fight Club (novel)

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Fight Club
Written by: Chuck Palahniuk
Central Theme: the ennui and alienation of modern society
Synopsis: An insomniac everyman befriends a charismatic extremist and together fund an underground fighting club. Then things begin to get out of control...
Genre(s): Satirical novel
First published: August 17, 1996
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Fight Club is a 1996 novel by Chuck Palahniuk.

It follows the experiences of an unnamed protagonist struggling with insomnia. Inspired by his doctor's exasperated remark that insomnia is not suffering, the protagonist finds relief by impersonating a seriously ill person in several support groups. Then he meets a mysterious man named Tyler Durden and establishes an underground fighting club as radical psychotherapy.

It was adapted into a movie starring Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter. It also got two sequels in comic book form

Tropes used in Fight Club (novel) include:

"Get it out. Trust me. You'll feel a lot better. You'll feel great."

  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Ho Yay between Tyler and the narrator is very much intentional.
  • Do Not Do This Cool Thing: The story is supposed to show how awful and self-destructive Fight Club, Project Mayhem and basically anything at all to do with Tyler Durden is, but some fans instead think it's glorifying violence and Tyler is living the life they all want to live, to the point where some people are setting up Fight Clubs.
    • Alternatively, the story is supposed to mock both ways. It's meant to scorn the normal corporate suburban life and how people need to learn to let go a little more, but also show the dangers of living completely like someone like Tyler. Both the book and the movie show that you can and need to find a balance, and not become a person solely focused on their appearance, money, and job, but not become a self-destructive nihilistic nut like Tyler. Project Mayhem was an exaggerated version of the very real Cacophony Society, which the author was a member of. The Cacophony Society was formed out of a group known as the Suicide Club (though they did not actually commit suicide) and is more or less the Evil Twin of Improv Everywhere, where they play pranks to make people unhappy rather than happy.
  • Empty Fridge, Empty Life: "Yeah, I know, I know, a house full of condiments and no real food."
  • Everything's Better with Space Monkeys
  • Evil Feels Good
  • Evilutionary Biologist: Tyler Durden. Sort of. More of an Evilutionary Sociologist, all things considered.
  • Fight Clubbing: The Trope Namer.
  • Foreshadowing: Especially obvious with lines such as, "I know this because Tyler knows this", "If you could wake up in a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?" When the Narrator fights himself in the Pressman Hotel manager's office, he muses, "For some reason, I was reminded of my first fight with Tyler."
  • Freudian Threat: The threat to cut off someone's balls happens a few times.
  • Gag Boobs: Bob is a rare male example.
  • Genre Busting: Looking past the bare-knuckle fights and domestic terrorism, this is probably the best example of a Romantic Black Comedy.
  • Good Cop, Bad Cop: The narrator and Tyler do this to the Project Mayhem applicants, which becomes really weird after you get to The Reveal.
  • Groin Attack: "Anyone interferes with Project Mayhem, we gotta get his balls."
  • Happy Place: Ireland.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: By the end, Tyler has shaped his group to be just as conformist as the consumerist society he's trying to overthrow, and in some cases, it's even worse.
  • Hit Me Dammit: "I want you to hit me as hard as you can."
  • Ho Yay: All over the place, and in fact is an important part of the plot, since much of the conflict may stem from the Narrator's sexual confusion. The phallic imagery gets so out of control that at many points it's not even imagery.
  • How We Got Here:
  • I Ate What?: The movie has several references to people urinating or worse into food, based on stories told to the author by waiters who spoiled the food of bad customers.

Narrator: And clean food, alright?
Waiter in the Tyler-staffed restaurant: In that case, may I advise against the lady eating the clam chowder?

Tyler: "On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."

  • Made of Iron: Lots of characters, but particularly Tyler.
  • Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Darkly subverted with Marla. Tyler is sort of a Manic Pixie Dream Guy.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Tyler.
  • Masquerade: If you're not allowed to talk about Fight Club, you might never know who is in on it and who isn't. The narrator mentions that nobody knows whether a prank pulled in public was pulled by Project Mayhem or not because the first rule is you do not ask questions. This is lampshaded in both the book and movie when police officers the narrator is counting on to save him from castration appear to be part of Project Mayhem.
  • Meaningful Echo: A lot of them, too many to cite. Possibly as much as ten percent of the text.
  • Memetic Mutation: The much referenced and parodied "The first rule of fight club..." line, as well as "You are not a unique and beautiful snowflake..." Played darkly with in the In-Universe example, "His name is Robert Paulsen", when the Narrator first realizes that no matter how much he tries, any members of Project Mayhem not present at the birth of a rule will just become the Misaimed Fandom of the mutated meaning.
    • "On a long enough timeline, the ______ drops to zero." Often used in regards to music quality of bands who start out good but degrade as new albums are released.
  • Mental Story: In large part, but a lot of interesting stuff happens in reality, too.
  • Mind Screw: The book is weird from the start, but after a certain point, everything gets thrown out the window.
  • Missing Time
  • Nietzsche Wannabe: Tyler sounds like one at first glance, but it soon becomes apparent that he's anything but a true nihilist.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
    • The "fights" in the film are usually sloppy brawls or lopsided beat-downs, particularly the Narrator vs Angel Face, and Tyler vs the Narrator.
  • No Name Given: The Narrator. Brilliant subversion, actually.
  • Percussive Therapy: A big part of the movie's premise.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: Marla compares a bridesmaid's dress to a rape victim. She's that kind of weird. Since it's heavily indicated that Tyler isn't her first abusive partner, she probably knows what she's talking about here...
  • Rated "M" for Manly: One of the themes of the movie is that society has neutered the male nature and made traditionally male impulses and activities shameful or discouraged -- the Fight Club itself is, in part, a way for the characters to subvert society's expectations by releasing their impulses in secret (emphasis is put in dialogue on the Club being "for men only"). This makes it one of the most notable masculist (yes, there is such a thing) works out there.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Tyler is impulsive and rash, whereas the Narrator is a calm and cool corporate executive. Their different personalities are, of course, all mixed-up in the heat of the fight, and then we find out that they're actually Not So Different.
  • Revised Ending: In the book, The protagonist tries to destroy one building, but fails when Tyler botches the explosive mixture (the botching of which is foreshadowed in the book's opening chapter.) The Narrator ends up in a place he describes as being Heaven, but is really a mental institution, and some of its wardens are members of Project Mayhem, convinced that Tyler some day will return from the depths of the Narrator's mind and are patiently waiting for it. It's also stated outright (instead of suggested in the film) that the mental split happened the moment the Narartor fell in love with Marla; the Tyler psyche loved her while his regular psyche hated her. In the movie, the Narrator manages to regain his sanity, eleven buildings are destroyed by Tyler's explosives, and the Narrator and Marla hold hands while watching in awe. Big black cock, roll credits. Chuck Palahniuk likes the movie's ending more than his.
  • Rule Number One: There are eight rules, though people only remember the first two (which are the same rule) due to Memetic Mutation.
  • Screw Yourself: Ho Yay between Tyler Durden and the Narrator is something akin to this.
  • Secret Other Family: The narrator's father, repeatedly.

"This isn't so much like a family as it's like he sets up a franchise."

  • Sensei for Scoundrels: The trope was originally titled "The Tyler Durden".
  • The Snark Knight: The narrator and Tyler, Tyler moreso, being the narrator's uninhibited id manifested as a split personality.
  • Subliminal Seduction: Tyler inserts single frames of pornography into children's films, and later threatens to reveal this to the public unless the boss of the projectionists' union pays him off.
  • Technology Marches On: A few minor examples:
    • Tyler asks the narrator to photocopy the rules of Fight Club on the copier in his office, rather than simply asking him to type them out and print them.
    • One of Project Mayhem's pranks involves them pouring petrol into the tube of a CRT monitor so that it explodes when turned on - when's the last time you saw one of those?
    • The narrator writes haikus and faxes them to everyone in his office. This was changed to e-mail in the film.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: A classic example.
  • Trickster: Tyler.
  • Ubermensch: Tyler. Charismatic? Check. Atheistic? Check. Has agenda intended to tear down the existing establishment (mindless consumerism coupled with a society where masculinity cannot be expressed openly) with a new paradigm after rejecting all previous moral codes and overcoming the inherent nihilism? Check. Has a Last Man equivalent (and in the protagonist, no less)? Check.
  • The Unfettered: Tyler Durden
  • Unreliable Narrator
  • We Are Everywhere: Noteworthy because it's delivered to the man charged with taking them down at his own reception.

Tyler Durden: Remember this. The people you're trying to step on, we're everyone you depend on. We're the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. We make your bed. We guard you while you're asleep. We drive the ambulances. We direct your call. We are cooks and taxi drivers and we know everything about you. We process your insurance claims and credit card charges. We control every part of your life. We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday we'll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won't. And we're just learning this fact. So don't fuck with us.

  • Western Terrorists: Project Mayhem. A rare case in that the fact that the terrorists are Western is the entire point.
  • Wham! Line: "you have a birthmark, Mr. Durden."
  • You Are Too Late: Subverted. Marla and the support groups would have arrived too late to save the Narrator and stop the buildings from coming down, but Tyler's bomb didn't work properly.

Tyler, you mixed the nitro with paraffin, didn't you.

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