The Search for Male Identity within Modern Society
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accomplishment which neither their fathers nor God could master, he is
assuming the role of both God and father to the members.
The idolization of Tyler that comes with the creation of Fight Club
allows a second rhetorical vision to develop specific to Tyler’s worldview and
Project Mayhem’s role in creation of his “new world.” Beginning with
homework assigned to Fight Club members as a means to cause social disorder,
Tyler’s attempt to “hit rock-bottom” (Fincher) is first implemented on a level
outside of Fight Club. Tyler’s ultimate vision is not revealed to either Jack or the
audience until after the “near-life experience” (Fincher) Jack has from the car
accident. Sitting next to Jack’s bed, Tyler describes a world “de-developed”
from its current emphasis on consumerism and day-to-day living and instead
replaced with a hunter-gatherer society in which:
You’re stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around
the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You will wear leather clothes
that last you the rest of your life. You will climb the wristthick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. You will see tiny
figures pounding com and laying strips of venison on the
empty car pool lane of the mins of a superhighway. (Fincher)
In order to implement his worldview, Tyler uses Project Mayhem’s activities to
create chaos, the epitome of which is the destmction of key financial buildings
to bring society “one step closer to economic equilibrium” (Fincher).
The final promise kept which is evident in the film is the process of
self-identification through collectivism that both Fight Club and Project
Mayhem perpetuate. As the symbolic convergence of the group points out, a
demasculinization of men essentially denies their identity as men, which is
central to Fight Club’s philosophy. First, the emphasis on violence serves as a
way to prove the worth of an individual within the community. Jack points out
that individuals who have failed at their jobs could still succeed in a world in
which male characteristics such as violence were embraced. It is because “ . . .
violence seems to organize itself around identity” (Chodorow 244) that Fight
Club is so much more effective in alleviating the hardships that men face in thenlives than the more feminine system’s support groups. Violence becomes a selfdefense mechanism for men to fend off the problems of the outside world
without resorting to even more emasculating activities.
Similarly, sexuality becomes a means for men to enforce their
domination over others. Project Mayhem embraces this tactic of sexual
domination in the way they deal with opponents of their organization, such as
the chief of police and eventually Jack, both of whom are threatened with
castration as a means of taking away their political viability.
The final specific instance of creating an individual identity comes
when a character named Bob is killed during a Project Mayhem assignment.