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Popular Culture Review
Promises Broken: Symbolic Convergence and Fantasy Types
The initial interaction between Tyler and Jack functions on an
interpersonal level, but it is also here that tiie guiding themes of Fight Club
emerge. The most important theme rests in the relationships that Tyler and Jack
have with their fathers, or more correctly, the lack thereof They establish early
in the film that neither of them had close relationships with their father, creating
tension; a lack of respect juxtaposed against a need to have them in their lives
thereby provides the basis for two scenarios of symbolic convergence. The first
scenario is based on the idea that there is no tr ue male role model in either of
their lives. Even the role model that Tyler seeks in his father is prone to one-line
statements of advice such as “get a job” and “get married” (Fincher). The second
convergence which takes place is that, historically, the solution to men’s
problems has been found through success in their jobs or family rather than
defining themselves as men and individuals. Bodi of these fantasy types
represent implicit promises broken by their fathers in that society creates the
assumption that a family should exist with support from both parents. Because
Tyler and Jack’s fathers are relatively absent in their lives, they are denied the
fulfillment of that promise.
A second promise to men that is broken deals with the angst associated
with traversing the change between childhood freedom and entry into the adult
workforce. From Tyler’s perspective, the tenets of the “Great American Dream”
suggest “that one day we’ll all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars”
(Fincher). But as Tyler points out, these stories told through mass media and in
the history lessons taught to schoolchildren are not true. These “gray collar”
(Redd) workers are stuck in an unsettling middle ground between traditional
blue-collar labor and white-collar management.
In addition to this, there is no defining moment of adversity when
compared to men who lived during the Great Depression and two World Wars.
Tyler theorizes, “We are the middle children of history, man. No purpose or
place. We have no great war, no great depression. Our great war is a spiritual
war. Our great depression is our lives” (Fincher). The violence of Fight Club
then acts as a means for men to defrne themselves in absentia of the type of
workplace that had embraced them in the past.
Even without such a workplace, Tyler seeks to show the men involved
in Fight Club (and, later, Prctjeet Mayhem) that they should not wait to
accomplish their life’s goals, but rather should live every day thinking that they
are going to die. In Tyler’s example of a “human sacrifice” he demonstrates this
belief by challenging a convenience shop attendant to choose between going
back to veterinary school or being killed. Afterwards, Tyler concludes,
“Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day in Raymond K. Hessel’s life. His
breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted” (Fincher).
The final broken promise deals with the original identities of Fight
Club members, which are so dominated by societal norms and commercial