Becoming the Monster You Fight: Fight Club and Nietzsche’s Abyss

​The struggle of a mind numbed by the modern system against a monster of its own creation.

​(SPOILER ALERT)

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​Before watching the movie, I thought it would just be another ordinary action film filled with typical chases and escapes. Still, since I enjoy that genre, I was excited. We began our journey by watching the Narrator’s life and how he tried to cope with his mundane, sleepless days. He sought temporary solutions by buying the finest clothes and furniture from the IKEA catalog, and by attending support groups to listen to people’s struggles and weep with them. Thanks to this, he had finally managed to establish a sleep routine.

​Then, Marla entered the center of his life. He knew she had no real connection to those support groups and that she was just acting, which is why she made him uncomfortable. It was probably because she carried the traces of real life and sincerity — things he constantly avoided facing — or perhaps because she came there just for show, just like him. This discomfort caused his insomnia to return.

​Next, we witness the Narrator’s business trips. There was a very beautiful line he used for the people he met during these journeys: “Single-serving friends.” During one of these trips, he meets Tyler, who makes soap and home-made dynamite. Tyler is the exact opposite character of him. Tyler opposed capitalism and how people lived like slaves, completely disconnected from their true selves and bound only to consumption. In fact, he believed that the white-collar system destroyed our primitive, traditional side — our masculinity and marginality. Since neither Tyler nor the Narrator had a father, Tyler said, “We’re a generation of men raised by women.” In other words, he believed that the sense of masculinity did not reflect upon us in the modern world.

​Tyler and the Narrator got along exceptionally well and founded “Fight Club.” Their goal was to resurface the feelings that the capitalist system had suppressed in people. Over time, Tyler began using this club as a tool for his own ideology. His idea was this: to damage large corporations and famous companies using a homogenized army of unquestioning people (Project Mayhem Soldiers) — the very type of conformist system he initially criticized.

​This rebellion of Tyler’s is in great harmony with Nietzsche’s philosophy. A quote by Nietzsche perfectly reflects Tyler:

​“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”

​The Narrator realized way too late that Tyler was actually himself. From this delayed realization, we understand just how much the system numbs the human soul and alienates a person from themselves. The most important lesson I took from this movie is that the director is telling us: “Neither live in extremes like Tyler by completely rejecting the modern system, nor lose yourself and give up because of the system.”

​I shuddered during the final scene. Instead of shooting Tyler, the Narrator shot himself, effectively shooting his own helpless, coward self that was desperately searching for a way to exist. Tyler was already feeding on that fear and insecurity; the Narrator destroyed him by shooting himself. Yet, the system Tyler left behind, established in every state, continued to operate anyway. This was deeply painful.

Thank you for reading!

S.KAÇMAZ