Free Term Papers and Essays on The Fight Club
The movie, Fight Club, has many themes dealing with some of the class-discussed vocabulary. Through a scene by scene, and dialogue-based analysis of the movie, I have found that these themes are emphasized through discussions, interactions, and non-dialogue scenes between the main character, his imaginary sidekick and the society that has had such effect on the main character. Some of these themes or topics that are shared by both the movie and the class vocabulary appear randomly, sporadically, and repeatedly throughout the movie. Most of the scenes have mainly to do with the materialism in their society and its limits on the freedom, which the characters are trying to obtain. Others deal with how they, the movie's characters, feel a sense of alienation and this alienation distorts relationships developing due to their self-determination. There is also how family interactions help to shape our development on our vertical and horizontal relationships. Then finally, hedonism and how it affects the way we treat each other and how we interact within society.
All the characters in the movie deal with and dissect these themes,
in all that they say and how they react to the main characters disillusionment
with his life; although the main characters are mostly the ones bringing the
themes to the forefront of the movie. This any man, main character dislikes his
life, even to the point that he is unable to sleep. He is disillusioned with his
life, unhappy and does not understand why. And in order to feel anything he has
to make a lot of bad choices to under go a life transformation. This
transformation originates through his interactions and dealings with Tyler
Durden, his alter ego and his imaginary friend. The main character remains
without a name until in the end you, as the movie watcher, are lead to realize
that he (the main character) and Tyler are one in the same, almost on the level
of the Trinity. However he goes without a real name because he is supposed to
represent how he could and is Any Man, anybody, and everybody. But after he, Any
Man, has made all these bad choices he has to run around and try to undo all the
horror he has wrought. Any Man started Fight Club, which matured into Project
Mayhem, which then ultimately resulted in the collapse of the institution of
their society. In many ways this movie is an extreme moral movie, with the
battle between good and evil within a person continually going on. Even though,
in the end the bad guy dies, it is only the good guy's sense of the bad guy that
is killed. The bad guy never really existed to kill off. However you are left to
believe that he, the good guy/bad guy, gets away with blowing up the buildings.
Of course the movie is really about the causes of violence and is in fact
anti-violence, although it acknowledges those impulses in human nature.
When
the Any Man says, "Losing all hope was freedom," he is referring to the
alienation from the world that he felt in his life, his disillusionment. He,
this Any Man, felt his life was so devoid of anything worthwhile that he
distanced himself from the world. His alienation from his society lead to his
materialism, and his obsessions with decorating his apartment, making it
complete. Which kept him from the freedom of living a fulfilling life, being
truly alive. Once his apartment is blown up and all of his possessions are lost,
and he mourns greatly because his possessions were to him, his life, and his
proof that he exists. He begins to understand that he truly doesn't need his
belongings through his transformation thanks to Tyler. He doesn't need these
things to be free to live his life the way he really wanted to.
He meets
this woman, Marla, who has the same general outlook on life; she hates hers too.
At first he displays a dislike for her. Then we later realize that she was a
positive influence on his progress in his transformation. Marla states her
opinion, in one of the first scenes where she is introduced to the audience,
that people and society are almost pure self-determined, "When people think your
dying they really really listen to you… instead of waiting for their turn to
speak." People are so self-concerned and self absorbed that they don't really
open up to others, this only comes when they believe they are going to die. This
becomes ever so evident in the end of the movie when the Any Man realizes that
he and Tyler Durden are sharing experiences. Even though she thinks that there
is no purpose or meaning to life there is that inherent uncertainty or fear that
she could be wrong. The fact that there could be a God or a final end that her
actions could be accountable too, is why she doesn't take her own life. Fear
drives them, both Any Man and Marla, from crossing the ultimate line.
The
movie goes on further to explain the point that hedonism is present in all walks
of life. Society as a whole depends on people being only worthwhile if they are
beneficial in any way. This is the concept that people are only good or have a
good use in so far that they help or do well for the people in question. People
have no inherent worthwhile, quality to their lives unless there is worth
according to their utility, based on whether or not they are beneficial to the
producers. One example from the movie is when the Any Man is talking about what
he does for a living. He is explaining how the Car Company he works for weighs
the decision whether or not to do a recall on the cars they make, which are
killing people due to a malfunction. The Car Company will not do a recall on the
fact alone that the car is killing people. The recall won't be done unless the
amount of money they would have to pay out, due to lawsuits, would cost them
more than fixing the problem that killed the people in the first place. Is the
person worth more to us dead or alive, is what they are asking themselves. This
is an element of how materialism is directing and controlling the lives and
actions of society in which they live.
Whereas materialism is directly
discussed in several scenes and aspects of the movie, the theme of materialism
also ties into the self-determination of society as a whole and several other
themes essential in the movie. The Any Man has a phone conversation with
investigators working on the case of who blew up his apartment. In this
conversation the Any Man gets defensive of whether or not he actually blew up
his own apartment. He states how his stuff was his life, and how his belongings
meant so much to his existence and happiness. Tyler, the alter ego, then states
in a discussion with the Any Man, "the things you own, end up owning you,"
showing just how materialism can draw you away from your goal of happiness. This
materialism of the Any Man is so severe that he puts his possessions before
anything else in his life, and uses them as a measurement of happiness, and/or
his spirituality, "I was close to being complete." By him having his sofa,
stereo that was almost decent, and his wardrobe that was getting respectable,
was how he thought he was in fact happy. This is characterized in society's
value of materialism…what C. S. Lewis calls putting first things first. The
argument of 1st and 2nd principles. Which is if you end up choosing to put the
result before the cause, the 2nd before the 1st, you will end up losing both the
cause and the result. If you place material things higher on your list than the
other and more important matters in life, then you will lose both the ownership
and the freedom, which then will cause you to lose your self-determination, your
drive.
Alienation comes into play all throughout the entire movie, and is
rehashed several times. The main themes of alienation in this movie are derived
from involvement within family issues. The movie deals with the corruption of
the natural human relationships or the horizontal relationships. Particularly
within the family, the corruption is prevalent because of divorce and broken
homes. This generation of men dealt with, in the movie, not having many, if any,
male role models to base their self-identities as men on. In regards to marriage
these men did not want to be married because they were confused by what they did
not known, how to achieve a married life, and succeed with it. They were
completely confused by what they were expected to do once married, if that was
even what they were supposed to do in the first place, "We are a generation of
men raised by women. I am wondering if another woman is the answer we need." The
Any Man's comment, "I am a 30-year-old boy," demonstrates just how much he
doesn't understand what it means to be a real man. He doesn't know what a real
man is, or what is meant to be a man. He feels he has had no rite of passage, no
journey or learning experience that would qualify him to be called a man. He had
no transition into the responsibility that comes with growing up, to be a man
who gets married and lives a fulfilling meaningful life.
Through the
corruption of these relationships (within the family, within himself, and with
his Higher Being), the Fight Club was developed. Fight Club was a meeting of
men, random men lead by Tyler and Any Man, first in parking lots and then
finally in a bar basement, brutally beating each other in the name of
good-natured fun. They met secretly, holding these meetings as their rite of
passage into what they felt to be manhood. This fraternity was to engage these
men in what society has deemed as unacceptable acts of aggression. This began
because this is what they thought it meant to become a man. These men created
their own rites of passage, through the bearing of their animalistic tendencies
and pure abandonment of their control of their testosterone. What is Fight Club
essentially? It is a bunch of boys in a clubhouse, fighting in good nature, so
to speak, trying to find that which is missing in their lives; however brutal
and bloody it has to get so that they can find what they are looking for. These
men were not the same once the rite of passage journey had begun. They looked at
the world differently, they weren't the same people, you wouldn't be talking to
the same person, "Who you were in Fight Club was not who you were in the rest of
the world." He, this man on his journey, would have started to become the man he
was seeking.
These men began to give up on their materialistic outlook on
life and come into the freedom that came with that, in the beginning of the
Fight Club. Fight Club wasn't about winning or losing, it wasn't about words of
any kind. Fight Club became the reason to cut your hair short, or to clip your
finger nails. The pain and sacrifice that was given by each of the members was
whole, and completely of themselves. Many of them sacrificed their bodies again
and again. "It is only after we have lost everything are we free to do
anything," their freedom comes from their enlightenment on their relationships
with each other within society. They sacrificed their bodies in the fights that
they participated in; they risked their health and appearance for the sake of
the journey to manhood. The act of sacrificing for the betterment of something
else, that progress through sacrifice is parallel to Christ giving of himself
and suffering on the cross for us.
Particularly this twisted nature of human
relationships in society is that their fathers, Tyler's and Any Man's, abandoned
them; "Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers bailed then what does
that tell us about God?" Because their fathers were not there and they modeled
their lives and ideals about God after their fathers, Tyler believed that God
did not want or even disliked humanity. Tyler's distaste for his father's
actions might even lead him to think that in all likelihood God hates them and
that He has abandoned humanity.
Then, there is the Christian doctrine of
goal oriented suffering, which derives from the scene in which Tyler holds the
convenience store clerk at gun point and asks him about his expired college id.
Hessel, the clerk, said he quit school because it was too hard for him, as to
which Tyler replies, "anything worth doing is worth doing well." To accomplish
something, anything has to be sacrificed. Would you rather be dead? Life is too
precious to let anything stand in your way of obtaining the goals that God has
set before you. The ability to let that, which does not really matter, truly
slide. Even though it was hard for him, he should be able to see it through to
the end.
The Any Man's beginning of the final transformation into his new
self takes place in one of the last Fight Club basement fight scenes. His need
to reject all materialism, beauty, and hatred cause him to almost kill a fellow
member, "I felt like destroying something beautiful." He has to forget about
what he thinks he knows, and try and focus on what he needs to know to finish
this rite of passage, this journey he has partaken on. His freedom can only come
from him having absolutely nothing, hitting bottom and starting over. Not
hitting bottom and returning to the life he once led, that in it self is giving
up, that only comes from being willing even to die to do anything that he feels
he needs to accomplish with his life. He is striving for this freedom with the
hope that he has enough self-determination to let go of all the material things
in his life.
Fight Club evolves into Project Mayhem and with this the Any
Man develops in his understanding of what it is that he must give up to
accomplish his goal, to change his life. The whole idea of Project Mayhem is to
bring the concept of development through sacrifice from the personal level,
Fight Club, to the societal level; meaning that society must make a sacrifice
before any progress can be made.
The Any Man has developed enough that his
subconscience allows for Tyler, his alter ego, to disappear. The Any Man feels
abandoned yet again. His father abandoned him and then Tyler, the one who was
helping him replace his father, left him; this Any Man was beginning to give up
on all the progress he went through. He was willing in spite of all his
sacrifices to go back to what he had before, his boring dull lifeless existence.
The materialism that spawns from this society is the major cause of
relationship development distortion, alienation, and the ultimate
disillusionment of the male population within this society. In the beginning the
Any Man's alienation stemmed from his distorted sense of materialism. It is this
alienation that limits his sense of freedom and causes his disillusionment. This
materialism is inherent in the self-determination that is prevalent in the core
of this disfigured society. In order for this society to progress at all, they
have to reject the controlling materialism and go through a rite of passage,
that they felt they were lacking, into adulthood. In that, this rejection has to
be the sacrifice of the society, the whole of society, or the whole process is
pointless.