Fight Club Differences

While comparing the novel and movie adaptations of Fight Club, I found a lot of similarities but picked up a lot of differences as well. The obvious similarity in both adaptations was the dialogue in the movie mostly stayed true to the dialogue within the novel. Often times, I could predict the next few lines or what was occurring next in the story. I liked noticing for once a movie that stays true to its origins. That is, until the ending.

The endings of both adaptations vary extremely differently. In the book, the narrator shoots himself but wakes up in what he describes as an afterlife-like state. However, it is assumed that the narrator is actually in a mental institution where he views his psychiatrist as God. All around, he sees people with cuts and bruises eagerly awaiting his return.

In the movie, the narrator also shoots himself to rid of Tyler but survives only with a hole through his mouth. In the end, he is seen with Marla in the building simply looking out the building watching Project Mayhem commence and watching the world burn. In both stories, the viewer understands that the narrator is truly insane but the outcomes for them are very different. In the book, we are not really sure what ever happened or what was just the narrator’s insanity. Whereas in the movie, the narrator understands himself and gains a grasp on his life and what is important, ridding of Tyler completely. 

11/8 Blog Post

            Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk focuses a lot of its story satirizing today’s society and brings upon many arguments and questions society can ask itself. One of these arguments is what defines a man? Or what makes a man masculine? What is masculinity? Throughout the novel, the narrator asks himself this and the reader is able to witness what he hopes to be through his alter-ego, Tyler Durden.

            In the beginning of the story, the narrator is nothing but an insomniac, broken man. He lives a very boring routine life and as compared to many others, rather than sitting in the bathroom with pornography, he sits “in the bathroom with [his] IKEA furniture catalogue” (Palahniuk 43). His whole life revolved around that furniture with no meaning. Pornography, reproduction, and sex itself are typically labeled as things for men, whereas furniture and decorating are for the females. Straight from the beginning the narrator is viewed as a very feministic character.

            In order to cope with his inability to sleep, the narrator attends various support groups for people with horrible, terminal diseases such as testicular cancer and brain parasites. Here, he is able to let go of his life and just simply cry. He is able to weep at his own life and feel the pain of others. This is what helps him sleep. Again, the author illustrates the narrator with another feministic trait, crying. Crying was always labeled as the girl thing to do, boys are supposed to be tough and not show their emotions. However, this character embraces this trait and even cries with men who literally have had their manhood taken away from them through cancer. The narrator continues this feministic ritual until he meets Tyler Durden.

            Tyler is everything the narrator wants to be. He is tough, careless, and does what he wants. Tyler has the idea of starting Fight Club, where the narrator eventually goes to. Here is where the masculinity is shown. No longer can the narrator cry and whine and order furniture for a hobby. Here, in Fight Club, he has to fight for himself. This is finally something masculine in his life. Fight Club represents the transformation of feminine to masculine. The author explains that the first time a guy comes to fight club “his ass is a loaf of white bread” (51). But eventually, “six months later and he looks carved out of wood” (51). Muscle equals masculinity. What is the most masculine and basic thing there is for a man to do? Fight.

            The fight club members are characterized as “a generation of men raised by women” (50). A group of guys with no redeeming male qualities; these are men whose lives have been immersed with femininity and have forgotten or do not know how to be men. The author explains in his writing that masculinity is not defined by possessions or looks. It is the mental toughness shown through the people who come to fight club in order to get their faces beaten just to be able to come back the following week and do it again.

11/8 Blog Post

            Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk focuses a lot of its story satirizing today’s society and brings upon many arguments and questions society can ask itself. One of these arguments is what defines a man? Or what makes a man masculine? What is masculinity? Throughout the novel, the narrator asks himself this and the reader is able to witness what he hopes to be through his alter-ego, Tyler Durden.

            In the beginning of the story, the narrator is nothing but an insomniac, broken man. He lives a very boring routine life and as compared to many others, rather than sitting in the bathroom with pornography, he sits “in the bathroom with [his] IKEA furniture catalogue” (Palahniuk 43). His whole life revolved around that furniture with no meaning. Pornography, reproduction, and sex itself are typically labeled as things for men, whereas furniture and decorating are for the females. Straight from the beginning the narrator is viewed as a very feministic character.

            In order to cope with his inability to sleep, the narrator attends various support groups for people with horrible, terminal diseases such as testicular cancer and brain parasites. Here, he is able to let go of his life and just simply cry. He is able to weep at his own life and feel the pain of others. This is what helps him sleep. Again, the author illustrates the narrator with another feministic trait, crying. Crying was always labeled as the girl thing to do, boys are supposed to be tough and not show their emotions. However, this character embraces this trait and even cries with men who literally have had their manhood taken away from them through cancer. The narrator continues this feministic ritual until he meets Tyler Durden.

            Tyler is everything the narrator wants to be. He is tough, careless, and does what he wants. Tyler has the idea of starting Fight Club, where the narrator eventually goes to. Here is where the masculinity is shown. No longer can the narrator cry and whine and order furniture for a hobby. Here, in Fight Club, he has to fight for himself. This is finally something masculine in his life. Fight Club represents the transformation of feminine to masculine. The author explains that the first time a guy comes to fight club “his ass is a loaf of white bread” (51). But eventually, “six months later and he looks carved out of wood” (51). Muscle equals masculinity. What is the most masculine and basic thing there is for a man to do? Fight.

            The fight club members are characterized as “a generation of men raised by women” (50). A group of guys with no redeeming male qualities; these are men whose lives have been immersed with femininity and have forgotten or do not know how to be men. The author explains in his writing that masculinity is not defined by possessions or looks. It is the mental toughness shown through the people who come to fight club in order to get their faces beaten just to be able to come back the following week and do it again.

Fight Club Passage 11/6

                The passage starts off explaining Tyler’s goal for Project Mayhem. He expresses that he does not really care whether or not anyone gets hurt, as this is not about who lives and who dies, but being a part of history. It quickly translates to the narrator and how much he has changed from the beginning of the story. Now, he is bashing people’s faces in and has changed so much, that even Tyler mentions him looking “like a Psycho-boy.” The narrator expresses that Fight Club does not seem to be working its magic on him anymore and that the fight he was truly searching for, is to destroy all the beautiful things the narrator never had.

                Project Mayhem is “a cultural ice age.” It is a leveling of all people to a common ground. When I read this passage, I think of extremist groups that have the intensions of destroying all that is wrong with the world through acts of violence. An example of this would be the extremist Islamic terrorists who used various attacks in order to express how they viewed the corruption of the world. It was not about dying for them, but making a statement and being the change.

11/4 assignment

“Her arms squeezed tight against her sides, and my lips pressed against her ear, I’ll say, Marla, you big fake, you get out.

            This is the one real thing in my life, and you’re wrecking it.

            You big tourist.

            The next time we meet, I’ll say, Marla, I can’t sleep with you here. I need this. Get out.” (24).

            In this short passage, the reader sees how important the meetings are to him as he imagines squeezing her by her sides and tells Marla to get out. The meetings are the only thing that the narrator has that keep him alive, essentially. Without them, he cannot sleep, and as the narrator expresses earlier, without sleep, he is neither awake nor asleep. He is simply existing and never living. With someone else knowing he is a fake, he is unable to cry and let go of life and reality. He is unable to experience weakness and sleep like a baby. Marla is his problem because as long as she exists, he does not. Marla is the narrator’s real parasite, coincidentally, and is slowly driving him insane, as shown through when he talks to himself

Gattica Response

                Gattica is set up in a not-too-distant future in a place where humans can genetically modify and alter their eggs and sperm in order to create the most genetically superior child. In this future, it is more common for parents to do these as opposed to natural “God children.” The genetically modified humans are called “valids” and the god-children are called “invalids.” Eventually, the valids become the superior race in which they are able to accomplish everything and anything since they have ideally nothing wrong with them.

                In the story, the main character, Vincent, has always dreamt of being an astronaut, but in this time, doctors can tell everything about someone through a blood test. Not only is Vincent an invalid god-child, but also has a heart defect that sets him as the lowest of the lows. Vincent decides to trade places and switch realities with a valid person in order to accomplish his one dream of becoming an astronaut. In this story, there lies the question of how far can we go before we start playing God and what truly makes a human a human?

Annotated Bib

Joey Molnar

Mr. Cheatle

English 112

15 October 2013

Annotated Bibliography

Atwood, Margaret. “An Interview with Margaret Atwood.” Interview by Karla Hammond.The American Poetry Review Oct. 1979: 27-29. JSTOR. Web. 15 Oct. 2013.

            This interview is between Karla Hammond and Margaret Atwood. The two discuss many things throughout this interview but I am focusing on pages 27-29. Through these pages, the two discuss about Atwood’s religious beliefs and an in depth explanation of what Atwood really believes in. This source is very helpful to me since I am focusing mainly on Atwood’s religious beliefs and how they correlate to the text of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Macpherson, Heidi Slettedahl. The Cambridge Introduction to Margaret Atwood. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010. Print.

This source is a biography about Margaret Atwood and her importance and significance of her writing. It really focuses in on her criticism from the 1970s through the 1990s. Mainly, the book is written about her feminist writing and her early life. This source will be helpful understanding who Atwood is and where she came from. However, it will not help me understand her religious beliefs and how those tie in to the strong religious theme in The Handmaid’s Tale.

 

Ruiz Austria, Carolina. “The Church, the State and Women’s Bodies in the Context of Religious Fundamentalism in the Philippines.” Reproductive Health Matters 12.24 (2004): 96-103. JSTOR. Web. 15 Oct. 2013.

            This source looks at the power of the church and the state and what happens when both are taken advantage of to control or rule women. This source will be extremely helpful to me as it is a lot of what The Handmaid’s Tale was about. It explains and gives examples of many comparable things in the novel to things happening in the Philippines. I think that this source will give me a very good understanding of where Margaret Atwood was coming from in her protest against church and state.

            For my paper, I plan on looking at Margaret Atwood’s early life and focusing in on her religious beliefs. Once getting an understanding for her beliefs and where she stands I plan on analyzing The Handmaid’s Tale and seeing where religion affects the women in the society. Using knowledge I gained from my sources, I want to compare the actions and things taken place in the novel to the real world and things that have actually happened, making the story seem a lot less far-fetched.

Thompson, Graham. American Culture in the 1980s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2007. Print.

            This source gives me an insight on what was going on during the 1980’s in America. The book tells me everything from pop culture to world leaders. This source will help me in my paper by giving me an understanding of the time period The Handmaid’s Tale was written and what was going on at the time. However, as for religion, it will not be able to help me out that much. 

mla

Working with MLA

For each of the following entries, identify what the source is (online article, book, newspaper, etc.) and create a Works Cited entry using MLA style. Below each entry, also show how the source would look within parenthetical (in-text) citation. Note that each example is out of order.

 

Title: Curing the Crisis: Options for America’s Health Care

City: Boulder

Year: 1992

Author: Michael D. Reagan

Publisher: Westview Press

 

1.)  Reagan, Michael D. Curing the Crisis: Options for America’s Health Care. Boulder: Westview Press, 1992. Book.

2.)  “…” (Reagan 18).

Article Title: Nonfamily Living and the Erosion of Traditional Family Orientations Among

Young Adults

Author: Linda J. Waite, Frances Kobrin Goldscheider and Christina Witsberger

Pages: 541-554

Date: 1986

Volume: 51

Number: 10

Journal: American Sociological Review

 

1.)    Waite, Linda, Frances Kobrin Goldscheider, and Christina Witsberger. “Nonfamily Living and the Erosion of Traditional Family Orientations Among Young Adults.” American Sociological Review 51.10 (1986): 541-554. Print

2.)  “..” (Waite, Goldscheider, and Witsberger 542).

 

Editors: Richard Ekman and Richard E. Quandt

City: Berkeley

Author: Janet H. Fisher

Year: 1999

Pages: 95-101

Title of article: Comparing Electronic Journals to Print Journals: Are There Savings?

Press: University of California Press

Journal: Technology and Scholarly Communication

 

1.)  Fisher, Janet H. “Comparing Electronic Journals: Are There Savings?” Ed. Richard Ekman and Richard E. Quandt. Technology and Scholarly Communication (1999): 95-101. Print.

2.)  “…” (Fisher 96).

 

Article Title: Blue Shark May Be on Road to Recovery

Author: Jan Ten Bruggencate.

Newspaper: Honolulu Advertiser

Accessed: November 6, 2000

Article Published: June 18, 2000

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/2000/Jun/18/localnews18.html

1.)  Bruggencate, Jan Ten. “Blue Shark May Be on Road to Recovery.” Honolulu Advertiser. N.p., 18 June 2000. Web. 6 Nov. 2000. <http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/2000/Jun/18/localnews18.html&gt;.

2.)  “…” (Bruggencate).

 

Date of Interview: October 10, 2003

Interviewee: Carmen Elliott

Type: Personal Interview

 

1.)  Elliot, Carmen. Personal interview. 10 Oct. 2003.

2.)  “…” (Elliot).

Creator: Mark Harden

Institution or Organization: The Archive

Access: November 6, 2000

Webpage Title: Picasso the Legend

From http://www.artchive.com/artchive/P/picasso_postww2.html

1.)  Harden, Mark. “Picasso the Legend.” The Archive. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2000. <http://www.artchive.com/artchive/P/picasso_postww2.html&gt;.

2.)  “…” (Harden).

10/7 Assignment

In Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, there are many hidden themes and meanings throughout the story. The government’s strategies for complete control typical have an underlying meaning as a nudge to the world’s problems today or a warning shot to the readers. Atwood uses women and women’s body as a tool for sexual reproduction for the Gilead society. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood uses sexism towards women in order for Gilead’s politics to function.

            Throughout the story, it is obvious that women are mistreated and are not equal to the men of the society in anyway. Women are decided at birth what their job will be and they have no say later in life. Only the handmaids of the story are allowed to reproduce. However, these handmaids do not even have the choice of when, where, or with who they may procreate with. Reproduction in this society is centered around a rape-like acceptance in which there is little to no pleasure or desire to mate. The main character Offred cannot simply accept it and all she is told is that “it will become ordinary” (33).

            Offred and all the women have no rights, they cannot read, they are lesser than men, and they cannot speak up for themselves. Offred “used to think of [her] body as an instrument” but now her body is nothing but an object of the structure of society. Offred, as well as the women of Gilead’s society are used as a way to earn dominance and political power. With women disrespected so badly and shoved aside, the men have the ability to do whatever they want. Although, there are some rules for the men of the society, multiple times throughout the story they break them with no real consequences. Gilead dehumanizes women as a whole to just a set of ovaries. Ovaries needed for reproduction because of their recent lower birth rates. Offred views herself as nothing but a lump of flesh surrounding a womb. 

Historical Notes

            After reading “The Historical Notes” or The Handmaid’s Tale, I gave the society of Gilead a second look. I mainly focused on the justification of the horrendous acts that took place in the society. After learning that birthrates were dropping due to things like abortions sexually transmitted diseases, it would make sense for the government to do something. However, the way they went about things I do not view this as justifiable or the correct way to fix society. I think it was smart to try to influence or persuade the “clean” women to reproduce but just because one’s society is not reproducing does not give them right for a full out rape scene with no consequences. I believe that Gilead was in suffering through desperate times and as the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. However, how far is too far is my question.

            If society wants to change who draws the line of that change being “too far?” Better yet, what even is “too far?” At one point, somebody has to step in and say enough is enough but as history shows, that rarely happens in cases such as Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein. What those people did as well as the society of Gilead is use religion as a weapon. Me being a religious man, I firmly believe that the state should always remain separated from the Church or any religion as a matter of fact. One reason and the most basic is that nobody truly knows what religion is right and what religion is wrong, all one has is their faith. So who gives those people the right to shove a religion down a population of people’s throats and tell them this is right. Better yet, Gilead picked apart the Bible and twisted and used passages that could be used to further prove their points and goals. Not only in the historical context but throughout the entire story are examples and passages from the Bible involving women and reproduction. The Commanders and society as a whole all took those passages literally and made them sound like they were advocating for their beliefs.