The Description of the Narrator's Personalities in Fight Club Novel
Chuck Palahniuk’s “Fight Club” is a powerful example of such societal criticism. It is the topical and explosive story of an unnamed protagonist and his alter ego, Tyler Durden with comprehensible narration. The term alter ego refers an alter personality with opposite nature or mentality. In accordance with this, the nameless Narrator and his alter ego Tyler Durden are two personalities containing a single body with distinguish psychology. The Narrator is aimless and effortless human being with meaningless and illogical life. He creates alter ego, which is much active, aggressive, violent, anti-social and full of determination. He wants to change the society and formulates his own philosophy, which is the revolt against American Capitalist Consumer Culture. Thus, both personalities reflect the notion of alter ego in the novel.
The Unnamed Narrator
The unnamed narrator is the main character of the novel. He is the owner of the body which is possessed by one alter ego named Tyler Durden. There are five characteristics of the unnamed narrator which is analyzed based on the novel. In Fight club, the narrator likes to do things that he does not enjoy. It can be seen through his consistency to work on the jobs that he hates. Every trip from one city to another in order to reply the customer`s recalls, he feels very depressed and suicidal idea always comes up to his mind.
“Every takeoff and landing, when the plane banked too much to one side, I prayed for a crash. That moment cures my insomnia with narcolepsy when we might die helpless and packed human tobacco in the fuselage”. In a trip, he wants to die so that he will be free from insomnia. But he keeps working on his job and undergoes depression. He does not have an initiative to leave his job because still he needs the money to buy products advertised by the companies.
The narrator is eager to reach a better life. Therefore, he works to hard in order to get money. Besides, he wants to purchase things, such as stereo, concrete floor, etc, that basically in order to make his life more comfortable. This eagerness to reach a better life is also shown in his past life. After graduating from college, he would rather find a job than get married.
“After college, I called him long distance and said, now what? My dad didn't know. When I got a job and turned twenty-five, long distance, I said, now what? My dad didn't know, so he said, get married. I'm a thirty-year-old boy, and I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer I need”. It shows that he thinks about his future, especially how to get money and property.
The narrator also has too many hopes in his mind because of a desire to get a better life. For example, he hopes to have complete things in his condominium. It is proved by a marketing brochure that he keeps, which means that he has intention to buy its products. He hopes to have concrete floor, wall, and any adjacent stereo or turned-up television and also air conditioning in his condominium. 'Home was a condominium on the fifteenth floor of a high-rise, a sort of filing cabinet for widows and young professionals. The marketing brochure promised a foot of concrete floor, ceiling, and wall between me and any adjacent stereo or turned-up television. A foot of concrete and air conditioning, you couldn't open the windows so even with maple flooring and dimmer switches, all seventeen hundred airtight feet would smell like the last meal you cooked or your last trip to the bathroom'.
The narrator`s desire to reach a better life makes him to be a perfectionist. It can be seen through his statement when he meets Tyler, his other personality, for the first time.
'I feel trapped; I was too complete; I was too perfect' The example of this perfectionist is that as a common worker, he chooses to live in a condominium. “A list of all these things used to hang on the inside of my bedroom door at home. Home was a condominium on the fifteenth floor of a high-rise, a sort of filing cabinet for widows and young professionals”. His perfection can also be seen through his desire to complete his condominium with high quality material objects as quoted below:
'The floor-to-ceiling windows in their aluminum frames went out and the sofas and the lamps and dishes and sheet sets in flames, and the high school annuals and the diplomas and telephone. Everything blasting out from the fifteenth floor in a sort of solar flare. Oh, not my refrigerator. I'd collected shelves full of different mustards, some stone-ground, some English pub style. There were fourteen different flavors of fat-free salad dressing, and seven kinds of capers'. This perfection can also be observed through the things that he brought in every trip. He never forgets to bring all things that he needs. “My flight back from Dulles, I had everything in that one bag. When you travel a lot, you learn to pack the same for every trip. Six white shirts. Two black trousers. The bare minimum you need to survive. Traveling alarm clock. Cordless electric razor. Toothbrush. Six pair underwear. Six pair black socks”
The narrator is easily influenced. It can be observed through the consumptive lifestyle which is highly influenced by other people in his society. The narrator is also easily influenced by the advertisement. He wants to have high quality products that are offered in a catalogue. “Something which was a bomb, a big bomb, had blasted my clever Njurunda coffee tables in the shape of a lime green yin and an orange yang that fit together to make a circle. Well they were splinters, now. My Haparanda sofa group with the orange slip covers, design by Erika Pekkari, it was trash, now. And I wasn't the only slave to my nesting instinct. The people I know who used to sit in the bathroom with pornography, now they sit in the bathroom with their IKEA furniture catalogue”. Most of the products he owns have famous brand names, such as Njurunda coffee tables, Haparanda sofa group by Erika pekkari, etc. It indicates that he is the victim of the advertisements because those products which are very expensive. Consequently, he loses a lot of money in order to buy them.
And the last one - the narrator is also a weak person. He is not able to fight against bad condition that makes him to live under pressure. The example is that the narrator does not challenge enough to complain or refuse bad treatments from his boss. He accepts to do his boss responsibilities whereas his boos is free.
Conclusion
In the novel Fight Club the author represents the unnamed narrator as the major character in the novel has two other different identities that are called alter. In the story the unnamed narrator is the main character. He becomes the unnamed narrator and at the other time he becomes Tyler Durden who has different character from the narrator himself. Alters have different characters, behaviors, and even different appearances from one another. They are two personalities in one body of the unnamed narrator; which are the unnamed narrator himself, and Tyler Durden.
