Fight Club Research Paper
McNally 1
Bryan McNally
Professor Dadras
English 367.02
917 NovemberOctober 2006
The role of fathers and God in Fight Club The novel Fight Club deals with manyseveral issues that many people feel are particularly relevant in today’s society. These include, consumerism, dissatisfaction with the way masculinity is portrayed, and the role of God and the father in our culture. The novel seems to focuses in on one particular theme that seems to be the driving force behind Tyler/the narrator’s desire to create chaos, and that is the absence of a father which eventually leads to an absence of God in their lives. The novel focuses in on the fact that both the narrator and Tyler either grew up without or were abandoned by their fathers. As …show more content…
the narrator says, “What you see at fight club is a generation of men raised by women” (Palahniuk, 50). Tyler/the narrator hasve an opinion that the father should be the model for God, and since they grew up without fathers, they search their entire lives for a father or God. As their search goes on and on they begin to feel as if the reason they do not find them is that their God, like their fathers, has abandoned them and does not care for them. In order to get God/their fathers to care about them, the narrator/Tyler seeks to bring chaos into the world in an attempt to at least be recognized by God. Tyler and the narrator coincidently share many things in common with the way they grew up,, and oone of theose things is the fact that they both grew up with fathers who were absent during most of their childhoods, and their absences may help to explain how their sons became who they are. Although the narrator does not have any idea that Tyler is actually a part of himself, he feels they share a bond between them because they both
McNally 2 have supposedly grown up with out fathers and it seems they are both resentful of that fact. In the narrator’s case, his father left his mother after 6 years to move on to a new family: "I knew my Dad for about 6 years, but I don’t remember anything. My Dad, he starts a new family in a new town about every 6 years” (50). Tyler does not give us much information about his father, except that he left when he was young. , bBut assince we find outlearn that Tyler and the narrator are the same person, the novel also leads us to believe that they in fact share the same father. The difference between the two however is how they deal with how their mutual father left them. Tyler represents the one side of their narrator’s mind that seems to accept the fact that his father left him. However, the side of the mind that is the narrator does not accept this, and looks to other people to help possibly fill the void that was left when his father abandoned his family. The narrator’s lack of a father leads him to look for new role models to help him understand what he should do with his life. The first role modelperson the narrator looks to is his boss. The narrator may regard his boss as a role model simply because he is an authority figure in his life, which is something he never had because his father left him. The narrator’s boss was, who llike a father, someone who would most likely discipline him for doing wrong, but also someone who would acknowledge him when the narrator would do good work. As the narrator becomes increasingly upset with the consumer culture around him and the direction of his life is headed towards, he starts to resent his boss and begins to what he feels that he represents what he feels is wrong with society. , “Mister Boss with his midlife spread and family photo on his desk and his dreams about early retirement and winters spent at a trailer-park hookup in some Arizona desert” (96). The narrator, as he is moving along on
McNally 3 his journey in the storybook, realizes that dreams like his boss’s do not fulfill him and they are not necessarily the same dreams and aspirations he now seeks.
Just like when the narrator blows up his apartment to separate himself from the Ikea lifestyle that he loathes, Tthe narrator rejects his boss as a father figure when he starts to continually find the copies of the Fight Club documents in the copier. The reason the narrator might have kept leaving the papers in the copying machine was that Tyler was in control of the narrator and purposely left them there, hoping that his boss would find them. and thatThis would was intended to anger the narrator to the point where he would reject his boss as a father figure and embrace Tyler as his new role model, and .j ust like when the Tyler side of the narrator blows up the narrator’s apartment to separate him from the Ikea lifestyle that he loathes, Tyler acting through the narrator blows up his boss, destroying his latest father figure, and causing him to turn to Tyler for fatherly …show more content…
guidance. The next father figure the narrator looks up to is a stark contrast to his boss and quite possibly could be representative of what he feels a father should be like. In Tyler, the narrator finds someone he can look up to, someone who he sees as everything a man his age should be. He begins to obsess over Tyler, wanting to impress him, wanting to look worthy in his eyes. hHe even carries around the evidence of his human sacrifices, in hoping Tyler will be impressed when he sees them, “In case I find him, the driver’s licenses of my twelve human sacrifices are in my pocket” (156). Tyler to him is the alpha male, the perfect embodiment of what a man should be, and through this the narrator sees that Tyler is what he thinks a father should be. The narrator also becomes attached to Tyler as a father because it seems to him for the first time in his life someone accepts him for who he is. and thatThis gives him strength because all his life he has been rejected or felt unwanted by the father figures in his life. The novel also makes us consider the fact that
McNally 4 the reason Tyler may be considered a great father figure is that he is not a real person, but in fact a creation of the narrator. Therefore, it is entirely possible to believe that Tyler is who he is because the narrator took the traits he felt necessary to create the perfect have for a good role model and instilled them in his creation of Tyler. While Tyler may have been what he felt was the ultimate model for what he felt would be a great father,. Hhe was a strong person, who taught the narrator things, and was an authority figure to him, but also a friend. Despite all of that, Tyler still did the one thing that caused the narrator to hate his true father, and that was the fact that he abandoned him in his time of need. Even though tThe reason why Tyler left was that the narrator was finally able to sleep and not have the insomnia that caused Tyler to appear in the first place;. Still, Tyler’s leaving still caused the narrator to lose faith in his newest father figure, and since he like other men in America thought of his father figures as models for God, he begins to slowly lose faith in God as well. The abandonment by their fathers has led other men like the narrator to seek out alternativeother father figures, however when these figures also abandoned them they alsotoo feelt as if God hads abandoned and forgotten about them. In society today, many people feel a sort of disassociation with church and religion itself. Palahniuk seems to believe that one of the causes of this disassociation is the fact that many people in today’s society were raised by single parents and were probably abandoned by the other parent at some point in their childhood. This fact is seen by Palahniuk to be very prevalent in males whose fathers left their mothers while they were young. In the novel, Palahniuk expresses this belief through the mechanic that picks up the narrator one day at his office. This A mechanic, who the narrator recognizes from one of the fight clubs, begins speaking with
McNally 5 him about God and fathers and what effects the relationship with the two it has on the religious beliefs of the people in the country: “If you’re male and you’re Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never at home, what do you believe about God?” (141). WhatWhat Palahniuk thinks is that these men spend their lives searching for a father or God. , but wWhen they do not find athis father figure or feel they have been are abandoned by hima father figure, what are they supposed to believe? Many, like Tyler/the narrator, began to consider that maybe God does not like them, that maybe God does not care for them at all, andor that maybe he considers them not worth his attention, just like how they think their fathers feel about them (141). Many of these men feel that since their model for God in their lives has abandoned them or doesid not care about them, then maybe God himself hasd abandoned or forgotten about them as well, which in turn has causeds them to lose faith in God. These men see themselves as the unwanted children cast aside by all the father figures in their lives, and this causes them to seek out attention from whatever father figure they couldan. The Tyler side of the narrator feels abandoned by God because he hasd been abandoned by his father. The Tyler side of the narrator just wants to be seen by God. , hHe does not seek to be seen as a good person, all he wants to do is get God to pay him some attention and realize he exists, and it is for this reason that the Tyler side of the narrator decided to create Project Mayhem. The goal of Project Mayhem is to create chaos among the people and to destroy society so it can start anew, but Tyler/the narrator’s ultimate goal for Project Mayhem is to get acknowledgement from God. The side of the narrator that is Tyler felt that the men
McNally 6 of his generation were “God’s middle children, with no special place in history and no special attention” (141), and that because of that distinction, God really doesid not care about them at all. The Tyler side of the narrator feels, however, however, that if he were to cause enough chaos and to be bad enough then perhaps he would get God’s attention., but iIt wasn’t really God’s attention he was seeking, but rather the attention from the father he never had growing up.
In order to cause this chaos, Tyler/the narrator founded Fight Club, where men would come to fight, and then through Fight Club he recruited those who like him were seeking acknowledgement from a father figure for Project Mayhem.
“Burn the Louvre and wipe your ass with the Mona Lisa. This way at least, God would know our names” (141). Project Mayhem’s goal was to create chaos and the Tyler side of the narrator felt that since he was the one who had caused this chaos that maybe God/his father would finally acknowledge him. The side of the narrator that is Tyler felt that the more chaos he caused the more God would want to save him, “The lower you fall, the higher you fly. The farther you run, the more God wants you back” (141). The Tyler side of the narrator clearly felt that by doing what he did that he would at least get God to know who he was and to possibly care about what he did, which was something that he never got from his father. Project Mayhem and the chaos it caused was clearly just a way for Tyler/the narrator to get the kind of attention from God that he never got while he was growing up from his
father. The narrator has two different sides of his mind that feel two different ways about the abandonment of his father. The normal everyday side looks to people in his life to
McNally 7 find a new father figure to worship. The Tyler side of his mind looks essentially to the heavens to find not a father figure, but justsimply the recognition for himself from a higher authority which he lacks. Both of these sides of the narrator collide to create the chaos that is Project Mayhem, and in doing so unleash a destructive force upon the world in order to gain acceptance from God and their mutual father.
Bryan McNally
Professor Dadras
English 367.02
917 NovemberOctober 2006
The role of fathers and God in Fight Club The novel Fight Club deals with manyseveral issues that many people feel are particularly relevant in today’s society. These include, consumerism, dissatisfaction with the way masculinity is portrayed, and the role of God and the father in our culture. The novel seems to focuses in on one particular theme that seems to be the driving force behind Tyler/the narrator’s desire to create chaos, and that is the absence of a father which eventually leads to an absence of God in their lives. The novel focuses in on the fact that both the narrator and Tyler either grew up without or were abandoned by their fathers. As …show more content…
the narrator says, “What you see at fight club is a generation of men raised by women” (Palahniuk, 50). Tyler/the narrator hasve an opinion that the father should be the model for God, and since they grew up without fathers, they search their entire lives for a father or God. As their search goes on and on they begin to feel as if the reason they do not find them is that their God, like their fathers, has abandoned them and does not care for them. In order to get God/their fathers to care about them, the narrator/Tyler seeks to bring chaos into the world in an attempt to at least be recognized by God. Tyler and the narrator coincidently share many things in common with the way they grew up,, and oone of theose things is the fact that they both grew up with fathers who were absent during most of their childhoods, and their absences may help to explain how their sons became who they are. Although the narrator does not have any idea that Tyler is actually a part of himself, he feels they share a bond between them because they both
McNally 2 have supposedly grown up with out fathers and it seems they are both resentful of that fact. In the narrator’s case, his father left his mother after 6 years to move on to a new family: "I knew my Dad for about 6 years, but I don’t remember anything. My Dad, he starts a new family in a new town about every 6 years” (50). Tyler does not give us much information about his father, except that he left when he was young. , bBut assince we find outlearn that Tyler and the narrator are the same person, the novel also leads us to believe that they in fact share the same father. The difference between the two however is how they deal with how their mutual father left them. Tyler represents the one side of their narrator’s mind that seems to accept the fact that his father left him. However, the side of the mind that is the narrator does not accept this, and looks to other people to help possibly fill the void that was left when his father abandoned his family. The narrator’s lack of a father leads him to look for new role models to help him understand what he should do with his life. The first role modelperson the narrator looks to is his boss. The narrator may regard his boss as a role model simply because he is an authority figure in his life, which is something he never had because his father left him. The narrator’s boss was, who llike a father, someone who would most likely discipline him for doing wrong, but also someone who would acknowledge him when the narrator would do good work. As the narrator becomes increasingly upset with the consumer culture around him and the direction of his life is headed towards, he starts to resent his boss and begins to what he feels that he represents what he feels is wrong with society. , “Mister Boss with his midlife spread and family photo on his desk and his dreams about early retirement and winters spent at a trailer-park hookup in some Arizona desert” (96). The narrator, as he is moving along on
McNally 3 his journey in the storybook, realizes that dreams like his boss’s do not fulfill him and they are not necessarily the same dreams and aspirations he now seeks.
Just like when the narrator blows up his apartment to separate himself from the Ikea lifestyle that he loathes, Tthe narrator rejects his boss as a father figure when he starts to continually find the copies of the Fight Club documents in the copier. The reason the narrator might have kept leaving the papers in the copying machine was that Tyler was in control of the narrator and purposely left them there, hoping that his boss would find them. and thatThis would was intended to anger the narrator to the point where he would reject his boss as a father figure and embrace Tyler as his new role model, and .j ust like when the Tyler side of the narrator blows up the narrator’s apartment to separate him from the Ikea lifestyle that he loathes, Tyler acting through the narrator blows up his boss, destroying his latest father figure, and causing him to turn to Tyler for fatherly …show more content…
guidance. The next father figure the narrator looks up to is a stark contrast to his boss and quite possibly could be representative of what he feels a father should be like. In Tyler, the narrator finds someone he can look up to, someone who he sees as everything a man his age should be. He begins to obsess over Tyler, wanting to impress him, wanting to look worthy in his eyes. hHe even carries around the evidence of his human sacrifices, in hoping Tyler will be impressed when he sees them, “In case I find him, the driver’s licenses of my twelve human sacrifices are in my pocket” (156). Tyler to him is the alpha male, the perfect embodiment of what a man should be, and through this the narrator sees that Tyler is what he thinks a father should be. The narrator also becomes attached to Tyler as a father because it seems to him for the first time in his life someone accepts him for who he is. and thatThis gives him strength because all his life he has been rejected or felt unwanted by the father figures in his life. The novel also makes us consider the fact that
McNally 4 the reason Tyler may be considered a great father figure is that he is not a real person, but in fact a creation of the narrator. Therefore, it is entirely possible to believe that Tyler is who he is because the narrator took the traits he felt necessary to create the perfect have for a good role model and instilled them in his creation of Tyler. While Tyler may have been what he felt was the ultimate model for what he felt would be a great father,. Hhe was a strong person, who taught the narrator things, and was an authority figure to him, but also a friend. Despite all of that, Tyler still did the one thing that caused the narrator to hate his true father, and that was the fact that he abandoned him in his time of need. Even though tThe reason why Tyler left was that the narrator was finally able to sleep and not have the insomnia that caused Tyler to appear in the first place;. Still, Tyler’s leaving still caused the narrator to lose faith in his newest father figure, and since he like other men in America thought of his father figures as models for God, he begins to slowly lose faith in God as well. The abandonment by their fathers has led other men like the narrator to seek out alternativeother father figures, however when these figures also abandoned them they alsotoo feelt as if God hads abandoned and forgotten about them. In society today, many people feel a sort of disassociation with church and religion itself. Palahniuk seems to believe that one of the causes of this disassociation is the fact that many people in today’s society were raised by single parents and were probably abandoned by the other parent at some point in their childhood. This fact is seen by Palahniuk to be very prevalent in males whose fathers left their mothers while they were young. In the novel, Palahniuk expresses this belief through the mechanic that picks up the narrator one day at his office. This A mechanic, who the narrator recognizes from one of the fight clubs, begins speaking with
McNally 5 him about God and fathers and what effects the relationship with the two it has on the religious beliefs of the people in the country: “If you’re male and you’re Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never at home, what do you believe about God?” (141). WhatWhat Palahniuk thinks is that these men spend their lives searching for a father or God. , but wWhen they do not find athis father figure or feel they have been are abandoned by hima father figure, what are they supposed to believe? Many, like Tyler/the narrator, began to consider that maybe God does not like them, that maybe God does not care for them at all, andor that maybe he considers them not worth his attention, just like how they think their fathers feel about them (141). Many of these men feel that since their model for God in their lives has abandoned them or doesid not care about them, then maybe God himself hasd abandoned or forgotten about them as well, which in turn has causeds them to lose faith in God. These men see themselves as the unwanted children cast aside by all the father figures in their lives, and this causes them to seek out attention from whatever father figure they couldan. The Tyler side of the narrator feels abandoned by God because he hasd been abandoned by his father. The Tyler side of the narrator just wants to be seen by God. , hHe does not seek to be seen as a good person, all he wants to do is get God to pay him some attention and realize he exists, and it is for this reason that the Tyler side of the narrator decided to create Project Mayhem. The goal of Project Mayhem is to create chaos among the people and to destroy society so it can start anew, but Tyler/the narrator’s ultimate goal for Project Mayhem is to get acknowledgement from God. The side of the narrator that is Tyler felt that the men
McNally 6 of his generation were “God’s middle children, with no special place in history and no special attention” (141), and that because of that distinction, God really doesid not care about them at all. The Tyler side of the narrator feels, however, however, that if he were to cause enough chaos and to be bad enough then perhaps he would get God’s attention., but iIt wasn’t really God’s attention he was seeking, but rather the attention from the father he never had growing up.
In order to cause this chaos, Tyler/the narrator founded Fight Club, where men would come to fight, and then through Fight Club he recruited those who like him were seeking acknowledgement from a father figure for Project Mayhem.
“Burn the Louvre and wipe your ass with the Mona Lisa. This way at least, God would know our names” (141). Project Mayhem’s goal was to create chaos and the Tyler side of the narrator felt that since he was the one who had caused this chaos that maybe God/his father would finally acknowledge him. The side of the narrator that is Tyler felt that the more chaos he caused the more God would want to save him, “The lower you fall, the higher you fly. The farther you run, the more God wants you back” (141). The Tyler side of the narrator clearly felt that by doing what he did that he would at least get God to know who he was and to possibly care about what he did, which was something that he never got from his father. Project Mayhem and the chaos it caused was clearly just a way for Tyler/the narrator to get the kind of attention from God that he never got while he was growing up from his
father. The narrator has two different sides of his mind that feel two different ways about the abandonment of his father. The normal everyday side looks to people in his life to
McNally 7 find a new father figure to worship. The Tyler side of his mind looks essentially to the heavens to find not a father figure, but justsimply the recognition for himself from a higher authority which he lacks. Both of these sides of the narrator collide to create the chaos that is Project Mayhem, and in doing so unleash a destructive force upon the world in order to gain acceptance from God and their mutual father.