Fight Club And Generation X

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Fight Club and Generation X

In the novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk we are introduced to our narrator, a nameless male who stands atop the Parker-Morris building with a gun pressed to his mouth waiting for the moment when the bombs go off and the building crumbles. Holding the gun to his mouth is Tyler Durden who represents everything the narrator is not. The narrator is a man presumably in his 30's, although it is never stated. He works as a recall campaign coordinator and lives in a condo furnished with the latest furniture. Tyler Durden is none of these things, Tyler Durden works various jobs and sells soap made of human fat. Tyler Durden lives in a dilapidated house with makeshift furnishings and questionable utilities. Tyler Durden is satisfied with his life, unlike our narrator who suffers from chronic insomnia and who often speaks bitterly about the corporate life.

"You do the little job you're trained to do. Pull a lever. Push a button. You don't understand any of it, and then you just die."(Palahniuk 12)

It is lines like these that helped this novel soar in popularity among the ‘Generation X' crowd. It is because people feel trapped in their jobs and material lives. We go to work, we do what we're told, we buy the things they tell us to buy, but seldom do these things bring meaning to our lives. Because the novel speaks to such a large audience of young people, it has become an important statement regarding modern culture.

Support groups are the only way the narrator is able to get any sleep. By visiting various support groups for people with terminal illnesses, and assuming false identities, he is able to find a sense of belonging that is otherwise missing in his life.

"This is why I loved the...

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... in their quest to bring down corporations, they become one themselves. It is when the narrator learns that he is, and always has been Tyler Durden, and that he is responsible for the numerous evil deeds the group is responsible for, that he feels guilty and wants it to stop. But this rejection is not taken lightly by project mayhem. "you know the drill, Mr. Durden. You said it yourself. You said if anyone ever tries to shut down the club, even you, then we have to get him by the nuts."(Palahniuk 187) Similarly, the 'Generation Xer' becomes trapped in the identity of being 'Generation X'. By trying to rebel through a group identity, they become lost once again as they are now part of yet another group with the same conforming rules as the norm in society that they resist.

Works Cited

Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. New York:

W.W. Norton & Company, 1996

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