Underlying Message of Fight Club

The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club, the second rule of fight club is you DO NOT talk about fight club. Fight Club is a satirical novel following the experiences of a struggling narrator who battles insomnia and self-identity. In the novel Fight Club, the author, Chuck Palahniuk uses a neurotic eccentric main character to convey the theme of consumerism.

The ticking time bomb insomniac is involved with many support groups where he meets many hopeless people in need of group therapy. The odd thing about narrator is he isn't afflicted with any of the disorders. The support group fills an emotional need that he can't get on his own. Later on, the narrator meets a slick salesman named Tyler Durden, who is technically narrator's other half. After sharing drinks and dinner the two arrogant men end up fighting each other repeatedly for a week, the battle evolves into the creation of an underground way to release aggression. Basements of local bars were now getting flipped into brawling theatres. Each night after the bar closed down, groups of men would come in for one reason, to get their shot to fight, to let their hostility out. Everybody, including newcomers, were forced to fight. This new form of entertainment swallowed the narrator whole, forcing him to constantly think about his next encounter. The exchange of blows leads to project mayhem. Project mayhem is a systematic way of reducing consumerism by terroristic schemes, all thought of or created by Tyler Durden. In the end, because project mayhem got out of control, the narrator's only way out was to harm himself.

The underlying theme that runs throughout the whole novel is consumerism. Chuck Palahniuk does a magnificent job at portraying the theme obviously, and sometimes not so obviously. The issue in this time period is demonstrated clearly with the narrator's life. He believes the answers to his solutions are through consumerism. In the beginning of the novel you see consumerism being displayed when the narrator goes into his apartment on the 15th floor. He purchased everything at an IKEA store and has accessories that fit him personally. The novel makes it easy to see how much effort the narrator puts in his apartment. Pictures are hung up perfectly on the wall in specific areas; the room is very modern looking with comfortable seating. The narrator stresses about making his apartment ideal for him. In chapter 3 the narrator says, "Like everyone else, I had become a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct. If I saw something like clever coffee tables in the shape of a yin and yang, I had to have it. I would flip through catalogs and wonder, 'What kind of dining set defines me as a person?' We used to read pornography. Now it was the Horchow Collection. I had it all. Even the glass dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of wherever."(chapter 6) Consumerism is set up to make us believe that what we buy and what we have, identifies who we are. Identity is not based on what we have or what we buy, but this inter conflict of identity that the narrator so eloquently shows is something that most human beings wrestle with on a daily basis. The pressure, or the need to "keep up with the Jones'' is the crux of consumerism.

If you look at our society there are several examples where material objects ruling people versus people ruling material objects. Most of the time consumerism happens and the need for more material objects perpetuate itself. The narrator fulfills what society tells him is an ideal way of life. Society has an underlying message of who is better than whom, instilling a heirarchy of status. Consumerism can have an everlasting affect on people's life, as seen by the narrator's dysfunctional behavior at the end of the novel. Later on, the narrator's beautiful apartment tragically gets blown up. The narrator was taken back by the idea of all his belongings being burned. "That wasn't just a bunch of stuff that got blown up. That condo was my life!!!"(chapter 3) screamed the narrator when