Fight Club

Fight Club

“The first rule about fight club is that you don’t talk about fight club” (Palahniuk 87). The story of Fight Club was very nail biting; you never knew what was going to happen next. There were so many things that led up to a complete plot twist. It was amazing how closely directed and written Chuck Palahniuk and David Fincher’s versions were. However, the role in both that stood out to me the most was the role of Marla. Marla was the biggest influence in discovering the narrator (or Jack’s) identity.

Fight Club, in both Palahniuk and Fincher’s versions is about a man who is bored with his everyday life until one day when he meets this guy named Tyler. Tyler is unlike anyone he has ever known before and this interests the narrator/Jack very much. Tyler ends up changing his entire personality and has him doing things that he never thought that he would be doing. Tyler unleashes a sort of wild side and the narrator/Jack likes that side of him. However, towards the end, things start getting out of hand and the narrator/Jack seems helpless to stop Tyler; the man who originally was just a mere imaginary friend has taken over the narrator/Jack’s life. Discovering that Tyler and the narrator/Jack was the same person is where both of the versions took a huge plot twist. The person that was responsible for essentially bring the two characters together was Marla, and her persistence with Tyler. Both versions were very similar however the biggest difference between the two versions was the endings. However, both had an equal significance or meaning. Fincher had to end his version in the way he did because his entire story was a visual one. His audience saw Tyler and Jack as two different people. It wasn’t till the end that he showed them as one person, and he then recapped on the entire story and how other viewers saw it without Tyler actually being there.

Marla popped up several times throughout the story, and each time that she did, she foreshadowed Tyler being the narrator/Jack. However, her hints were subtle and it was nothing that you would notice until you discovered the ending. One huge element of foreshadowing that she displayed was how she confided in the narrator/Jack. There were many times when she would be telling him something and it made the audience almost confused as to why she was telling him that and not the man she was supposedly with. Fincher did a great job showing the attraction between them. Marla was always hanging all over him and flirting with him, then coincidently enough as soon as she was gone Tyler showed up and acted if it was nothing. Palahniuk on the other hand had a much more difficult job. Putting her attraction for the narrator in to words took more than just her flirting with him. In the book, she shared her stories and secrets with him. The part that stands out the most was when she found a lump on her breast. If any person found a lump on their breast and wanted to show somebody, most would chose the person that was closest to them. However, she and the narrator always seemed to be arguing and bumping heads. Still, she chose to show him her lump. She told him how when he first met her she had found the first lump, and now she was showing him a second one. Palahniuk wrote, “Marla laughs at this until she sees that my fingers have stopped. Like maybe I’ve found something. Marla stops breathing and her stomach goes like a drum, and her heart is like a fist pounding from inside the tight skin of a drum” (95). Shortly after he checked her over and found nothing out of the ordinary they talk about other personal things. Marla wasn’t the only one that shared personally stories, the narrator/Jack did too. Palahniuk also wrote, “вЂ?When you’re twenty four,’ Marla says, вЂ?you have no idea how fast you can really fall, but I was a fast learner.вЂ™Ð²Ð‚Ñœ (100). It is hard to believe that she is supposed to be involved with вЂ?Tyler’ when she is sharing something this deep with someone else. However, the fact that she isn’t sharing this with Tyler can be quickly looked over because Marla and Tyler’s relationship doesn’t seem to be the healthiest.

There are a few times in the stories where Tyler tells the narrator/Jack to never talk about him to Marla. This particular scene is pretty much identical from both Palahniuk and Fincher’s view. Shortly after Tyler and Marla meet, Tyler makes him promise over and over again to never bring him up to her. This promise right off the bat seems strange. If he supposedly cares about her more than the narrator/Jack does then why is he keeping his distance from her? “Don’t ever talk to her about me. Don’t talk about me behind my back. Do you promise?’ Tyler says” (Palahniuk 63). Tyler also tells the narrator that “If you ever mention me to her, you’ll never see me again” (Palahniuk 63). However that last statement proves to not be entirely true. The narrator/Jack told other people besides Marla about Tyler Durdin numerous times, yet Tyler never left.