Tyler Durden

A Sociological Perspective

HM-321(B)
Submitted to: Dr. Cedric Aimal Edwin

Prepared By:
Adnan Moiz (2012024)
Khunsa Hisham (2012163)
M. Annas Zakir (2012199)
S.M. Adeel (2012319)
Table of Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................1

Tyler as Deviant .....................................................................................................................................................1

Marxism ..................................................................................................................................................................2

Psychoanalytic Theory...........................................................................................................................................3

Masculinity .............................................................................................................................................................4

American Dream ....................................................................................................................................................4

Generalization ........................................................................................................................................................5

Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................................................5

References ...............................................................................................................................................................6

Citations ..................................................................................................................................................................7

Appendix .................................................................................................................................................................8

WBS.......................................................................................................................................................................14
INTRODUCTION:

The narrator Norton has been portrayed as a species with a lifestyle that of a modern consumer. Almost
everything he did and owned reflected that he belonged or wished to belong to a particular Class, the elite class.
The narrator, while narrating & criticizing himself at the same time, states that these instincts of his were a
byproduct of the lifestyle obsession.

Somewhere along the movie the narrators gives birth to his alter ego which was the exact opposite of his
original nature. He called his alter ego “Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt)”. The reason as to why and how he created
Tyler lied in the fact that at the back of his mind he began to hate the class conflict and its curses. He hated the
fact that he himself was a victim of this class conflict and so he wanted to change his life, but he couldn‟t do so
because he didn‟t have the courage to face or adjust with the tremendous shift in the two lifestyles. That‟s where
he created his Alter ego to act as a constant opposing force that could convince and mold his lifestyle into that
of a communist‟s. Also, he wanted to revolutionize the society around him by eliminating all the sources of
inequality and discrimination due to class conflicts, and he did this through Tyler Durden.

TYLER AS DEVIANT:

Tyler Durden, the narrator‟s alter ego, stands out in the society. He is mischievous, a trouble maker. Tyler is the
perfect example of a square peg in a round hole. From stealing coins out of a pay phone, to throwing beer
bottles on the road, Tyler‟s everyday actions-the way he talks and the way
he goes about things-are proof of him being a nonconformist; or in other
words, Deviant. [1]

He does not believe in society‟s norms. He is one of the most complete

examples of deviant characters. His goals, and means of achieving those
goals are completely different from that of the society which, according to
Robert Merton‟s Deviance Typology, makes him a rebel[2]. Tyler‟s
conversation at the bar with the narrator confirms that he has no interest in the cultural goals.

Tyler: Do you know what a duvet is?

Narrator: Comforter.

Tyler: It’s a blanket. Just a blanket. Why do guys like you and I know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our
survival in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we, then?

Narrator: We’re, uh, you know, consumers…

Tyler: Right. We’re consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. So **** ** with your sofa units and
Strinne green stripe patterns. I say, never be complete. I say, stop being perfect. I say, let’s… let’s evolve.

Let the chips fall where they may. But that’s me, and I could be wrong. Maybe it’s a terrible tragedy.

His goal is simple; Erase the credit history so that the world would go back to ground zero. His way of
achieving that goal is different; destroy the credit card companies‟ buildings.

The following table lists some of Tyler‟s etiquettes and the type of deviance they belong to:
 Consensus Crime Conflict Crime Social Deviation Social Diversion
Destroys the credit He instructs his “Fight Creates an He bangs on each
card companies‟ Club” to destroy underground “Fight door in Marla‟s
buildings public property e.g. Club” corridor when he goes
computer and DVD to meet her for the
shops and dish TV first time
receivers.
He urinates in and He steals human fat He fights with himself Throws beer bottles
farting on food. from liposuction onto the roads
clinic to make soap
He puts in parts of Smokes indoors
adult films into
children movies

A deviant character has many admirers and though he is not liked by the society as a whole, individuals admire
him. In the movie, Tyler is able to build his army in a short span of time due to the very same reasons. Even in
today‟s life, people admire Tyler Durden. An example of this is the “Tyler Durden Fight Club Jacket” which is
being sold at Rs. 16,000 on a Pakistani website and is their bestselling item (Daraz Pakistan, 2014).

.MARXISM:

The narrator obsesses over his alter-ego, being Tyler Durden. Somewhere along the way, he notices that he has
conflicts with it, and he tries to overcome them by becoming more like his alter-ego. So the supposed
schizophrenia that gives him this space to vent out the misery of being a proletarian and general resentment
towards the bourgeoisie of the society, eventually becomes a constant source of reactionary bliss as Tyler
Durden and The narrator become more and more alike till halfway the movie.

During the movie, we realize the two characters represent different sides of the Marxist theory. Tyler, the
proletariat, non-material oriented- owns a pretty old house with bunker beds for beds, not so clean toilets and
severe ceiling water leak. He expresses blatantly while addressing the fight cub, “You’re not your job. You’re
not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet.
You’re not your khakis. You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.”[3] By that he meant to eradicate
the stratification, inequality and social conflict these men felt on an individual basis, further saying “We are all
part of the same compost heap,” This statement is a less fancier version of the basis of sociology, "we are all in
this together."

Whereas, the narrator, despite being a gray-collar, was stuck in Bourgeoisie values. He is a slave to what he
calls the 'Ikea nesting instinct', saying 'If I saw something clever like the coffee table 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?” 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.” Workers pore over IKEA furniture magazines
in an effort to satisfy their insatiable lust for fulfillment and perfection. The narrator saw each object as literally
featuring a price tag and catalog description. [4]
“Honest, simple, hardworking indigenous people of wherever” explains how little he thought felt for the lower
working/service class.

On a similar note, when asked about his job, he explains it to the businesswoman sitting next to him on an
airplane that his 'daytime' corporate job is to analyze whether or not it's beneficial for a company to initiate a
recall, on the basis of profit/cost completely ignoring the safety issues it might endanger the lives of the
consumers with, since most of the time it is easier for the bourgeoisie corporation to accept human morbidity
and mortality rather than take a financial loss. As The narrator‟s self-consciousness, his awareness grows, he
starts distrusting the Capitalist's increasingly hollow-sounding promise of fulfillment.

This is when we witness the protagonist‟s dilemma with his job and the agonizing conscience of being an
immoral member of the bourgeoisie which in turn fabricates Tyler. The protagonist admires Tyler and his ways,
because he seems capable and free, whereas he himself does not. He's been raised in a society where everyone
is special. And when everyone is special, no one is. Meaning, everyone has to pursue false goals that capitalists
have forced upon them to lull them into minimal wage jobs which refers to the ruling class‟s ideals of
normality. [5]

"The people you're trying to step on, we're everyone you depend on. We're the people who do your laundry and
cook your food and serve your dinner. We make your bed. We guard you while you're asleep. We drive the
ambulances. We direct your call. Do not mess with us.”

This statement is best explained through theories of Karl Marx, this school concerns itself with the continuing
conflict between the classes and how this leads to upheaval and revolution by oppressed people and form the
preliminaries of a new set of socioeconomics values where capitalism is nonexistent. Once the elite class is
overthrown, the proletariats can form an equal society where everyone owns everything. [6] Tyler says this to the
Seattle police commissioner essentially a Bourgeoisie, who‟s carrying out an investigation to find out the much
chaotic rebellious underground group that‟s going around the whole of America devising increasingly elaborate
pranks/assignments like destroying a piece of 'corporate' art that'd trash a franchise coffee bar- thus killing two
birds with one stone, the way Durden says it.

One of the activities that manifest Tyler's Marxist beliefs is making soap which occupied a large chunk of
Tyler‟s time. Tyler sold the soap to department stores at twenty bucks a bar. Those as proposed by the movie,
were further sold at much higher prices. In the movie Tyler is seen scavenging through trash cans to find bags
of human fats saying, “It was interesting. We were selling rich people their own fat back to them.” [7] This fat
came from the liposuction of the people that could afford going through a cosmetic surgery. So the excess of the
Bourgeoisie was essentially being sold back to them, and the profit that Tyler made basically funded the Project
Mayhem. In this way, Tyler Durden initiates a revolution whose main paradigms are that of Marx's revolution.
In the final scene we witness the destruction of a major city‟s financial district, blowing up all the credit card
buildings in order to eliminate the debt record which abolishes property for the mere purpose of creating social
adherence, the ultimate aim of Project Mayhem [8]. Such an event would not only destroy the debt record, it
would also destroy the money supply.

Tyler's projects, Project Mayhem and the Paper Street Soap Company, are manifestations of the proletariat
class' revolt against ruling class bourgeoisie.

PSYCHOANALYTICAL THEORY:
In our study, Tyler Durden is actually acting as the perfect id of Edward Norton. Tyler originally presents
himself after the narrator‟s (Edward Norton) period of sleep deprivation. According to the psychoanalytical
theory[9], dreams are seen as the context where repressed desires are let loose, where the restrictions of a
repressive society cease to exert their limiting power. In this place, what would be impossible for the real self,
the dreaming self would have no difficulty with[10]. The narrator is unable to release any natural or physical
desires through dreams as his insomnia[11] has disallowed any natural sleep. Thus, he expresses these desires
instead as Tyler Durden.

Tyler is the full expression of the narrator‟s id; Tyler does everything that comes to his mind; he‟s spontaneous,
blunt, deviant and carefree. He does not care about the consequences of his acts and whether they are socially
accepted or not. For instance he would throw the beer bottle out in the open, he‟d start a fight for no good
reason, and he‟d hop into a complete stranger‟s car and fly away without the owner‟s approval. Whereas on the
other hand, the narrator‟s initial character in the movie is that of the super ego. He is the perfect cubicle
working civilized being. His id is contained, his desires are self-policed and restricted to what is offered and is
acceptable to the greater society, namely, consumer goods.

The ego finally comes into play towards the end of the movie, when suddenly Tyler vanishes, and the narrator
realizes that everything that they‟ve been doing or planning on doing was wrong and did not conform to the
dominant culture and norms of the society. Then a sort of face saving stage is initiated in the form of a
confession that he tries to make in front of the law enforcement authority.

MASCULINTY: Grey-collar workers serve others, which was once the role and cultural norm
associated with women. These men now stratified in a traditionally female role, experience degrees of role
strain. Referring to one point in the movie, Tyler says to Jack: "We are a generation of men raised by women."
The social-conflict[12] analysis of gender theorizes that gender not only has to do with behaviours but also with
power. Traditionally men were more powerful and husbands dominated wives. However, when 28% of families
are one-parent with a majority being single women, a young boy is raised with the norm of a woman being in
complete control. This is where emasculation starts. Then there is an acknowledgment of the stratification of
typical gender roles, when Tyler continues his conversation by saying, "Do you really think that women are the
answer?" Eventually, it is realized that their slavery to the white-collar capitalists is the product of a lack of
strong male role models while growing up.

The „Fight Club‟, which the narrator forms with his alter ego Tyler Durden was a reaction to the emasculation
suffered as a result of a televised, advertised society where pain, strength, courage is stripped of the men in the
movie who feel like they need a way to break out. The pain that the members of fight club and the narrator
endured was a way to revert back to basics, where one could be sure that there was still something of real value
left to feel. The „man‟ in the traditional sense of the word is found through this violence and through this pain,
claiming back a fraction of the masculine nature that had been lost through years of material comforts.[14]

The Narrator is the ultimate example of defeated masculinity in the beginning of the film, while Tyler seems to
stand for an example of a violent, anarchic male, free of the pliers of consumerist society. The former is an
„everyman‟, who suffers from insomnia, works as a company employee and hates his life. Fight Club serves as
masculinity restoration movement for the people (as Tyler says “the generation of men raised by women)
affected by the value system of advertising.

THE AMERICAN DREAM:

The American dream[13] is the unattainable dream that the narrator accepts as something he should strive for to
lead a happy life. According to him, the American dream consists of the idea of working hard and being able to
make lots of money for a successful life that has evolved to the importance of one‟s image, fame, and
materialistic items. One thrives to reach the American dream in pursuit of happiness.

Tyler believes that the only way to experience the vibrancy of life is to break the shackles of their desk job and
return to the roots of your nature - for men that would be experiencing the primal instincts of survival and war.
He explains the issue in accordance with American dream perfectly:

“I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables;
slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy stuff
we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No
Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised
on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And
we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.”

The quote really emphasizes all the ideas he would like to point out about the American dream. Their lives are
not about living the way they want in order to make something better of themselves. Instead their lives,
aspirations, and happiness have been attached to another goal, one that most don‟t ever reach; MONEY.
Americans have allowed money to consume every part of their lives. The dream for this generation is not to do
what they love, but to do anything that will essentially get them to the desirable dream of getting money. It is
important to point out the fact that the American dream makes one believe that if one works hard enough, they
will be able to achieve this dream of happiness. But the cold reality is that sometimes no matter how hard you
work you may never make millions of dollars.

GENERALIZATION:

For the sake of criticism, we see capitalism as the demonic evil in society that makes the rich even richer and
the poor even poorer. But on the contrary if we the power is equally divided and we thus conform to the
communists‟ way of life, we would somewhat not be able to advance both as individuals and society as a whole
in our perspective. Since we as humans and Pakistani in particular are quite emotional and communism is not
the answer for us who seek a dynamic, an ever changing and ever evolving environment.

CONCLUSION:

We all had watched this movie „FIGHT CLUB‟ and we agreed that it was a great psychological thriller. But
when we decided to analyze this for our sociology project we realized that it was a host for an ocean of
sociological theories as well. From the labeling theory to the survival of the fittest, the protagonist conforms
with and disapproves some of the major sociological perspectives. Tyler is a strong believer in the Marxist
theory, and his main goal in the movie is to work towards bringing a Marxist revolution that would put an end
to the class conflict or at least bring down things to ground zero. Furthermore, Tyler is deviant. He uses fight
club as the means to restore the masculinity in the men that‟ve been bottled up by its deterioration. The
character Tyler is a result of a very strong conflict between the narrator‟s id and superego, which cannot coexist
for him. In the end, the conflict is resolved and the ego aspect of the narrator comes to life. Which essentially
believes that Project Mayhem was right. Towards the last part, the narrator reaches a stage which in Tyler‟s
words is hitting the rock bottom. And this is how eventually the id takes over.
REFERENCES:

 FIGHT CLUB WIKI, (2007). Tyler Durden. [Online] Available at:

http://fightclub.wikia.com/wiki/Tyler_Durden [Accessed 30 Nov. 2014].
 SHMOOP, (2008). The Narrator in Fight Club. [Online] Available at: http://www.shmoop.com/fight-
club/narrator.html [Accessed 30 Nov. 2014].
 DASSANOWSKY, R. (2007). Catch Hannibal at Mr. Ripley's Fight Club if you can: From
Eurodecadent cinema to American nationalist allegory. Film International, 5(3), pp.14-27.
 THE FILM JOURNAL, (n.d.). The Film Journal...Passionate and informed film criticism from an
auteurism perspective.. [Online] Available at: http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue8/fightclub.html
[Accessed 30 Nov. 2014].
 WIKIPEDIA, (2014). Fight Club. [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Club
[Accessed 30 Nov. 2014].
 WIKIPEDIA, (2014). Interpretations of Fight Club. [Online] Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_Fight_Club [Accessed 30 Nov. 2014].
 IMDB, (2014). Fight Club (1999) - Plot Summary. [Online] Available at:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/plotsummary?ref_=tt_stry_pl [Accessed 30 Nov. 2014].
 DOMSPE.ORG, (2014). fight club - sociological analysis. [Online] Available at:
http://www.domspe.org/fight_club/soc_fightclub4.html [Accessed 30 Nov. 2014].
 UVA, (n.d.). Masculinity and Violence. [Online] Available at:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA02/freed/fightclub/masviol.html [Accessed 30 Nov. 2014].
 TILTED FORUM PROJECT, (2003). Fight Club, a psychoanalysis. (Movie, not the book... spoilers of
course) - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community. [Online] Available at:
https://thetfp.com/tfp/tilted-entertainment/36195-fight-club-psychoanalysis-movie-not-book-spoilers-
course.html [Accessed 30 Nov. 2014].
 Fight Club. (1999) Film. Directed by David Fincher. [DVD]. UK: 20th Century Fox Home
Entertainment.
 PALAHNIUK, C. (1996). Fight Club. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
 ANDERSEN, M. AND TAYLOR, H. (2013). Sociology: the essentials. 7th ed., Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
 DARAZ PAKISTAN, (2014). Red Genuine Leather Brad Pitt Tyler Durden Fight Club Vintage
Mayhem Jacket. [Online] Available at: http://www.daraz.pk/leather-madness-red-genuine-leather-brad-
pitt-tyler-durden-fight-club-vintage-mayhem-jacket-63931.html [Accessed 30 Nov. 2014].
CITATIONS:

[1] Macionis, J. & Gerber, L. (2010). Sociology. 7th ed. Toronto: Pearson

[2] Action". American Sociological Review

[3] Palahnuik, Chuck. Fight Club. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1996.

[4] screenshot1

[5] Dino, 2011

[6] Owl Purdue, 2010

[7] screenshot2

[8] screenshot3

[9][10]Freud, S (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams. IV and V (2nd ed.). Hogarth Press, 1955.

Screenshot4

[11] Roth, T. (2007). "Insomnia: Definition, prevalence, etiology, and consequences". Journal of clinical sleep
medicine. JCSM: official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine 3
INSOMNIA

[12] Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, introduction by Martin Malia (New York: Penguin group,
1998), pg. 35 ISBN 0-451-52710-0

[13]Library of Congress. American Memory. "What is the American Dream?", lesson plan american dream

[14]Witte, Anne E. "Making the Case for a Postnational Cultural Analysis of Organizations," Journal of
Management Inquiry, April 2012, Vol. 21:2, pp. 141-159.
Hofstede's cultural dimensions
Appendix:

Character Sketches:

Marla Singer:

The sole central female character is Marla Singer. The movie explores Marla role through the relationship
triangle of the narrator, Marla, and Tyler as they discover what it means to hit bottom. In both the film and
movie versions of Fight Club, Marla, acting as a catalyst for the invention of Tyler, is both an object of desire
and destruction.

Marla talks about herself in third person in the entire movie- saying in a scene,

"The girl is infectious human waste, and she's confused and afraid to commit to the wrong thing so she won't
commit to anything. […] The girl in 8G has no faith in herself [...] and she's worried that as she grows older,
she'll have fewer and fewer options."(7.61-7.62)

This kind of honesty about oneself is rare in a movie like Fight Club, and it sure makes us want to get to know
the lady a little better. One thing we do see is that everything she does stems from a desire to just feel more
alive:

She used to work in a funeral home "to feel good about [her]self, just the fact that [she] was breathing" (4.69).

She goes to the support groups to watch people coping with imminent death.

She even feels guilty about not dying, thinking that all the people she's watched die over the years try to call her
and hang up when she answers. At least they're not playing ding-dong ditch.

Robert Paulsen:

Bob has a few pretty defining characteristics:

He is the only male character from the support groups to have a first and last name.
He's one of the only characters with a name who dies.

Bob has a few pretty defining characteristics:

He definitely bridges a couple gaps for our narrator in the following way:

(1) The gap between masculine and feminine. Only when hugging Bob can our narrator cry, something he feels
is a very feminine act.

(2) The gap between support group and Project Mayhem. It's easy for our narrator to separate Project Mayhem
from reality when its only members are a bunch of nameless space monkeys. But when Bob joins, it gets a little
more personal. And so, when Bob dies, our narrator finally decides that Project Mayhem must be stopped.
Without Bob and his ultimate sacrifice, our narrator might never have woken up to reality.
Richard Chesler

Jack's boss at his job as a Recall Coordinator for a major automobile manufacturer. He is portrayed as a
corporate yes-man, interested only in the bottom line and climbing the corporate ladder.

After Tyler takes over the narrator‟s behavior, they have a conversation which goes like this:

Richard Chesler: [Reading a piece of paper] The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club?
Narrator: [Voice-over] I'm half asleep again; I must've left the original in the copy machine.
Richard Chesler: The second rule of Fight Club - is this yours?
Narrator: Huh?
Richard Chesler: Pretend you're me, make a managerial decision: you find this, what would you do?
Narrator: [pauses] Well, I gotta tell you: I'd be very, very careful who you talk to about that, because the person
who wrote that... is dangerous.
[Gets up from the chair]
Narrator: [Talking slowly] And this button-down, Oxford-cloth psycho might just snap, and then stalk from
office to office with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after
round into colleagues and co-workers. This might be someone you've known for years. Someone very, very
close to you.
Narrator: [Voice-over] Tyler's words coming out of my mouth.
[Snatches the piece of paper from boss' hands]

Lou:

The owner of the bar where fight club begins. He attempts to shut down fight club upon discovering that it is
being run in the basement of his bar.

While fighting Tyler Durden over it, the following incident takes place. The incident again reflects the class
differences that exist in the society and how proletariats are so frustrated. Hence, rebelling against the upper
class.

Lou: [Lou hits Tyler in the face] Do you hear me now?

Tyler Durden: No, I didn't quite catch that, Lou.

[Lou hits Tyler again]

Tyler Durden: Still not getting it.

[Lou hits Tyler a few more times]

Tyler Durden: Ok, I got it. Shit, I lost it.

[Lou continues to beat up Tyler]

But, Tyler does take over- ending the fight with;

Tyler Durden: [his face is soaked in blood; he is shaking it over Lou and screaming] You don't know where I've
been. You don't know where I've been. Just let us have the basement, Lou!

PLOT (Synopsis): Book by Chuck Palahuinik

A young urban professional who works for a major car manufacturer can't sleep.
Although he doesn't have any of the associated afflictions, he stumbles across support groups as a means to let
out whatever emotions he is feeling, which in turn is allowing him to sleep. But the use of these support groups
is ruined when he meets a young woman named Marla Singer, who is also going to all these support group
meetings. Because he knows she too is not afflicted with any of the maladies for which the groups exist, her
presence has lessened the impact of the stories he hears. His life changes when he meets a soap manufacturer
named Tyler Durden, who in many ways is the antithesis of the insomniac. Due to unusual circumstances with
his own condo, the insomniac moves in with Tyler, who lives in a large dilapidated house in an otherwise
abandoned part of town. After a bit of spontaneous roughhousing with Tyler in a bar parking lot, the insomniac
finds it becomes a ritual between the two of them, which is helping him cope with the other more difficult
aspects of his life. The fights also attract a following, others who not only want to watch but join in.
Understanding that there are other men like them, the insomniac and Tyler begin a secret fight club. As the fight
club's popularity grows, so does its scope in all aspects. Marla becomes a circle not specifically of the fight
clubs but of Tyler and the insomniac's collectives lives. As the nature of the fight clubs becomes out of control
in the insomniac's view, the insomniac's life, in association, is one where he no longer understands what is
happening around him, or how he can get out of it without harming himself.

Psychoanalytic theory:

Psychoanalytic theory originates in the work of Sig-mund Freud. Perhaps Freud‟s greatest contribution was the
idea that the unconscious mind shapes human behavior. Freud is also known for devel-oping the technique of
psychoanalysis to help discover the causes of psychological problems in the recesses of troubled patients‟
minds.

Psychoanalytic theory depicts the human psyche in three parts: the id, the superego, and the ego. The id

consists of deep drives and impulses. Freud was par-ticularly absorbed by the sexual component of the id,

which he considered an especially forceful denizen of the unconscious mind. The superego is the dimension
of the self that represents the standards of society. The superego incorporates or internalizes acquired values and
norms—in short, culture. According to Freud, an ordered society requires that people repress the wild impulses
generated by the id. Consequently, the id is in permanent confl ict with the superego. The superego represents
what Freud saw as the inherent repressive-ness of society. People cope with the tension between social
expectations (the superego) and their impulses (the id) by developing defense mechanisms, typically repression,
avoidance, or denial. The third component of the self in Freud‟s theory, the ego, is the seat of reason and
common sense.

The ego plays a balancing act between the id and the super-ego, adapting the desires of the id to the social
expec-tations of the superego. In psychoanalytic theory, the conflict between the id and the superego occurs in
the subconscious mind, yet it shapes human behavior. We get a glimpse of the unconscious mind in dreams and
in occasional slips of the tongue—the famous “Freud-ian slip” that is believed to reveal an underlying state of
mind.

Consumerism theory and Consumerist culture:

Consumerism is a social and economic order and ideology that encourages the acquisition of goods and services
in ever-greater amounts.

Fight Club successfully acts as a commentary on consumer culture through the creative and profound use of
symbolism. Consumerism and society‟s fascination with possessions are exemplified in the symbol of the
narrator‟s condo. In the beginning of the film, the narrator has become a slave to what he calls “the Ikea nesting
instinct” (Fight Club). His condo houses furniture, cups, and appliances that he feels compelled to purchase. He
says, “If I saw something clever, like a little coffee table in the shape of a ying yang, I had to have it” (Fight
Club). He is so engrossed with the ownership of commodities that he defines himself by his material
possessions: “I‟d flip through catalogs and wonder, what kind of dining set defines me as a person?” (Fight
Club). His entire life‟s value and meaning are measured by the objects he owns. “I had it all. I had a stereo that
was very decent, a wardrobe that was getting very respectable. I was close to being complete” (Fight Club). The
narrator is seduced by the allure of a future, whole self, and as he flips through Ikea magazines, he visualizes
this future self, propelled to improvement by the purchase of home goods.

As Tyler highlighted, the narrator, as a consumer in a culture of commodities, is not free. Berger explains that
advertisement and publicity are often related with “freedom of choice for the purchaser” (Berger 131).
However, in reality, advertisement limits us, setting “pre-packaged” experiences before us and thereby stifling
creativity. Advertisement acts as a “social control, offering the illusion of unlimited choice, but in fact reducing
the field of play to a choice of pre-selected experiences” (Lasn 418). Because Tyler is the narrator‟s ideal image
of self, he is not slave to the same “insidious power of the spectacle” of advertisement (Lasn 418). He is no
longer confined by the “mental slavery” of the consumer culture; he is free of the commercialism and free of the
conflict between self and ideal because he is that ideal, not striving to transform any longer. While the narrator
is unable to escape the consumer culture, Tyler has the courage to break free from this entrapment. He realizes
that:
 you are not your bank account. You are not the clothes you wear. You are not the contents of your wallet. You
are not your bowel cancer. You are not your grande latte. You are not the car you drive. You are not your
fucking khakis. (Fight Club)

Explanation of Table 1:

Consensus Crime Conflict Crime Social Deviation Social Diversion

Destroys the credit card He instructs his “Fight Creates an underground He bangs on each door in
companies‟ buildings Club” to destroy public “Fight Club” Marla‟s corridor when he
property e.g. computer goes to meet her for the
Explanation: and DVD shops and dish Explanation: first time
It causes great amount of TV receivers. Since everyone was at
financial loss and we that Fight Club with their Explanation:
think that this would Explanation: own will, this act of This act of Tyler‟s
result in severe penalty Some would argue that Tyler‟s cannot be doesn‟t harm anyone but
from the court Tyler was not forcing considered a crime. it is irritating.
anyone to work with/for However, the people of
him on Project Mayhem the society would want
so he should not be to ostracize Tyler from
punished for other the society for spreading
people‟s crimes. chaos and disorder.
He urinates in and He steals human fat from He fights with himself Throws beer bottles onto
farting on food. liposuction clinic to the roads
make soap Explanation:
Explanation: The narrator (as Tyler Explanation:
It is very disgusting as Explanation: Durden) beats himself This is a minor act. Tyler
there numerous health It is up for discussion up. This is something throws glass bottles on
hazards linked with an whether this act of that is not common and the road which break
act as bad as this. We Tyler‟s should be can be thought of as a causing the shattered
think would be punishable or not. While medical condition i.e. glass to spread
punishable with some stealing something is medicalization. everywhere. It may
serious jail time. definitely a crime, what cause tires of the passing
Tyler stole (human fat), cars to puncture.
was not causing loss to However, this act might
anyone. not be considered as a
crime.
He puts in parts of adult Smokes indoors
films into children
movies Explanation:
Most of the people
Explanation: condemn smoking
We think that these indoors and in some
graphics can have places, it is even illegal
adverse effects on but at most places, it is
children‟s mentality and not officially banned
hence they must be even though, it is hated
punished severely. by most people.
 The concept of us and them is witnessed in the movie. As Tyler starts the 'fight club' for
the sole of purpose of feeling alive, he sets some rules to it.

Rule number one ensures that the knowledge of the mere existence of the club is
inevitable but nobody gets to 'talk about it'. This secrecy is meant to instill in the group a
Social Identity feeling of 'us', and how only the people in the in-group are enjoying the privilege of being
Theory a part of it.
As Simmel says,
Applicable 'All relationships of people to each other rest, as a matter of course, upon the precondition
Theories that they know
something about each other'
Towards the end of the movie, the protagonist realizes that his alter-ego had gone rogue.
Robert Merton's He‟s shown trying to put an end to the Project Mayhem but is unable to do so because he
Theory of has previously done a very good job at recruiting people for the mission. The series of
conformity incidents that follow indicate that Jack finally wants to conform to the capitalist way of
life, saving his face over the realization of the fact that he actually was Tyler Durden.

Labeling Labeling theory is the theory of how the self-identity and behavior of individuals may be
Theory determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them.
This is witnessed in the movie, when the narrator is shown to live lavishly because hes
labeled as a Bourgeoisie for having a corporate job. Also, when Tyler labels his armymen
as equals and not-so-special, they start believing in it and act accordingly.

Symbolic interactionism is a sociological perspective that is influential in many areas of

the sociological discipline. It is particularly important in microsociology and social
Symbolic psychology. Symbolic interactionism is derived from American pragmatism and
Interactionism particularly from the work of George Herbert Mead.
The members of the fight club associate a symbol of „us‟ with the fight club.

Capitalist a person who believes that capitalism is the best kind of economic system, in which
trade, industry, and the means of production are largely or entirely privately owned and
Key terms operated for profit
Proletariat the laboring class; especially : the class of industrial workers who lack their own means
of production and hence sell their labor to live
Bourgeoisie The concept of the bourgeoisie is most closely associated with Karl Max and those who
were influenced by him. According to Marx, the bourgeoisie plays a heroic role in history
by revolutionizing industry and modernizing society; however, it also seeks to
monopolize the benefits of modernization and exploit the property-less Prolateriat,
thereby creating revolutionary tensions.