Angelica Maye L.

Yap-eo
March 27, 2015
SOC SCI 1 X (Psych)
Fight Club
Edward Norton plays an unnamed narrator in the movie Fight Club. The narrator
suffers from insomnia in the beginning and finds ways to rid himself of the situation by
going to the doctor, who refused to give him medication, and attending various support
groups. For a while, the support groups helped him it as they made him perceive that
other people are feeling worse than he is. The people in support groups would allow him
to cry as they listen to him. However, when Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter)
began appearing in his support groups he no longer felt the same. In reference to the
narrators quote in the beginning: With insomnia, nothings real. Everythings a copy of
a copy of a copy, various clues gave an idea that something deeper is happening to the
narrator.
With Marla Singers entrance, he saw himself in her as she was also faking being
a dying person. It made him uneasy because it gave him a realization of what he was: a
sad fellow with no substance who was using other peoples anguish to help his own
anguish. Unable to cope with himself and his lack of self-esteem, the narrator
developed a Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). The narrator began waking up at a
different time and place multiple times, blacking out the events that happened in
between sleeping and waking up. This is when he encounters Tyler Durden, the alter
ego that appeared whom he perceives as an entirely different person. He interacts with
him like two people would interact with each other when in fact; he is interacting with
himself, physically. In Tyler Durdens own words, I look like you want to look, I fuck like
you want to fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in every way that
you are not, the reason behind the narrators development of DID is revealed. The
narrator was a man with no self-esteem or drive. He simply felt that he had nothing or
he was nothing. That is why he attends various support groups and involved himself in
collecting valuable furniture and other material things as they gave him a sense of
pride in himself. But with Tyler, he was able to establish Fight Club and Project
Mayhem, violences which he regressed into.
As the film progresses, the narrator is given cues that he is Tyler Durden. He
visits places where Tyler Durden went and found that the people recognize him as Tyler.
He confronts Tyler and comes to terms with reality, shooting himself in the mouth to
eliminate his alter ego because he no longer needed him and was in control of his own
self.