Dissociative Identity Disorder In The Film Fight Club, By Chuck Palahniuk

Based on the 1996 novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, the 1999 American film, Fight Club, is one for the books. Voted, “one of the greatest films of the 1990’s” (FIND), Fight Club, is home to many subplots and multiple themes. According to Jacob Wiker, “Fight Club is this idea taken to its logical conclusion – at least on the surface” (Wiker, 2013). At the first look at Fight Club, one would see the normal movie about: fighting, drinking, and male-friendship. However, the ending of Fight Club is one, which will take someone for a completely unexpected turn. Fight Club has a notable protagonist, the first person Narrator. Noticed at one of the end scenes of the movie, this main character goes through most of the movie without exposing

This disorder was drawn quite flawlessly, even going as far as to never have them interacting with each other in front of others, except in the scene in the car, where if you take Tyler out of the scene completely, the scene would still function. The Narrator/Jack, showed multiple symptoms and signs of Dissociative Identity Disorder, or commonly known as DID. Some of the Narrator’s main symptoms and signs include having two separate personalities that were polar opposites of the other, experiencing short-term memory loss with daily events, and his symptoms causing him stress in different important areas of his life; all of the mentioned symptoms are symptoms of Dissociative Identity Disorder (Durand & Barlow,

An individual could take out Tyler from every single scene and the scenes would still make sense. There were never, other than the car scene, any scenes that had Tyler and Jack (The Narrator) talking in front of anyone else (Fincher, 1999). By the end of the movie Jack, “perceives [himself] as somehow changed or unreal” (Kihlstrom, 1992). “In order to provide an agent of change, Fight Club spends a considerable amount of time playing with the idea of self-destruction” (Wiker, 2013). This could be caused by Jack having Dissociative Identity Disorder, and the director playing on the “Dissociative experiences” of Jack (Freyd, Martorello, Alvarado, Hayes, & Christman, 1998). These experiences differ from individual to individual (Freyd, Martorello, Alvarado, Hayes, & Christman, 1998). This movie did an amazing job of portraying the Dissociative Identity Disorder. Fight Club used the characters of Jack and Tyler to their advantage. Once removing Tyler from the movie and realizing that every time Tyler spoke in the movie it was actually Jack doing all of the talking and actions, you see the movie through the eyes, I believe, the director and author of the original book intended you to see the movie