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Fight Club, a psychoanalysis. (Movie, not the book... spoilers of course)
Ok, so like.. it was 4:30pm today and I had a 2-page paper due at 7:00pm. Allow 30 minutes for driving time and that means I had 2 hours to get this paper done. I didn't even know what to write about. It was for psych class... so it had to outline some aspect of psychology. So I got the idea of psychoanalyzing the Narrator/Tyler Durden from Fight Club.
Here is my attempt, with obvious procrastination written all over it.
Quote:
In Tyler We Trust
By Andrew Gonsalves
Fight Club was the movie of the century for my friends and I. Conservative anti-hollywood hipsters stayed well away from it while we gritty teenagers with our minds open for anything jumped at our chance to see this feature whose premise, which nobody without any prior knowledge of the novel it was based on could wholly interpret from the previews alone, was wide open with possibilities. That night in October of 1999, we were treated to one of the most awesome displays of psychological unrest and complexity that our generation has ever seen. Sure, it was all fictitious, but to this day, we still ask, “Who is Tyler Durden?”
When analyzing the main character of Fight Club, the narrator, there are so many conditions to throw into the mix. He suffers from insomnia. He leads a very boring, generic, materialistic, drone-like life. He finds relief in the arms of strangers who suffer from more serious health conditions than his, and that is how he eases his stress. Through further complications of his unstable psyche, the narrator begins to lash out at the society that lied to him about everything. He dives into a pre-realized midlife crisis, acted out through his split personality. Over time, his personalities bleed into each other, one influencing the other to change, until they become the same person. I suspect that a normal psychologist would have a field day with this guy. I’ll take a crack at it.
Dissociative Identity Disorder is the presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states (each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self). Though Dissociative Identity Disorder normally develops as a result of a traumatic event in childhood, the tension built by the temporary relief of the narrator’s insomnia (the nightly support groups for terminal diseases) and its subsequent destruction (the introduction of Marla Singer) could stand for a fairly competent argument in works of fiction such as this.
The theme in the beginning of the movie accents the severe displeasure the narrator has with his current lifestyle. The complete dependence he has on trendy living appliances and the 9-5 rat race is taking its toll. The stress slowly mounts to the point where he cannot sleep and he is reduced to playing little games with himself to keep interested in the mere act of living. Inevitably, the stress probably triggered the dissociation of his sense of identity, leading to the creation of his wild, interesting and motivated counterpart, Tyler Durden.
Though the narrator appears to be in his early/mid 30’s in the movie, his sharp analysis and disdain for his life’s path outlines what many would consider to be a midlife crisis. In studies by Cornell University, it was found that people in their 30’s tend to externalize their problems; leading up to their 40’s and 50’s where they start to take more responsibility for the issues in their lives, thus the need for dramatic change in one’s own self. It’s easy enough to transplant this disorder into the main character, though. A simple example for this age discrepancy, keeping in mind that this is a work of fiction, is the fact that the author, Chuck Palahniuk, was in his late 30’s while writing Fight Club, and his premise for the story was based off of stories from his friends (likely of similar age).
The resolution of the narrator’s mental issues comes as only a work of fiction can bring it. The narrator first realizes that he has a mental issue, and then works at curing himself. As with most cheap therapy sessions, this does little to help the issue at hand. The final solution for the anomaly that is Tyler Durden is for the narrator to convince himself of his enemy’s demise… by shooting himself, thus shooting Tyler. As author Robert Todd Carroll puts it, “Self-deception is the process or fact of misleading ourselves to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid. Self-deception, in short, is a way we justify false beliefs to ourselves.” When you think about it, the narrator’s solution is a bit like putting potpourri in a high-traffic restroom: it doesn’t clean the smell, it just covers it up. Maybe that means we get a sequel.
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