Wednesday, March 5, 2008

More Fights

Here are some more options:

1.) What is the human sacrifice that Tyler starts performing?

2.) Is our narrator's name really Tyler Durden?

Talk amongst yourselves....

8 comments:

Elizabeth Gearreald said...

I'll answer number 2 today.

Our narrator is not Tyler Durden. Every day more and more, he is "becoming Tyler Durden", but he is not Tyler. The reason for having two different representations of the same being, however, Tyler and the narrator are not shown as being the same until the narrator realizes that his body was being used by Tyler. The Narrator is asleep when Tyler is awake. This relates very nicely back to the quote in the beginning; "if you could wake up in a different time and a different place, could you wake up as a different person?" The narrator has a clearly defined personality. He is one of those who leads a corporate life and buys Swedish furniture. Tyler is the opposite, and is who the narrator wants to be. You can not become what you already are. The Narrator is becoming a different person, and that person is Tyler. "It's called a change over. The movie goes on and the audience has no idea". The part of the main character that is the narrator is not the same person as Tyler. While he is Tyler, we do not get any narration, and we find out about Tyler from the Narrator. Nothing is through Tyler's eyes. Just the Narrators. I don't want to spoil the end, but what Tyler said was right, the narrator is becoming Tyler Durden. But right now, they are two separate people.

Hwinebaum said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hwinebaum said...

Tyler Durden is able to convince the members of Fight Club to take it a step further through Project Mayhem. This is where the human sacrifice begins. Tyler controlled these men as if they were puppets in his freak show. The men came alive when Tyler stepped into their lives. It wasn’t just about the tedious job, designer furniture and clothing anymore, Tyler gave them something to be passionate about. He created Fight Club as an opportunity to let out some aggression and to show emotion. Tyler’s role as leader enabled him to manipulate them anyway he liked.

Project Mayhem turns from seemingly harmless, almost comical, pranks to fatal acts of vandalism. Tyler’s weekly assignments instructed the members to take their position in Fight Club to an entirely different level. Stores are blown up and property destroyed, there is chaos as they cause damage around the City. In one deadly case, Robert Paulson is shot and killed in a late night excursion commanded by Tyler. The narrator struggles to cope with Robert’s death as the members of Project Mayhem robotically chant, “his name is Robert Paulson” over and over again. These brainwashed men are following the rules of Project Mayhem; only in death do members have a name. By this point, Tyler has gained so much control over his followers that he was able to completely strip them of their identity.

Tyler starts Fight Club with ulterior motives, knowing that he would be able to obtain the complete devotion of its members. He knew exactly what strings to tug at and when. Tyler reaches out to ordinary men and points out what has power over them; their jobs and material possessions. He urges them to take control of their own lives. Tyler is the one to give the members life again and ironically, brainwashes and them kills all over again through his manipulation of their minds.

Unknown said...

Here is number 2:

So I left class today after the hotel scene with Tyler completely shocked. I was not shocked because I did not understand or believe what was going on, I was shocked because of how entirely possible this could be. I have been viewing these two characters as completely separate individuals and at times even contrasting the two. Especially with the beginnings of Project Mayhem appearing, I was starting to think that our narrator might just walk away from the entire idea of the club for good. I am not confirming this statement completely yet, but I believe that it is very probable that Tyler Durden could be our narrator.

Just think about it, there are people all around you everyday that you find yourself saying "wow, I wish I could be more like _______ because of _______". It is driven by a desire and a craving whether it be for better hockey skills, personal qualities, or lifestyle traits. I confess that I do it sometimes, but I know that I am not the only one. Regardless of how comfortable you are with yourself, there will always be that feeling because there is no such thing as human perfection. You can always find some quality or image that is better. Our narrator is not a perfect man and he knows this. He has more flaws and more emptiness than your average human being, so it is no suprise that this could happen.

Tyler Durden is a reflection of everything that our narrator desires to be. If Tyler Durden is real, then our narrator has transposed these ideal traits and qualities to fit into his own personality. It is as if our narrator has brought this dream to life, which is ironic because apparently he runs most of the Project Mayhem operations at times when he believes that he is sleeping. When the film cut to flashbacks of times that our narrator thought that someone was with him, it made the whole idea so real to me. Especially with the office scene involving his boss just a few minutes prior to this. He beat up himself, it was as if someone else was hitting him and hurting him, possibly Tyler. So he possesses two identities now, the daytime identity of what he knows as himself and the night time and fight time identity of Tyler Durden.

If Tyler was part of the narrator, him leaving means that our narrators heart is not in Fight Club and Project Mayhem anymore. If Tyler Durden is part of our narrator, his love-hate relationship with Marla is very out of control. There are things in Tyler's personality that the narrator seems to love, but other things that he seems to be afraid of. So if our narrator really contains pieces of Tyler it suggests that he may not be as stable and as happy as he believed that he was. I would say that as of right now in the movie, I believe that our narrator contains the character of Tyler Durden within himself. Maybe this also means that our narrator is going to face a large identity crisis before the end of the film in which he has to choose between Fight Club and his old life.

kedkins said...

Sacrifice is a kind of surrendering. It’s a giving up of something valuable to a force you see as bigger than you. It’s a story almost as old as man and widely accepted. Tyler Durden frightens men literally to the edge of death in order to force themselves to sacrifice the walls they have created, the walls that define their ultimate comfort zone.

We do it all the time. We put the lives we always planned to lie on hold. We accept becoming shadows of what we planned because we’re afraid of failure. Sadly, it’s human nature. Tyler Durden sacrifices that weak human part of the people he chooses. It’s as if people have two parts, the part they wish they lived and the kind they’re not afraid to live and can live easily. When Tyler points a gun at your face, he is asking you to make a choice: either sacrifice your entire self or the part you never wanted in the first place. Surprisingly, many people probably see this as a horribly difficult decision.

The weaker part of ourselves usually wins out. It’s ironic, actually, but it’s true. We run into a few walls and start to fear that that is all we’ll ever do. So we stop, give up, and fall into an easy pattern. Before his first fight with the narrator, when asking for a punch, Tyler explains that he “doesn’t want to die without any scars.” He believes that a life where boundaries aren’t pushed and tested is one that people shouldn’t deserve to live. With the barrel of his gun at the back of someone’s head, he forces them to forego their weak self and remember how to fight. Tyler knows what it will take someone to change and take charge of their life, and I think a lot of us do. But Tyler is brave enough to hold a gun to someone’s head. He forces his people to choose between fear and death, forces his people to sacrifice a life they never wanted to lead for the one they dreamed about. Funny, how Tyler is the one holding the gun but the people at the other end of the barrel seem to be the ones who have committed the worst crime.

Unknown said...

number 2:

no, our narrator's name was not originally tyler durden. however, towards the later part of the movie it is no doubt our narrator's identity as evolved. tyler has always talked about how you must completely break yourself down in order to obtain a sort of salvation. our narrator has done this. He's brought himself down to nothing and when he reached his bottom, had nothing of his original identity left, he found himself as Tyler Durden. I think Tyler has always been what our narrator had wanted. He's everything that his old life wasn't: exciting, rebellious, confident, masculine. He's the narrator's dream. That being said, I do not think the narrator entirely changed into this Tyler Durden on purpose or on his own will. It was definitely a forced change. This is what happens when you've lost everything, a natural, unstoppable evolution. You become what you've always wanted to be, you stand up against the things you hate, society's rules. You break out of the brainwashed cage your mind has become and evolve into your true self. The question is, though, is this always a good thing? Has our narrator taken this too far, lost himself entirely, every trace of his old existence? I think the answer towards the end of this film is obviously yes.

Laine said...

I'm making my own topic. The hero question, I'm sorry I articulated it in such a sloppy and rude manner today. I am so bad at expressing my hatred of the term sacrifice that my insufficiency angers me, let me try a little harder to explain.

First to articulate my fear of the reverence of sacrifice I will jump to the over glamorized extreme. The case of the martyr. The religious martyrs whom we have read of, kill themselves rather than give forsake the church or disgrace their beliefs, or simply to make the soldiers, who are running to kill him inside the church, feel very unsatisfied. In any of these cases we would wholeheartedly support the man for standing up for his beliefs and 'sacrificing' his life. The case of sacrifice suggests that it is an unselfish act, something that he has no desire to do. I will tell you that every martyr wants to do it, every martyr would rather die valiantly for their cause, knowing themselves to be honored, and indeed receiving praise in their afterlife, rather than to live knowing themselves that they are a coward and having others know of their failure of principles. However either case brings the man to sacrifice, the man who dies sacrifices life for the thing he liked more, selfishly choosing what they preferred. The man who chooses life, decides upon life as more valuable than beliefs and honor, and he sacrifices those lesser wants.

If our martyr actually sacrificed, actually did something unselfish that would make him the second man, the man who lived, but with a different ending, the man would prefer life but choose death, for no rhyme or reason. This is unimaginable, we would find this 'fake' sacrifice to be selfish in some way, we would search for his motive. If we did not find one we would deem him insane and incomprehensible. An unselfish act implies absolutely no wants being fulfilled, especially not the highest want, this would mean a man would come to the fullest conclusion of his logic and teachings as to what the right and morally good feeling thing to do would be, and doing absolutely the opposite, for no reason. These kinds of actions, the actual unselfish actions, are usually the things we call evil, because we do not understand them.

Just as sacrifice is a twisted concept, so is heroism. The cookie cutter definition states that a hero "in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self-sacrifice, that is, heroism, for some greater good, originally of martial courage or excellence but extended to more general moral excellence." Courage is simply power, impressive but neutral in essence and acquires the good or bad stamp based on application and audience. A terrorist bomber fully believes that he is sacrificing courageously for the greater good. Each statement is in someway bull, he is not sacrificing, he fully believes in his platter of willing virgins in most cases, and most on this side of the globe would say that he is destroying the greater good.

Hitler also may have been deemed a great man if we had a different view of the greator good. He rose from nothing to leader of a country, overcame the adversity of a falling country, tore Germany out of a depression with zero inflation, and instilled national pride in everyone. He fully believe that killing the Jewish race was right, he would not have done such a thing had he believed it to be right. He thought himself to be the very pinnacle of righteousness, courage, sacrifice and heroism. Most would disagree.

In conclusion to the hero question :if someone must call someone a hero, a hero could only be an individual who strives against adversity or what not for purposes which agree with the observer. If someone kicks ass, and does it in a way which I agree with, yes indeed they are a hero. But if someone blast themselves or others into pieces for their imaginary friends, (i.e. God) they are no where near heroic in my eyes.

To establish some relevance, Fight Club, had no heroes, for there is no such thing as an absolute hero. Tyler Durden was brave and crude and overall rather intense and awesome, however he did not agree with some of my views and he went a bit overboard, being imaginary and all, I would not call him a hero. The narrator, simply because the story was crafted in a way to make the observer agree with and identify with him, is a hero. He worked toward something, overcoming his own insanity and bravely shot himself in the face, he did not shoot himself to defend his insanity but rather to overcome it.

Meg said...

I don't know if these blog prompts are okay to post on now, but I just wanted to write a little bit about something I wanted to say in class today but didn't get the chance to. It's about heroes and sacrifice.

I think I would disagree with the majority of people who said today in class that a hero is someone who sacrifices themselves for the greater good. Fight Club illustrates this point perhaps better than anything else we've read this quarter. "Planet Tyler" is all about sacrifice for the greater good -- sacrificing your name, your hair, your clothes, you possessions, even your genitals if necessary. And in the case of Bob, it comes down to sacrificing your life. All of these lead to a loss of identity within the mass of "decaying organic matter" of the "compost heap" of humanity. I understand that this is not what people are probably usually thinking of when they praise self-sacrifice, but this is it nonetheless. I personally would not call these minions of Project Mayhem heroes.

So then how should we define a hero? I am still not sure -- I think the whole tradition of classifying characters or people as heroes is only a small step away from worshipping people, so I personally tend to avoid the term hero (or villain, for that matter). Like we discussed while reading the Borges short story "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero," our definitions are too small; no one is completely either a hero or a traitor. One could perhaps classify certain actions as heroic, but that does not make a person a complete hero.

Now back to Fight Club. Who is the hero of the film? I really dislike this question, since as I stated earlier the whole idea of someone being a hero is frankly in my mind pretty bogus. Even when the narrator shoots himself, what most people would call a heroic moment, what exactly is it that makes it heroic? For the people who talked about "sacrifice for the common good," I'm not so sure this would apply. Yes, the narrator was willing to die, but it didn't prevent the demolition of the buildings that would shortly follow, and it certainly doesn’t put an end to Project Mayhem, which has now developed a life of its own.

In the end, I really don't have any answers. I guess the term hero just really frustrates me, because I don't understand A) how anyone can truly be a hero and B) why heroes are even necessary to begin with. We've spent a lot of time lately talking about self-actualizations and finding your own "center" -- it seems to me that people invent heroes as a way of copping out of finding themselves while the instead try to live their life in the fashion of those that they admire.