A Brief Individualistic Analysis of Fight Club

Masculinity and violence play a large role in Fight Club and the story seems to endlessly revolve around these two identities. Violence is expressed as an attribute of masculinity and that in order for a male to truly experience their life, violence must be a large part of it. In the underground fighting arena, violence prevails and this gruesome reality is highlighted as the culmination of masculinity. Fight Club starts off as an underground fighting arena where normal, everyday individuals get together and barbarously decimate each other until only one individual is left standing after each match. Though for most of the movie Fight Club was simply a weekly brawl that individuals looked forward too, it quickly became more and more institutionalized as the movie progressed.

The institutionalization of Fight Club truly began when Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) and the narrator (played by Edward Norton) move their idea from the street to the basement of a bar. Once Fight Club began and its popularity grew, Tyler Durden set down rules for the brawls. The fights remained barbarous but individuals were confined to withdraw from any fight in which the other individual did not want to participate in. Though these rules were quite crude and non-invasive to any individual’s freedom within the organization, they were the foundation of what was to come. Once the rules were in place, Tyler began to administer to the individuals homework assignments for which members had to complete strange tasks in order remain in the club. One of these tasks was beginning violent confrontations with citizens outside the basement. This was in an effort to bring back the male population to its violent roots that Tyler Durden felt was vital to human existence. At this point in the story, the Fight Club has begun to move out of its underground confinements and spread beyond its original boundaries. In addition, those who now interact with Fight Club are not longer individuals who willingly did so. In essence, Fight Club has become somewhat of a gang, a group of gangsters who bother the livelihood of individuals that have not requested such a service.

As the organization grows, the local police forces gather information about the organization and begin their search in an effort to stifle Fight Club. Tyler Durden, the narrator, and other organization members quickly mobilize and threaten police leaders into calling off the persecution of Fight Club members. This is an evolution of Fight Club from the basement of a bar to seriously affecting the decisions of political leaders. At this point, the narrator becomes quite distraught with Mr. Durden’s actions and finds them to be more violently intrusive into other individual’s lives then he believes the organization should delve. As the story progresses, the members of the organization begin to act as a unit and seemingly strip away their individuality by only responding to orders and dressing similarly. This is the beginning of a deeply rooted nihilist, anti-capitalist, anti-individualist theme in the movie. The narrator is upset at Tyler for having turned the organization into a terrorist group that participates in destructive behavior. The group has evolved into a criminal force that attacks the foundations of the individualist capitalist society. Tyler Durden continuously speaks throughout the movie of a type of nihilistic, anarcho-primitivistic, anti-capitalistic society where each individual must engage in violence in order to find their place in life.

In accordance with Tyler’s vision, the band of thugs that used to once be known as Fight Club has changed their name to Operation Mayhem. The irony of this is that though these individuals find very little importance in life, they are willing to risk their lives to bring about a society where no individual can escape the primitive state of humanity. In addition, the change from simply an underground club to a titled terrorist organization shows the hypocrisy of the nihilistic undertone within the film. At the end of the film, the narrator realizes that Tyler Durden is in fact a figment of his imagination and is part of his persona. This comes as a shock to the narrator who tries to stop Operation Mayhem’s destructive plans from coming to fruition. This attempt is futile because the supposedly nihilistic, anarcho-primitivistic organization has been so well institutionalized that they can now complete their plans without direct orders from any overarching authority. As the major cities around the United States crumble, the narrator stands looking at an event that he has planned for some time and did not even realize it.

The underlying elements of this story are as vast as they are vital in understanding the entirety of its message. Though the film begins with an almost homosexual aurora of uber-masculinity and violence, it later alters these attributes into a nihilistic undertone. Fight Club is transformed from two different personalities brawling in the streets, expressing their masculinity, to a well institutionalized organization of anarcho-primitivistic, nihilistic terrorists. The story seems to take the position that nihilism and masculinity are somewhat compatible but the hypocrisies present in the delivery of the message blur the premises. Masculinity and violence, for the most part, are inseparable but the focus of the film illogically brings these primordial attributes to a largely undesired extreme.