Masculinity as the Main Theme in the Book “Fight Club”

A traditional male role is the head of a family, providing for his wife and kids, and looking after them. If the man does not have a family, then what is his role; his purpose? How is the man presumed to fill the shoes of an ideal male? These issues are some of the things Chuck Palahniuk confronts within “Fight Club” on the theme of masculinity. “Fight Club” by Chuck Palahniuk is a story about a man who is struggling to find himself. The Narrator of the novel, who so happens to be the main protagonist, is a nameless man who is evidently clearly depressed. He addictively fabricates diseases in order to attend support groups as a remedy to cope with his hopelessness. The Narrator can only be at rest when he cries, so the sessions let him do that, until he started noticing a woman at all the same support groups. This woman goes by the name of Marla Singer, who also lies about having diseases to gain entry into the support groups. The Narrator can not cry when Marla is in attendance, which in turn stops him from sleeping, triggering his insomnia. His lack of ability to cure his restlessness by visiting support groups is what is driving the Narrator to dangerous extremities.

The construction of the main character is accomplished remarkably well. The Narrator and Tyler Durden, being the main characters in the novel, are keenly intertwined until the reader realizes that they are in fact the same person. There are a numerous amount of suggestions in the novel, indicating this before it is blatantly said. The Narrator says, “I know this because Tyler knows this,” several times within the novel. This may have been interpreted as Tyler and the Narrator are good friends and tell one another a lot, or that they are the same person. Palahniuk also alludes to the proposition of split personalities in, “If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person?” This statement said by the Narrator demonstrates the notion that the Narrator is an insomniac, changing personalities during his time of rest. The resemblance between the Narrator and Tyler is oddly close. Both characters ended up looking like one another, “Tyler and I were looking more and more like identical twins. Both of us had punched-out cheekbones, and our skin had lost its memory, and forgot where to slide back after we were hit.” The Narrator also asked this after realizing how much of a boring life he lives, “Deliver me Tyler from being perfect and complete”, this seems to illustrate that Tyler begins to be an idealized figure, but then later on converts into an evil alter ego once the Narrator discovers the truth about Tyler Durden.

Project Mayhem's concept of non-conformity is ironic because the men no longer conform to the values of society, they conform to the values of Tyler. If a man wishes to enter Tyler's Project Mayhem Academy under his ancient house, they must bring, “Two black shirts. Two black pair of trousers. One pair of heavy black shoes. Two pair of black socks and two pairs of plain underwear. One heavy black coat. This includes the clothes the applicant has on his back.” The men who leave conformist culture end up wearing Tyler's space monkeys uniform, dressing the same, eating the same thing, and listening to Tyler's speeches. “You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake… Our culture has made us all the same… We all want the same. Individually, we are nothing.” Tyler criticizes society for constructing everyone the same yet in Project Mayhem the men are becoming Tyler's slaves. The theme of masculinity is also introduced cleverly to one of the minor characters of the book, Bob. “Raise the testosterone level too much, your body ups the estrogen to seek a balance … too much estrogen, and you get bitch tits.” Bob is an ex bodybuilder and he ended up with testicular cancer thanks to his excessive use of steroids. This rather scary revelation almost signifies that if you get too much testosterone, the masculine hormone connected with masculinity, you may end up looking like Bob, a guy with the breasts of a woman.

The men recruited into Project Mayhem are shown by Palahniuk as gullible even as they are trying to kill their own leader because they've been told to by him. This demonstrates they just sought an ideal to follow, they left him just as they were abandoned once Tyler had given them it. In 'Fight Club,' when the narrator writes Haiku poems that just pop up randomly, Palahniuk utilizes very odd language. One of these being, “Worker bees can leave, even drones can fly away, The queen is their slave.” These are shown in the novel several times and appear to demonstrate how the Narrator feels trapped in his life and work. The concept of 'Worker Bees' illustrates hundreds of identical clones without any character that the Narrator believes sums up all workplaces. The Narrator travels between many airports at one stage in the novel, and Palahniuk uses very brief, sharp phrases. This fractures the story at the start of the book and generates the concept of how mundane and repetitive the Narrator's life is, “You wake up at O’Hare. You wake up at LaGuardia. You wake up at Logan.” The repetition of 'You wake up' demonstrates how meaningless the journey is and the focus of waking up is a continuation of the desire of the Narrator to wake up as something or someone else. The impact of this journey on the Narrator seems to be illustrated. He thinks his work is meaningless, uninteresting and repetitive.

All things considered, it is clear that Chuck Palahniuk used the theme of masculinity to drive the plot of the novel, “Fight Club.” Perceiving the male role traditionally in the society we live in today is troublesome. The bare knuckled boxing fights occuring in “Fight Club” marks a generation of men raised by women, showcasing the Narrator’s missing link with his own father, who disappeared when he was only six years of age. The thoughtful creation of the story’s main protagonist provides the reader with moderate clues until it becomes evident that the Narrator and Tyler are one. Conformity is touched upon to compare the differences between the Narrator’s secure world including traditional values, good work ethics, and a repetitive lifestyle and the dangerous world of Tyler’s organized crime filled society. Palahniuk uses unusual language as a tool to illustrate each of the themes mentioned. The short paragraphs, lack of punctuation, and sharp sentences are all used to convey the reader to think about conformity due to the fact that it battles with styles of writing that the reader is more familiar with. Summarily, “Fight Club” is exclusively original and an entertaining story which confronts the issues of the traditional role of a male in our present society.