Fight Club Identity Analysis

In the movie Fight Club you see the main character played by Edward Norton comes to understand his true identity. Instead of taking responsibility and control of his own dull life, Norton allows his subconscious to create an identity to live the way he can’t and that is where we get Tyler Durden. Norton the narrator unconsciously conformed to societies idea of the modern man trying to fill the void that he felt inside. As Tyler Durden, the main character is able to deny his lackluster self, and is able to begin to live his life as the uninhibited influential man that he desires to be.
The fact that the main character comes to us without a name is not done by accident; it shows that the character can be identified as anyone. In this particular …show more content…
The audience doesn’t see it nor does the narrator Edward Norton realize it; whether its Marla asking Tyler who he is talking to, or when Edward Norton says that sometimes Durden speaks for him. The first real hint the audience can really pick up on is when Marla shows up to the house and Norton tells her “he’s not here, he’s gone” referring to Durden, and it blows her mind. Norton does not begin to see that he has created an alternate identity until he starts looking for Durden in hope for answers.
The movie shows how the Generation X males have been weakened by the new societal norm, by a softened culture that places more worth on emotional and materialistic possessions than values like strength and drive. The fight club does not represent a solution to Norton’s personal issues, but instead is an outlet for anger and means to reaching a rebirth into his alter ego Durden. The fighting itself reminds the men that they are alive. The fight clubs essentially become a therapy for the men that participated in it, a therapy for those men that were living a life, which they felt, had no real …show more content…
In today’s society our culture tends to suppress that characteristic, but under the right conditions that deeply rooted aggression can be controlled to achieve a positive result. However, in order for this result to be a positive one, one must realize that society has taught us to believe that the aggression we have inside of us is not necessarily the best way to take on the world which we live in.
Many would find it easy to misinterpret the title Fight Club. While it is easy at first glance to assume the movie has nothing more than grown men fighting each other in, we come to realize that Norton created is own therapy in the form of the fight club. The Fight Club was about releasing himself from the restraints of his ordinary life, which he felt imprisoned and weakened by. The members of the fight clubs found their release, and sense of self worth through the giving and receiving of pain in order to finally feel