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Zak Miller
English 101
Keegan Norwood
18 November 2014
Tyler Durden Character Analysis
Persuasive, confident, intelligent, the ability to make quick critical decisions, these are all attributes everyone looks for in a leader and what can be seen in Tyler Durden is no different. When it comes to the character of Tyler Durden, there are many facets of his personality. Like a diamond Tyler is alluring, brilliant, he has luster, and character. The character of Tyler Durden truly defines the story of Chuck Palahniuk’s, Fight Club. All throughout Fight Club, every single character Tyler comes into contact with idolizes him. Why is he so alluring? What makes Tyler so attractive? His outlook on life, possibly. Tyler’s ultimate goal is to achieve self-actualization, where he is fully aware of who he is, and what purpose he serves in life. This draws on the significance that almost everyone wants to be self-actualizing, to realize one’s true potential, the pinnacle of what someone is meant to be.
It is interesting to see Tyler’s ability to analyze others, to see where they have potential, to know where they fit in. This is specifically seen in his ability to create binding relationships: taking each person and assigning them with one
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It has been shown that he is highly intelligent, easily trusted, great at building relationships, and very adventurous. But, he is very dangerous, self-destructive, and may not be entirely sane. However, the fact cannot be denied that Tyler’s personality has many faces, like that of a well-cut jewel. Throughout the story Tyler can be seen as almost sociopathic, having the façade of a highly intelligent man with his almost catalytic personality only open behind the scenes of normal society. As the story is read, we can see that the character of Tyler Durden was carefully constructed by the author, thus allowing him to truly become what this story is all about:
At first, The Monster is very kind and sympathetic. He has a good heart, as shown when he collected firewood for the family on the brink of poverty. Like every other human creation, he was not born a murderer. All the Monster wanted was to be accepted and loved by Victor Frankenstein and the other humans but instead he was judged by his appearance and considered to be dangerous. The Monster says, “like Adam, I was created apparently united by no link to any other being in existence…many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition; for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me” (page 105). This line is an important part of the novel because the Monster lets it be known how like Adam he was created into this world completely abandoned and like Satan he is angry with those people who have found contentment and satisfaction in their lives. The rejection and unwelcome feeling he is faced with, is the main reason the Monster becomes a killer. Watching another family show love towards each other made the Monster realize how alienated he truly was. He did not know how to deal with his pain and emotions so he murders as
In the current age of technology and capitalism, many people get caught up in trying to define their individuality with mass produced goods. In David Fincher's movie Fight Club, the narrator, who is commonly referred to as Jack, invents an alter ego to serve as a source of substance in the hallow world of corporate America. This alter ego, named Tyler Durden, is portrayed as a completely psychologically and physically separate being throughout the movie. The inherent polarity in personality between these two personas proves to be a crucial point of interaction between the two characters, and is the basis for most of the action in the movie. Thus, Fight Club depicts the necessity for a balance between the passive and aggressive aspects of the human psyche, which parallels the main theme and insights that are illustrated in Judith Cofer's "The Other."
In Fight Club case it is more like a dual personality kind of like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The gothic double would be our nameless narrator and Tyler Durden. Even from the very beginning of the story you realize that the unnamed Narrator is having a major identity crisis. You can see that he feels trapped in the ordinary, corporate world that he lives in. Such an identity crises is described as a very common cause of the appearance of a double. So because the Narrator feels trapped in his own life with no means of escape, he actually unconsciously creates a double which would be Tyler Durden. Tyler will help resurrect him. Tyler is a suppressed double, even though he is evident for the Narrator himself, who primarily sees Tyler as an entirely separate human being, unaware that Tyler is truly a part of his unconscious being projected into his consciousness. Though Tyler is rebellious and destructive, destroying things that are in the Narrator’s life to the Narrator’s initial dismay, the Narrator begins to start accepting these losses as a part of the procedure to becoming a new man. It is not until when Tyler grows too strong, and then Tyler starts to take complete control over the Narrator’s life, that the narrator finds the need to fight back against Tyler. The Narrator already questions his own mental stability, now adding such a psychological double could be a huge problem. Tyler does indeed begin to possess the Narrator and
In the Irish detective novel In the Woods by Tana French, we confront the dilemma of discerning the good from the bad almost immediately after cracking open the covers—the narrator and main character, Robert Ryan, openly admits that he “…crave[s] truth. And [he] lie[s].” (French 4) But there is more to this discernment than the mere acceptance that our narrator embellishes the occasional truth; we must be ever vigilant for clues that hint at the verisimilitude of what the narrator is saying, and we must also consider its relation to Robert’s difference from the anticlimactic (essentially, falsehood) and the irrevocable (that which is unshakeable truth). That is, the fact that in distinguishing the good from the bad, we are forced to mentally
Doaker- A forty seven year old, tall, patient man that has a lot of respect for others. Even though he caves into people he is still a respectable figure.
In conclusion to this analysis of these characters they go together where the resolve is Jack coming to the conclusion that he had truly taken his life threw a complete twist and in all seriousness didn’t want to experience being Tyler. What was seen there this analysis that Tyler was a real person and Jack was very jealous and everyone around wanted to be like him. Jack eventually grew as a man and wanted to use everything he experience to help mold him as an individual. They way in which he commanded at the end of the movie by shooting himself giving complete orders to the guys in project mayhem that this is something that Jack would have done. To us as an audience you can tell that they he has grown through the movie and took complete ownership.
“I had to know what Tyler was doing while I was asleep. If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person?” (Palahniuk 32). When Tyler is in action, narrator is not contemporaneous in a sense that he is Tyler now. Tyler is someone who doesn’t give any importance to money-oriented world but he indeed believes in the willpower of constructing a classless society. The narrator is insomniac, depressed, and stuck with unexciting job. Chuck’s prominent, pessimistic, radical work, Fight Club, investigates inner self deeper and deeper into personality, identity, and temperament as a chapter goes by. Through his writing, Chuck Palahniuk comments on the inner conflicts, the psychoanalysis of narrator and Tyler Durden, and the Marxist impression of classicism. By not giving any name to a narrator, author wants readers to engage in the novel and associate oneself with the storyline of narrator. The primary subject and focus of the novel, Fight Club, is to comment socially on the seizing of manhood in the simultaneous world. This novel is, collectively, a male representation where only a single woman, Marla Singer, is exemplified. “Tyler said, “I want you to hit me as hard as you can” (46). This phrase is a mere representation of how to start a manly fight club. However, in the novel this scene is written as if two people are physically fighting and splashing blood all over the parking lot, in reality it’s just an initiation of fight club which resides in narrator’s inner self. The concept of this club is that the more one fights, the more one gets sturdier and tougher. It is also a place where one gets to confront his weaknesses and inner deterioration.
A tragic character is someone who experiences misfortune in courtesy of poor judgment, fate or a conflicted personality. In the tragedy, Antigone, there is a heavy debate over whether Antigone or Creon is the tragic character. Creon can be classified as the tragic character of the play because he has been affected the most due to his decision of sentencing Antigone to death. For instance, a fight emerges between the king and his son, Haimon, as a result of his harsh punishment. Also, he lets his pride get in the way which triggers the suicide of Haimon and his wife, Eurydice. By the end of the tragedy, Creon is forced to live through the painful death of his family, thus being the tragic character because he suffered the most.
Before going to Alaska, Chris McCandless had failed to communicate with his family while on his journey; I believe this was Chris’s biggest mistake. Chris spent time with people in different parts of the nation while hitchhiking, most of them whom figured out that McCandless kept a part of him “hidden”. In chapter three, it was stated that Chris stayed with a man named Wayne Westerberg in South Dakota. Although Westerberg was not seen too often throughout the story, nevertheless he was an important character. Introducing himself as Alex, McCandless was in Westerberg’s company for quite some time: sometimes for a few days, other times for several weeks. Westerberg first realized the truth about Chris when he discovered his tax papers, which stated that “McCandless’s real name was Chris, not Alex.” Wayne further on claims that it was obvious that “something wasn’t right between him and his family” (Krakauer 18). Further in the book, Westerberg concluded with the fact that Chris had not spoken to his family “for all that time, treating them like dirt” (Krakauer 64). Westerberg concluded with the fact that during the time he spent with Chris, McCandless neither mentioned his
While Victor and the monster are divergent physically and socially, they have many identical characteristics. Even as they become increasingly similar, their relationship only exacerbates. They are similar in their desires for knowledge, relationships with nature, and with desires for family. These defining characteristics are what shape these characters, their actions, and ultimately the plot of the novel.
So what do Tyler and I have in common besides similar views on relationships? Quite a bit, actually. Tyler was raised by his mother. His father abandoned them early in his life and only had sporadic contact with his son. I, too, was raised by my mother. She divorced my father early in my life, and he made little effort to further his involvement in my life from that point forward. " If you're male . . . your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never at home, what do you believe about God?" Also from Fight Club. As you can see, I really connected with this novel.
Others often use masculinity, most often associated with strength, confidence and self-sufficiency to define a man’s identity. The narrator perceives Tyler Durden as a fearless young man who is independent and living life by his own rules. So is Tyler Durden masculine because of his no nonsense attitude or are his law breaking antics and unusual lifestyle seen as a failure because he is a man with neither family, money nor a well respected job? These typical aspirations are commonly defined as the male American dream, but does following life by the rulebook placed on males by society really make a male masculine? Fight Club specifically debunks the male American dream. It challenges’ the idea that the masculine identity is defined by material items and instead embraces the idea that masculine identity can be found in liberation from conformity and the ability to endure pain.
Like Willard in ‘Apocalypse Now’, Jack’s revelation at the end of his hellish journey is left unclear and complex. In the voice of his narration, perhaps there is a conclusion: “You are not your job. You are not how much you have in the bank. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your khakis. You are not a beautiful unique snowflake. What happens when you can’t sleep? What happens then is there’s a gun in your mouth. And what happens next is you meet Tyler Durden. Let me tell you about Tyler. He had a plan. In Tyler we trusted. Tyler says self-improvement is masturbation. Tyler says-self-destruction might be the answer.” Conceivably, there is a Tyler Durden inside the soul of us all waiting to be called. “I’m simply what you needed and wanted,” Durden said the moment Jack realized they were the same person. Director of ‘Apocalypse Now’, Francis Ford Coppala said it best in an interview during the release of his movie, “I believe that the end was always about choice.”
His adaptability his mostly seen when he’s forced into a combat situation such as a dueling or fencing, there he enjoys to find odd, even impractical solutions to the issue presented to him. Giving him a natural ability to adjust himself accordingly to many social situations he’s in, with him turn into a social butterfly to a suddenly mute man who doesn’t utter a single word.
Tyler Durden encourages the narrator to give up his consumerist, meaningless life to fight the exploitation inherent in corporate society. Similarly, Marx believed that the capitalist system inherently exploited workers, arguing that the interests of the capitalist class conflicted with that of the working class. Additionally, Marx’s core concept of historical materialism is realized in Fight Club. The narrator in this film strives to express himself through the items he possesses, searching for meaning in his life through physical objects. He looks for release in buying more and more things he does not need. This illustrates historical materialism, in which Marx argues that people are what they have. Additionally, Marx argues that the flow of ideas is also controlled by the capitalist class. The narrator in Fight Club is forced to come to terms with these ideas. He learns that buying and consuming more material objects does not make him happy, and is forced to confront the destruction of his consumerist identity when his apartment is suddenly destroyed. Additionally, the narrator’s thoughts are never completely his own, suggesting that he is grappling with the controlled flow of ideas inherent in capitalist society. All of these factors combine to force the narrator to look for life fulfillment elsewhere, hence the formation of fight club and the friendship of the dangerous Tyler