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Logen E. Autry

Professor Passmore

Introduction to Literature 9262

02/03/2023

Fight Club: A Lava Cake of Nihilism and Rebirth

The quote, “May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect.,”

appears as one of the most nihilistic views in which someone can have (Palahniuk 46).

Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club, tends to include a lot of these kinds of quotes within fight

club to suggest an apparent theme of nihilism. However, through closer inspection, one can

determine the true meaning behind these lines. The narrator wishes to not be content, not out of

anger against the world, but because he wants to continue to improve. He finds joy in self-

improvement, and it quite literally helps him sleep at night. For two years he attended multiple

support groups for the sole purpose of crying, to get his emotions out, to feel reborn so he can

sleep without the hauntings of the previous day. This is supported by the quote “I went to my

first support group two years ago, after I had gone to my doctor about my insomnia” (Palahniuk

18). He wanted to become better, he wanted to sleep, so he was recommended to see true pain,

and this pain helped him reach his first goal. Fight club despite its outer shell of nihilism, tells a

tale of a journey of self-improvement eventually reaching that of rebirth and nirvana through a

series of goals set by the narrator.

The next goal is set in motion by Marla who insists on watching our narrator at the

support groups as proven by the quote “Until tonight, two years of success until tonight, because

I can’t cry with this woman watching me. Because I can’t hit bottom, I can’t be saved”
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(Palahniuk 22). He wants to hit bottom, so he can then achieve sleep. For most, bottom is seen as

a depressive, terrible place to be, one which only nihilists would wish for as they already feel life

is meaningless, but for our narrator, this bottom is just another step in his journey to rebirth.

Further cementing the narrator's belief in the bottom just another step is the quote “The lower

you fall, the higher you'll fly” (Palahniuk 141). This is a take on the common phrase of “the

harder you fall, the higher you will bounce” which means through going through hardships one

will come back stronger. Through this hardship, the narrator decides to find a new more effective

way of sleeping, which through fight club, he does.

Through fight club, the narrator feels reborn once more. Wailing on men and consistently

becoming stronger and stronger makes him feel alive. This air of rebirth is best supported by the

following quote:

You aren’t alive anywhere like you’re alive at fight club. When it’s you and one other

guy under that one light in the middle of all those watching... You see a guy come to fight

club for the first time, and his ass is a loaf of white bread. You see this same guy months

later, and he looks carved out of wood... fight club gets to be your reason for going to the

gym and keeping your hair cut short and cutting your nails (Palahnuik 50)

Clubs in which you beat each other up until one surrender is typically seen as violent and

repulsive and an act of no purpose to one's life. Many readers interpreted it at face value and

supported by the quote about the movie adaptation “should be censored and the filmmakers

hauled before a congressional committee to answer for what they’ve done” believed it to be vile

and nihilistic and have no such purpose in our society (Crowdus 1). However, beneath this

surface of despair, the fight club is a reason for these people to keep going. The fight club is a

reason for the narrator to get stronger and maintain his hygiene. The fight club grants these
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white-collar workers stuck in dead end jobs an opportunity to be reborn. Fight club may be

brutal, but it is far from nihilistic upon deeper inspection. Fight club is the stage for rebirth.

Through fight club, our narrator’s next goal comes to fruition; to quit his job. He starts

not caring at work. He comes in beaten up and told to leave and yet he describes himself as “zen”

(Palahniuk 63). At work he writes the following haiku; “Worker bees can leave, even drones can

fly away, the queen is their slave” (Palahniuk 63). This very clearly proves a desire in the

narrator to quit his job. He gives up caring about what most people feel to be their life. He shows

no such care to his job as he threatens his boss with a gun as proven by the quote “J and R 68

semiautomatic carbine... this guy knows all about him, where he lives, and where his wife works,

and his kids go to school” (Palahniuk 98-99). 90,000 hours of one’s life is spent working as

according to Andrew Nabar of Gettysburg College, so showing such little care to one's job is

seen as quite nihilistic. However, this is further enlightenment for our narrator as perpetuated by

the quote “It’s only after you’ve lost everything, that you’re free to do anything... only after

disaster can we be resurrected” (Palahniuk 70). When one looses their job, they have no more

source of income, the perfect chance to further oneself. Once one looses their responsibilities,

they are free to fight to survive. This fighting to survive forges a stronger self, one in which

knows of the struggles of poverty, one who has bounced back from the worst, one who has

reached the bottom and been reborn because of it.

Beneath the surface of nihilism, fight club is a perfect example of self-improvement

through facing constant hardships and in the end becoming the best version of oneself. This book

is not nihilistic, this book is hopeful, this book shows that no matter the circumstances, if one

keeps putting work in, and making human soap for a living, they too can be reborn.
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Works Cited

Crowdus, Gary. "Getting Exercised over 'Fight Club.'" Cinéaste, vol. 25, no. 4, 2000, pp. 46-48.

JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41689296. Accessed 31 Jan. 2023.

Nabar, Andrew. "One Third of Your Life Is Spent at Work." Gettysburg Entrepreneurship.

Gettysburg College, www.gettysburg.edu/news/stories?id=79db7b34-630c-4f49-ad32-

4ab9ea48e72b#:~:text=The%20average%20person%20will%20spend

%2090%2C000%20hours%20at%20work%20over%20a%20lifetime.

Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. W. W. Norton, 1996.