Fight Club is a story of two men, with rejection of capitalist society with

consequences to violence-orientated, anarchic and chaotic actions. The novel is

almost entirely told in flashbacks. It not only tells a story of friendship, chaos,
freedom, masculinity and brotherhood but also speaks directly to the readers about
our lives, leading us to reflect and how we define ourselves. The writer, Chuck
Palahniuk, explores the power of organised chaos and shows how the pressures of
our society are causing a ticking time bomb in people, just waiting to explode. This
extract taken from Chapter 1 uses numerous techniques such as narrative style,
imagery, sentence structure, and word choice to convey chaos and anarchy, and the
total rejection of normal societal behaviours.

Right from the start of the extract we are found with an unnamed Narrator sitting on
the top floor of a skyscraper that’s about to explode, with a man named Tyler Durden
pointing a gun into his mouth. With their actions they are trying to create anarchy and
chaos with rejection of society to destroy consumerism and society capitalism.

One of the key features of the novel is the unique writing style of Chuck Palahniuk,
where he deliberately breaks the conventional rules of writing fiction and solecism.
This is also reflected in his poor grammar and spelling mistakes. Additionally he
often uses unusual sentence structures, such as short sentences and one line
paragraphs. Examples of these are: “Pull a lever” and “Push a button”. Furthermore,
these sentences include imperatives, with which the author emitopises the
emasculation of men and their usual attitude set by the society.

Chuck Palahniuk often stresses the characters hatred for consumerism and love for
chaos through devices such as similes and polysyndetons. For example “and then
comes a file cabinet as big as a black refrigerator”, this simile with “black refrigerator”
depicts the every day capitalist routine. The adjective “black” gives emphasis on the
negative sides of the society and the pivotal influence on us as individuals.

The quote “You don’t understand any of it, and then you just die”, reflects the
unusual usage of direct speech, second person and usage of “you”. The general
structure of novels do not tend to contain second person communication to the
audience, however here the writer has deliberately chosen to use it to break the
rules and once again echo the film action, where the characters analogically break
the laws. With this usage of direct speech the writer highlights the anarchic and
lawlessness. Additionally to that, it depicts nihilism, reflecting on the idea that life is
pointless. This writing attitude directly echoes the plot, where the characters are
basically breaking the laws.

Furthermore in the extract, the phrase, “And drops, turning slowly, and drops getting
smaller, and drops disappearing”, stresses the characters hatred for consumerism
and love for chaos through devices such as similes and polysyndetons. This usage
of repetition puts emphasis on drop and the polysyndeton produces the effect of a
gradual decline. The objective of Chuck Palahniuk with this sentence is to reflect on
what the characters want to happen to the sickening consumerism, “getting smaller”
and then “disappearing”. The polysyndeton and repetition epitomises the idea of
mass production and makes emphasis on how our unoriginal society is full of
individual’s copies. Further the author uses repetition to generate a countdown, he
says “we’re down to our last ten minutes”, “nine minutes”, “eight minutes”. The
countdown constantly reminds the reader of the potential impending disaster, which
leads to the anarchy and chaos of the novel. This uneasy repetition creates a
deadline which then helps to construct the stressful, intense atmosphere throughout
the duration of the book. The structure of this extract is unconventional through its
use of time references which are uncommon in fiction novel. This unconventionality
is then reflected on how the narrator’s nihilism characteristics, by rebelling against
society’s formalities. This echoes the neverending mass consumerist culture of
modern society. By repeating 'and drops', the writer is echoing the endless cycle of
not just how obsessed we are with these products but also the mindless repetitive
nature of our lives. Our mere existence is futile and pointless unless we rebel against
this society

In the next section of the extract, we are found with the phrase, “the space monkeys
in the Mischief Committee of Project Mayhem are running wild, destroying every
scrap of history.” This usage of zoomorphism suggests that we, the society, are
monkeys and we are unable to think for ourselves. Mischief Committee is paradox...
Furthermore with the phrase, “With a gun stuck in your mouth and the barrel of the
gun between your teeth, you can only talk in vowels”, the writer transmits us the idea
that analogical noises with vowels are made by monkeys only. This phrase links
directly to one of the main themes of Fight Club, Consumerism, and how it corrupts
the dreams and aspirations of people. This links to the previous point, about
monkeys beeing sent to space.

Chuck Palahniuk have exceptionally started the novel and introduced the readers
with the principal themes of terrorism, chaos, and freedom. The Narrator’s thoughts,
although they seem confused and sporadic, are more like ordered chaos giving off
subtle hints to the reality of his situation. The scene set by Palahniuk is fiery and
adrenaline filled with buildings toppling, glass shattering and furniture falling.
However throughout this chaos we are introduced to the Narrator, we are given
reason to question our own lives and we are introduced to a possible saviour in Tyler
Durden. Welcome to Fight Club.