Key Themes within Fight Club. Artwork taken from Pinterest. All credit to creators of each piece.

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• As an audience however we are forced to identify with The Narrator as his
voice guides the film, therefore the dominant response is to empathise
with The Narrator instead of Marla, particularly at the beginning of the
film when spectators are establishing their opinions on the characters.
• When Marla first enters the micro features help create her villain persona.
This is constructed by the shadows cast across her face, her black clothing,
the change of the music and slow motion.
• At the beginning of the film The Narrator is incredibly disgusted by Marla
and refers to her as a tumour. However her behaviour reflects The
Narrator’s so his hatred seems irrational and unjustified.
• You must also consider that Tyler is trying to reject all things that are
deemed feminine in society. Therefore anything feminine is portrayed as
numb with high key lighting.
• However at the end The Narrator begins to care for Marla and sends her
away to safety when project mayhem is out of his control. Before this
however there is a strong theme of misogyny throughout.

4. • The Narrator and Marla both experience
Isolation due to the lack of satisfaction in their
lives. By attending support groups they
experience the human connection that they
lack and crave.
• Neither The Narrator or Marla mention any
friends of theirs nor do we meet any. Therefore
neither of them seem to have anyone in their
life who cares for their well being.
• Marla unlike The Narrator is poor and without
a job, she can't turn to a life of consumption to
escape her reality because she cannot afford
it. This further emphasises her isolation.
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5. • In a key scene in the film, Tyler and Jack/the Narrator
both bond over their recollections about their fathers.
Both men state that their fathers were not a major
part of their lives.
• Jack says that his father left when he was young.
Tyler describes his father as a distant figure with
whom he would speak on the phone roughly once a
year, adding that they are members of a generation
of men raised by women.
• With no distinct male role-models in their lives Jack
and Tyler have largely accepted the role of men in
society as it has been presented to them by
advertising. The aim is to secure a good job with a
good salary, get married, and have children. The men
of fight club have seen an emptiness in this model and
reject it.
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6. • Tyler believes that the use of chaos by Project
Mayhem will lead to a better world. Tyler
plans to reset civilization to a hunter-gatherer
phase, allowing the planet to recover from all
the damage done by human beings.
• All bosses in the film strongly lack any power
or authority.
• There is strong themes of consumerism
throughout portrayed through an obsession
with brands and products, i.e. IKEA and
Starbucks.
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7. • Zen concepts can be depicted in the film,
particularly regarding breaking the cycle
of suffering and the rejection of material
possessions. In Buddhist teachings, the
attachment to material possessions is what
keeps a person attached to this world and
prevents liberation. Without this, inner
peace cannot be attained.
• Jack is miserable in his life but is either
unsure of how to change or afraid to try.
Instead he buries sadness in what he calls
the "Ikea nesting instinct”. Tyler shows Jack
that suffering is simply a part of life, but is
largely based on attachment to material
objects.
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8. The film repeatedly critiques the values espoused by advertising
such as youth, beauty, power, and wealth. Tyler's philosophy says
that people work jobs that they don't enjoy to keep up the
appearance of a life that "has it all." In reality these people are
deeply unhappy.
They continue to buy cleverly marketed goods to make
themselves feel better. Fight Club is a film built around this idea
of rebelling against an ingrained system that emasculates men
and emphasizes product over all else.
One way that Fight Club only indefinitely supports the system is
in its product placement. The film attempts to use these products
to show that consumerism has taken over its characters lives. For
example, there is a Starbucks coffee cup shown in every scene of
the film. In attempting to show a product’s infiltration in daily
life, the film only expands the brand’s influence.
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9. • The fighting in the film is not presented as
a solution to the character's problems, but
is a means of achieving a spiritual
reawakening. The fighting itself reminds
the men that they are alive and not just a
cog in the working machine that is society.
• Fighting is used as a path to reach the core
of who they are. While the fighting can be
seen as an attempt by the men to reassert
their masculinity, it is more of a rejection of
what they have been told masculinity is by
prior generations, their jobs, and mass
media.
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10. • Fight Club presents the argument that men in today's society have
been reduced to a generation of men that do nothing themselves.
Masculinity has become a brand, a means to sell products to men.
"Being a man" then becomes owning the right watch or car instead
of knowing who you are and what your values really are.
• As a result The Narrator, Tyler, and the other members of Fight
Club reject this spoon-fed approach to living and try to find
themselves. By putting themselves through the experience of
fighting and facing fear and pain, they hope to strip away the
unnecessary parts of their lives and discover their true selves.
• The threat of castration is depicted throughout the film. First, the
Narrator meets Bob at a support group for men who have lost their
testicles to cancer. Later on, the threat of castration is used by Tyler
and Project Mayhem to get the police commissioner to call off his
investigation. The Narrator, too, is threatened with castration for
trying to shut down fight club. This loss of manhood is the worst
possible fate these men can imagine, particularly because they feel
they have just begun to appreciate their masculinity due to fight
club and Project Mayhem.
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11. • This theme traditionally reflects a character's
passage through their late teens or early
twenties however, in the film The Narrator's
ordeal takes place at the age of thirty, making
it something of a pre-midlife crisis.
• The Narrator has to come to terms with who he
is and must take responsibility for his own life.
He instead subconsciously creates Tyler Durden,
a charismatic but unhinged ‘id’ that is free in all
the ways that The Narrator is not.
• Tyler allows The Narrator to reject society's
expectations but also allows him to reject all
responsibility as well. Instead of coming to terms
with his place and learning about himself, Jack
retreats into a false character, someone he'd
rather be. When Tyler goes too far, The Narrator
snaps back to reality and sees that he is losing
himself to Tyler. He then must choose to save
both Marla and himself from Tyler.
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12. • There's a fine line between a
religion and a cult. Whichever
they are, religion or cult, fight
club and Project Mayhem are
religious experiences to their
devoted followers, and Tyler
guides his disciples down a
strict path to salvation.
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13. • Tyler’s character is representative of hegemonic
masculinity which men tend to strive for. His
character also highlights everything that Jack
isn’t.
• The creation of the cult creates a sense of unity
within the film although Tyler is in fact the
leader. The main aim of the group is to face their
fears and discover their true selves.
• Jack and Tyler represent binary opposites within
the film as Jack is overruled by Tyler which shows
the differences in their masculine roles.
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14. Fight club can tell us a lot
about modern culture as
the recurring themes give
us strong connotations of
our morals which reflect
the state of our society
and help predict the
quality of our future.
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