Fight Club Identity Analysis

JOURNEY THROUGH IDENTITY
Written as a book by Chuck Palanhiuk, directed by David Fincher in 1999, Fight Club is a cult movie, starred by Brad Pitt, Edward Norton ve Helena Bonham Carter and reached tons of fans due to the topics that it highlighted. It is not only one of my favourite movies of all time but also it’s one of the best movies, which describes one simple man’s kind of survival in society related to the things that he did and will do in order to become a ‘man’. Through the movie, one can see everything about what is takes to be a ‘real man’ according to the normative stereotypes of society.
In this position the audiance, not only see the events from the main charachter’s point of view but also they see a journey that takes place

However, it is really almost impossible to notice that, altought they are different characthers, they all belong to the same person. Jack.
Jack, played by Edward Norton, is both the main characther and the narrative. One can say that he also plays the ‘escapist’ within his journey. Here, in this point, the audiance is introduced to Marla Singer and Tyler Durden; the ones that actually only exists in Jack’s head. Either based on alter ego or as duties. They represent the different sides of Jack. Such as; while Tyler is a metaphor and a symbol for Jack’s masculinty- because the society wants Jack to be a man like Tyler- Marla, described as a ‘tumor’ represents the feminine side of Jack, who is not approved by society.
In addition to that, I want to explain the escapist issue. Before Tyler, Jack is a man whom cares too much on how he look. Buying stuff and spending money. Before Tyler, he is one of the classical man, whom could be considered as a pawn in the capitalist/consumerist society. Therefore, Tyler also represents an uprising against this capitalist consumerist culture. Jack is the escapist and Tyler is the path to

Such as being a ‘strong macho’ man. Therefore, in the movie, Jack is required to be a strong macho by Tyler. All the stuff like fighting, beating or in another words, all the stuff that is related to violence and being violence. Because according to the society – which shown as Tyler- being a violent macho man means being the ‘man’ .
Also, there’s another point in both Kimmel’s text and shown in Fight Club. ‘Being/not being a sissy’. While watching the movie, the audiance can see that in order to be like Tyler, Jack has to avoid from Marla and any feminine stuff. Therefore, one can say that, when he avoids her, he’s not a sissy. When he acts recklessly, carelessly he got the power.
It is quite annoying that being a man is related to toughness, machoism and any thing that is related to being violent. The question comes up: What if all the men does not want this? Do they really have to take the risk of being called as ‘sissy’? The question is impossible to answer it but for Jack, one can say that, yes, he wants to be like Tyler, one of his alter ego. Strong like him, tough like him. Moreover, the whole issue of having a fight club is related to this, being a man issue. Because what Tyler or Jack is doing is all about being masculen. Tyler is so masculen that all he do with Marla is sex. A typical brutal, tough man