Fight Club Rhetorical Analysis

Short Paper #1
Fight Club
Chapter 22: pp. 165-166

This passage provides a very powerful moment in which the narrator is informed of the extent of Tyler's power and control. During this scene, Tyler stresses the importance of "honor" while he threatens to castrate the police commissioner. Although the idea of this passage is very aggressive, the tone of the passage is calm and respectful, as Tyler uses diction such as "esteemed honor" and "your honor". While using blackmail as a method of insurance, he reminds the commissioner that honor is more important than the individual. This value reappears throughout Fight Club as well. We see space monkeys sacrificing themselves for homework assignments and chaotic operations; they are taught to put Fight Club and Project Mayhem before themselves. The passage also
incorporates many images such as the rubber band and testicles.
The rubber band is an image representing obstacles that cut off the circulation between a man and his honor; in this case, his testicles. Testicles, on the other hand, represent individualism. More importantly, testicles are in image for honor because a man carries his family name in his testicles; without them, he is no longer a man and can be seen as a disgrace to his family. Palahniuk silently hints at sexism when he has Tyler say, "How far do you think you'll get in politics if the voters know you have no nuts?" (165) suggesting that those who do not have testicles (women) have a harder time in politics then men do. Adding on to that, it is safe to say that Tyler is a sexist character as he continues to threaten the police commissioner with the idea of losing his manhood and indirectly becoming a woman. At the bottom of page 165 and continuing on to page 166, Palahniuk has the commissioner speak one word per line. This staccato method of speaking helps the audience not only hear, but also feel the fear the commissioner is feeling. It
forces the reader to slow down and take a breath before reading each word. The literary technique of not using quotation marks is implemented throughout the text. In this passage, only Tyler is given quotation marks while the police commissioner is not. The lack of quotation marks implies weakness while quotation marks imply dominance; in this case, Tyler is obviously dominant over the commissioner. The lack of quotation marks also implies that the commissioner has barely enough say and strength to talk, hence the staccato speaking method. Most importantly, the presence of quotation marks implies rank in a hierarchy system in which Tyler is at the top. What seemed most interesting in this passage is the narrator's voice. Clearly there is narration saying line such as, "Man, his nuts are ice cold" and "The space monkey took the ether rag off his mouth, and the commissioner said, don't." Although Tyler is telling the narrator about the incident with the commissioner, it appears that the narrator himself was present during the incident. When reading these narrations, it clearly is not Tyler speaking because he always has quotation marks when he speaks. Also, it is not the space monkeys because they would not refer to themselves as "The space monkeys," so the only person left is the narrator. This would explain the fact that Tyler and the narrator are the same person, just two different personalities. If Tyler was present at the incident then the narrator had to have been there as well. In this way, although the narrator was unaware of his presence, he was involved in it the whole time.