A Literary Essay Example: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Fight club is a novel whose plot tends to follow the unnamed protagonist experiences who has insomnia problems. The novel mainly is about an anonymous narrator who usually works for a car company that is unnamed. The recurring insomnia was caused by stress that he encountered in his workplace that was contributed by the several business trips he made. Our narrator never discloses his name to the extent while attending support groups he gives out a name that is fake. Tyler, on the other hand, can appear or disappear at will. The narrator works for a day job, unlike Tylor who works at night. Tyler would prevail in our society. Tyler moves throughout life with a lot of confidence, smart, charismatic and accurately to the extent the Narrator wishes he was him.

Tyler portrays the character of being a father figure in the process of reclaiming his masculinity. It is because he feels that being brought up by his mother made him feel he did not have enough male characteristics required in life to teach him on how to be a real man. Tyler takes the men in the Fight Club under his wing and helps them gain a sense of purpose and also the feeling of belonging that they were looking for. It makes him be the character in a position of prevailing in the society since the society wants people who can help others achieve their dreams and make what they desire which is portrayed by Tyler when he guides the men who come to the Fight Club. Tyler makes the Fight Club be a place where the men can reclaim their masculinity back and have more hope to discover who they are. It is in contrast to the Narrator who fears to be part of creating the Fight Club and lets Tyler to take care of it alone. The Narrator wants to destroy the beautiful things that have already been made he cant get anything good out of himself to the extent he is not in a position of cooking his food (5.64).This makes him not to prevail in the modern society which requires an individual who is aggressive and all round in that he can perform a variety of tasks.

For one to emerge victorious in the current society that we are living in a person must have a fear of God. We find Tylers claim that the anger of God is greater than his indifference. Tyler challenges the status quo that was never with his parents. It can be associated with the modern man in our society who is fighting heavily to be recognized with a particular status quo.

In the society that we are currently living in an individual should be in a position of identifying and knowing who he/she is and what he/she wants in life to earn the respect of the people. The status of a person contributes significantly towards defining who a person is. When the Narrator is not given an appropriate name, Palahniuk makes him appear just like an ordinary person and be like any other person in the society.

Tyler is an individual who wants to maintain healthy relationships with his friends the moment he realizes that his relationship with the Narrator will be ruined if he continued having an affair with Marla he goes ahead and seeks to remove Marla from their lives. Tyler is loyal to his friend the Narrator. On the other hand when the Narrator is forced to choose the person he values most between Marla and Tyler he chooses Marla this shows his degree of disloyalty. For one to be in a position of prevailing in the society that we are living in one should always be loyal to his people since infidelity results to the downfall of an individual.

The narrator can be considered to be a pretender. When he attends the support groups, he tends to pretend that he is also suffering from terrible conditions and diseases. He does this to seek the attention of the people so as people could listen to him he is not in a position to be aggressive to have the people listen to him. It is evident when he says that people will give a person full attention when they think that one is dying (14.1).He does not mean what he says; the Narrator does not mean he wants to die despite him constantly saying that. It limits him to his happiness as it turns out to be a weakness. He is a jealous individual, and hence this hinders him from being a successful person in the society. In the story, we see that the Narrator becomes jealous after Tyler and Marla turn out to be regular sex partners. One cannot be victorious when lazy and always complaining. The Narrator contributes to his misery since he is consistently complaining about his boss and job. Instead of looking for a solution to his problems to avoid such complaints such as looking for a new job that would cater for his needs without all the complaints he decides to continue working in the same company. According to the Narrator, he believes that people have to work in the jobs that they dont like so that they can buy what they dont require to have (19.16).It shows that he is not ready to help himself and hence cant be in a position to help others and this makes him a failure. The current society we are living in one cannot be victorious and be in a position to counter his opposing forces with attributes of laziness.

In conclusion, for one to be in a position to prevail in our society, he/she should have qualities that are extraordinary as compared to those of other individuals. Tyler is in a position of proving to be stronger than his opposing forces making him victorious due to his desirable character. Tyler is determined, confident, smart, loyal and charismatic in his actions. He is ready to help other people.

Works Cited

Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club: A Novel. 2015.