Fight Club

Fight Club

By Chuck Palahniuk

Book, Pub Oct 15 1999. Book Store

Fight Club tells the story of one man discovers that his rage at living in a world full of failure and lies cannot be numbed by mere possessions. This is when our un-named narrator discovers Tyler Durden, and together they start an underground boxing league to discover more about themselves.

Tyler and the narrator then go further with their crazy schemes for anarchy, just so they can feel what its like to "hit bottom" and to have nothing to loose. In the end we discover Tyler was a figment of our narrator's imagination.

DISCOVERY

In the text, the main character (the Narrator) is lead to discover his personal being, as well as a number of things in the world around him. Firstly, he discovers that his life angers him, and is constantly looking for a way to escape his boring job; he also discovers that his possessions seem to have some control over him. The Narrator has insomnia and nothing seems to cure him, except for when he discovers the support groups for people with terminal diseases (testicular cancer, brain parasites, blood parasites etc.) after this he is able to get to sleep.

He then finds Tyler Durden or, rather, Tyler Durden finds him. The Narrator wants Tyler to help him "hit bottom", to rid himself of all possessions so he can search inside himself past all the commercialism and discover his true self.

The biggest moment of discovery in this text is when the Narrator discovers the Tyler, the man he has gotten to know the past couple of years, is really a figment of his own imagination. The Narrator discovers the reason he invented Tyler is because he needed someone to help him "hit bottom" because he couldn't do it by himself. Tyler just turns out to be a different part of the Narrator's brain, the part that wants him to be free.

TECHNIQUES

The composer, Chuck Palahniuk, writes this story in the first hand speech. This makes us feel more in touch with the Narrator