Fight Club Identity Analysis

Fight Club: An Exploration of Identity Our society is full of people who have an inner desire to be perceived differently from how the world perceives them. David Fincher’s Fight Club portrays the struggle of identity and perception through the narrator’s character, who, ironically, is never assigned a name throughout the film. The narrator undergoes a shift from initially having a complete disconnection from the real world to adopting a second identity or alter-ego (“Tyler Durden”) that allows the narrator to live life the way he wishes he could live it. Both identities are part of the narrator himself: one adheres to society’s prerequisites while the other blatantly disobeys and rebels against society’s prerequisites; specifically, the latter …show more content…
Although the narrator actively partakes in many of Tyler’s schemes and ideas, there is a part of him that feels guilt which is derived from his associations with society. As the actual “Fight Club” is created, the group of men receives several “homework assignments,” most of which are intended to be a defiance of society. For example, two members are directed to destroy a modern coffee shop along with a contemporary piece of artwork. Case in point, Tyler and the narrator, both present, wind up at a convenience store less than halfway through the film for one of these homework assignments. During this particular scene, Tyler pulls out a gun and proceeds to terrorize the store clerk by pointing the gun to the clerk’s head and forcing him to swear to begin a pursuit of his desired career as a veterinarian, all of which the narrator watches as he stands behind Tyler. Throughout Tyler’s intense interaction with the store clerk, the narrator seems apprehensive and tells Tyler to stop, but does not actively interfere in the situation. It is almost as if the narrator plays the “good cop” at this moment, trying to help out the clerk by worriedly suggesting the clerk tell Tyler his name. The hesitation and angst seen in the narrator during this moment represent the emergence of the narrator’s …show more content…
The narrator continues to hold on to a minimal attachment to the perceptions of society while Tyler, a mutated projection of the narrator himself, is unconcerned with anything having to do with society. As the narrator begins to register more pressures of the commercial world manifesting themselves in the functionality of his daily life, he attempts to move away from the ways in which society has shaped him. Commencing with blowing up his superficial apartment and concluding with the “killing” of his dual identity, the narrator experiences an unconscious voyage in reconstructing his identity by developing part of himself through Tyler. Eventually, the narrator is able to understand the imbalance among the three aspects of his persona, or the id, super-ego, and ego, and finally makes an effort to correct the errors of his aggression, or id, that arose from the