Tyler's Mentality In Fight Club
Every story from Crime and Punishment to Green Eggs and Ham fills certain roles necessary for a complete plot: a protagonist, a quest, growth and development, but most importantly, an antagonist. Fight Club is a unique film in that there is no single entity that serves as the driving force for the movie; all of Tyler’s various projects—fight clubs, Project Mayhem, and various forms of civil disobedience—are directed against some amorphous concept of “the system” that’s comprised of all the societal norms. The ethos behind Tyler’s mentality in Fight Club was built upon the idea that through centuries of technological advances that claim to enhance humanity’s standard of living, the general population lost its way, falling victim to the trap
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The Narrator lived his life in accordance with how society tells the “common man” to live: he worked a traditional 9 to 5 job, spent his money on incremental improvements to his living space, and felt comfortable with his role in society. However, while The Narrator was living what would be considered an acceptable lifestyle on the surface, when Fight Club led off the movie with a deeper look at his day-to-day experiences, the film implied that his life was both mundane and unfulfilling. The pre-Tyler version of The Narrator tried to find a sense of self-gratification through material possessions, but just like his refrigerator, he only had condiments on the inside; all fluff and no substance. Perhaps one of the most telling shots in the expository stage of the movie came at the four-minute mark when the image of The Narrator standing at the photocopy machine was tessellated across the screen to four similarly dressed coworkers drinking an identical cup of coffee using identical copy machines. The Narrator, representative of the average viewer, tried to make up for a lack of individuality and purpose with consumerism, but when we see his apartment blow up, it showed just how quickly a life built around possessions could be taken away. As Tyler later asserted in his first monologue to the fight club, the working class raised on the principles of a meritocracy was realizing that they’re never going to be in a rock band or a movie star, and Tyler became a self-aware manifestation of the rage over this
The Narrator lived his life in accordance with how society tells the “common man” to live: he worked a traditional 9 to 5 job, spent his money on incremental improvements to his living space, and felt comfortable with his role in society. However, while The Narrator was living what would be considered an acceptable lifestyle on the surface, when Fight Club led off the movie with a deeper look at his day-to-day experiences, the film implied that his life was both mundane and unfulfilling. The pre-Tyler version of The Narrator tried to find a sense of self-gratification through material possessions, but just like his refrigerator, he only had condiments on the inside; all fluff and no substance. Perhaps one of the most telling shots in the expository stage of the movie came at the four-minute mark when the image of The Narrator standing at the photocopy machine was tessellated across the screen to four similarly dressed coworkers drinking an identical cup of coffee using identical copy machines. The Narrator, representative of the average viewer, tried to make up for a lack of individuality and purpose with consumerism, but when we see his apartment blow up, it showed just how quickly a life built around possessions could be taken away. As Tyler later asserted in his first monologue to the fight club, the working class raised on the principles of a meritocracy was realizing that they’re never going to be in a rock band or a movie star, and Tyler became a self-aware manifestation of the rage over this