"Fight Club" explores the realms angst, grunge, and battles based off of human brute force and strength to give us a reprieve us from daily life. To begin analysis of the film, it is important to understand the basic plot. The premise of the book to film adaptation follows an unnamed narrator who suffers from insomnia. The narrator is suffering and depressed from his white-collar job and has no passion for life, going as far as to feed off of the weeping energy at a testicular cancer support group among other when he himself is not suffering those ailments. That same night the narrator meets his antagonistic love interest, Marla who is disturbing the bliss the narrator feels at these support groups.
A bit later into the film, the narrator meets Tyler Durden, a soap salesman whom he forms a friendship with. The two characters end up in a fistfight in front of a bar after Tyler pressures the narrator into hitting him. Soon the two are having weekly brawls in front of this bar that begins to attract a crowd of the same personal characteristics of the narrator. Tyler and the narrator decide to take these crowded brawls to the basement of this bar where Fight Club is formed. A love affair is formed between Tyler and Marla, following a series of unfortunate events that involve the essential rules of Fight Club becoming a global phenomena.
A cult classic, this film registers themes of society and class, rules and social order, as well as identity and violence. Project Mayhem, the end goal of Fight Club, had goals of ending social and economic inequality from the bottom up is a theme still relevant today. Tyler was rather radical, gritty, and brute in the manner of executing Project Mayhem, but the statement therein is one we all struggle with on a daily basis. The relationship between society and class was called into question, and Fight Club was a place were that all disappeared. A bit of an umbrella category for the other themes, social order and rules of society were called into question as well.
Another huge theme within the film was the search for identity. The narrator, unnamed and disconnected from reality, makes it his mission to discover what makes life tick. Becoming submerged, dominated, and lost in his daily life at the office, the narrator goes as far as to become involved with support groups- because they are the only form of passionate life that the narrator has seen in a really long time. Of course, the other main characters such as Tyler and Marla have mysterious identities themselves. Connected forever, yet incredibly ambiguous to the narrator's mind, the viewer begins to see what a wild ride a personality can be like. Tyler, for example, is incredibly persuasive and begins as a hero rather than the villain of the film. Once he begins to disappear, his identity and motivation or goals become secrete, so secrete that he begins to lose himself. The explosive anarchist versus his mild-mannered alter ego.
To be a part of Fight Club, it did not matter who you were, or where you came from. As long as you could throw a mean punch and enjoyed it, you were in! The number one rule of Fight Club: don’t talk about Fight Club. As the film unfolds, and Project Mayhem is a go with a thirst for violence and change, everyone is talking about Fight Club. Within a matter of days, the number one rule is broken. Ironic in that manner, Fight Club’s true purpose as well as the purpose of the main characters comes to light -- it’s about breaking rules and finding yourself despite what others say.
