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.
molnarja 