The Character Analysis Of Chuchk Palahniuk's Fight Club

A troubled mind grieving at its own toxic state, a delinquent state that makes it a challenge to perform in a social environment, and a self-pitying corporate slave leading a monotonous life. This is the account of our uncommon narrator in the novel, “Fight Club” by Chuck Palahniuk. The narrator is seen faking his illness and gaining entrance and the trust of his fellow support groups, this was mainly done to give him a sense of stability in his chaotic and miserable life.

These weekly meeting with the sick has become an anchor that the narrator has made it vital to his survival and means of keeping him sane. However, when threatened by another fraud, our narrator is baffled and his world is shaken up. Meanwhile, our narrator portrays a personality that is of a self-destructive, mad man who has surrounded himself with death and destruction because it intrigues him. He craves human interaction as much as Marla Singer. Fear is what drives the narrator in taking rash and unorthodox actions to cure his depression and suicidal tendencies.

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His fear is what promotes him to scheme against his enemies and contemplate his course of actions as seen by this statement, “ This is the one real thing in my life, and you’re wrecking it... The next time we meet I’ll say, Marla... Get out”(Palahniuk 24).

Our narrator is having a mid-life crisis riddled with uncertainty and doubt similar to a college teen clouded by many factors and not knowing his true priorities and goals.

This is evident throughout chapters 1-18 where the narrator is seen battling the plethora of course of actions to go about his life: Should he compromise with Marla Singer to avoid her presence in future support groups? Should he have walked over to Tyler and asked him about his art? Should he have hit Tyler Durden? Should he have soiled the food at the hotel? Or should he have joined the fight club and took part in the project Mayhem? It seems that the introduction of Tyler had brought out the true feelings of our narrator which are magnified under his supervision. The strong influence of Tyler’s views are transferring over to the narrator and he is following in his footsteps without even consciously being aware of it. This is seen when the narrator is seen saying, “What Tyler says about being the crap and the slaves of history, that's how I felt”(Palahniuk 123).

Our narrator represents a certain nature of being alienated and represses socially and misunderstood emotionally and this scares him. In addition to being motivated to have an eventful life which doesn't seem plausible in present circumstances and hence the strong admiration towards Tylers’ mystery. His relationship with Tyler has put him on a pedestal, a god and none other than a father figure in his desperate misguided life. An interesting allusion is present in chapter 18 when Palahniuk uses revelations as means to convey the message of Tyler's god-like statements that were etched into the photocopier only to be heard by the narrator and then used s a secondary source of information. This can be verified by the following quote which states Tyler's ideologies[rules] were “scrawled on bits of paper while I was asleep and given to me to type and photocopy at work”(Palahniuk 141). The narrator emphasizes that he has in fact “read it all” pertaining to his rule book and his tone is celebratory but docile at the same time. “I am nothing, and not even that. Cold” (Palahniuk 146). Our narrator has stooped to new levels of self-loathing which seems like an misguided attempt at gaining recognition from a higher entity[Tyler Durden]. The character of our narrator is riddled with his tramatic past where his father dumped him, he has no particular friends and although he says he has a support group, he actually doesn't have genuine friends that care for him. His only true friend is Tyler and hence the high praise for him is justifiable by him. The contrast between Tyler’s actions and the narrators is solely putting one's own true intentions before peoples’ opinions on them. One is being fearless and one is being fearful of the others.