The movie is a decade old, so I’m not going to bother with spoiler boxes, but I’m
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That should do it. I just finished reading the book for the first time; much darker and nastier than the movie. I remember, when first watching the movie, whether or not the fact that Tyler and the Narrator were the same person was at all necessary to the story. It was a cool twist to see, and I get that Tyler is the hidden dark side of the Narrator who loves anarchy and destruction. But it just seemed to distract from the major theme and events of the story, and it might have worked just as well if they were two different people. Tyler could still have gotten out of control, and the Narrator could have attempted to stop him. Do you think the story might have worked if this were the case?
That would have invalidated other themes though. The whole duality of man - the Jungian thing, sir - not to mention that the biggest plot point (moreso in the book, if I remember it right (I read a decade ago)) would have been blown away.
I think it would have been a much more pedestrian story if they were two different people. It would have just been nihilist v yuppie. And, fuck dude, say what you will about the tenets of upward mobility, at least it’s an ethos.
The narrators relationships with all the others would have been skewed if he was a different person than Tyler. Marla wouldn’t have been treated so shabbily if the guy who hated her was her lovers roomate instead of the lover himself. Also, when the narrator is running around looking for what tyler has done, all the guys he encounters know him as Tyler and treat him with respect. If he was just Tylers roomate, they would have probably not been so deferential. Maybe this could have been changed with a little writing changes, but I think not.
I remember seeing an interview with the author in which he said something to the effect that he didn’t even decide that Tyler and the narrator were the same person until he was more than halfway through writing the book.
The book works this way to an extent, obviously there were some adjustments to make it work, but the movie wouldn’t have worked without that eventuality because it was based on the completed version of the book. That’s not to say that the movie couldn’t have been reworked, but because I think it focuses a lot more on the revelation of the dual personality, it would have ended up being a fundamentally different work.
I would say his end was something like an agrarian anarchist society. His whole goal was the collapse of society (or a resetting of it, at least) and the destruction of modern infrastructure. There’s probably a bunch of other political systems mixed in there as well.
Tyler says that’s what he wants. I wouldn’t take anything he says at face value, though. He’s the manifestation of a severe mental illness. He exists specifically because the Narrator is incapable of articulating and achieving his own desires. I wouldn’t expect the hallucinatory avatar of the Narrator’s inability to process his own hierarchy of needs to have any better a grasp on what he really wants than Narrator does.
I think what Tyler really wants is exactly what he has by the third act of the film: a group of people dedicated to his worship. The Narrator, prior to his disassociative split, was the quintessential nobody. No girlfriend, no platonic friends, no authority or respect at work. He creates Tyler as someone that people will love, respect, and obey - three things that are missing from his life. That’s all he wants. Everything else is a means to that end. The anarchist utopia that he preaches about is just a MacGuffin to make people listen to him, and the fascist control techniques he uses to build up his cult are just a tool to get them to stay properly subservient to him.
No, the main theme of the movie is the conflict that men have between their primal selves and the tamed civilized boxes they’re forced to live in. The destruction of that box is the narrator’s ultimate desire. So much of the themes of consumerism and pointless civilized work and seperation from what was primal - what was real - permeate the film entirely. It’s not a MacGuffin at all.
That’s the whole point of fight club - it’s a small slice of primal reality amongst the plastic-wrapped comfort of modern life. You feel something, rather than simply acting as a drone. The ultimate goal was to force this upon everyone by eliminating the comforts of society, and its disconnection from anything real and primal.
I disagree. I don’t think the film endorses Tyler’s message. Tyler is a monster. He’s Hitler. He’s a demagogue who appeals to the crude and violent thugs who don’t fit into society. People follow him because he gives them a reason to hurt people that makes them feel like they’re engaged in some higher purpose. But they’re sheep. For all Tyler’s talk about corporate/consumer conformity, his solution isn’t more individualism, it’s less: he takes people in, and teaches them to dress the same, act the same, and do what he says, without question. He even takes their *names *away. And they crave that. They’re drones. Dregs. Losers. They’re people who, when confronted with a society that offers almost limitless options for defining yourself, are paralyzed with indecision, and throw themselves in with the first person who comes around and tells them who they should be. These aren’t people whom society has failed, these are people who have failed at society.
Tyler Durden is the product of a deranged mind. His followers are violent cultists. He’s not primal. He’s sure as fuck not real. Tyler isn’t a rebel, he’s a hallucination. And the narrator, in a desperate bid for sanity and wholeness, ultimately rejects and destroys him.
I’m not necesarily speaking to the message of the movie. The reasons the narrator feels the need to create Tyler include the reasons I listed. Where it eventually went was more the message of the movie.
He shot himself through the mouth and the bullet exited near his ear, so it didn’t clip anything of major importance – just enough to ace the imaginary Tyler.
These two points aren’t really in conflict. The Narrator wants respect and meaning in his life, and he’s not getting it from consumerist society. So he goes out and creates a fascist society that gives him and its members respect and meaning. Now maybe Tyler gets a little more respect and ego-stroking than the average member of the Mayhem society or whatever they’re called, but remember every member does get meaning – they’re involved in a grand project, bigger then themselves. Plus they do get the respect from each other of having passed the tests and been found worthy. I mean, sure the Narrator is undoubtedly enjoying the (alter) ego-stroking he gets, but we can’t say the members are complete dupes-- they’re getting what they want, too.
I sum up the message of the movie as “Lots of young guys in our society are feeling alienated and meaningless; and if they keep feeling that way, they might start doing stupid things like following fascist demagogues and blowing shit up”
Are you sure? If a guy with a really messy scar on his face came up to you and said “I used to be crazy, but then I shot myself in the head but it’s OK, since I only hit the crazy part, and now I’m fine”, would you agree? I don’t think that the sane part (if indeed there ever was one) was the survivor of that little confrontation.
Those are the reasons he states in the film, yes. Those aren’t the real reasons, though. He’s mentally ill. He’s not fully aware of his own motives.
That’s really not even close to what I was saying. Obviously, the Narrator didn’t cure himself by shooting himself in the face. He is, at the end of the movie, still a profoundly ill man. But he’s recognized that he’s ill, and by trying to end his life, he’s signaled the extent he’s willing to go to avoid falling further into his mental illness. From this place, he can get help that actually works, and doesn’t involve brainwashing novelty musical acts from the '70s and blowing up office buildings.
One thing that I always thought didn’t work with making The Narrator and Tyler the same person was the beginnings of Fight Club. I can buy two guys fighting in a parking lot and getting other guys to go along with it as a “back to nature/we’re men and we fight!” thing. That makes total sense (even moreso when you remember that actual fight clubs sprung up after the movie was released).
What doesn’t make a link of sense is a bunch of guys seeing one guy try to hit himself in the face and talking to himself as if another person is there and then deciding that doing everything he says is a good idea.
Otherwise, it’s a fantastic and utterly flawless movie.