Fight Club - When Does Life Have No Purpose?

David Fincher’s Fight Club is a narrated movie that explains the journey of the narrator’s mid-life crisis; the movie begins with the ending scene, a microscopic view of a gun inside of the narrator’s mouth. All of the particles and germs are very visible to give the viewer an idea of what to expect. This scene suggests a dirty, winding, and emotional journey that the narrator will take. The narrator at first finds himself with insomnia. At the same time he is obsessed with consumer goods–he buys complete sets of everything. He works for a major automobile company as an agent who decides whether the cost of a recall is cheap enough to make profit. His job significantly sets up his depressed life. Day after day he travels to examine cars in accidents with remains of human dead burned to the seats. It is his job by which he feels so burdened, and he seems to try to get away from it by buying furniture. The story revolves around these three examples. The gun is full of bacteria; furniture is bought by money, a dirty obsession, and his job deals with car accidents. The Narrator has surrounded himself with consumer goods to occupy and satisfy himself, but when they can no longer satisfy him he breaks down emotionally.

Although David Fincher put significance on soap as being a major part of the movie, it doesn’t relate to every instance that it should. In this movie, soap is used to cleanse the body of luxury goods. Fight Club is all about eliminating things that aren’t necessary. Soap cleanses, and several times soap is not used. When they are fighting in the fight club, blood is a dominant image. It is a sign of being able to let go of all your material goods, if you can let go of your physical health. Here soap has no significance; The Narrator, however, uses soap in what could be his possible financial future. By selling this highly profitable soap he can make an easy living, but it would change nothing in his life. The significance of soap with fighting, therefore, is not easily visible. This is what makes visible the fact that fighting releases anger. If blood is noteworthy and is not to be cleaned off, then it is accepted.

The narrator soon finds himself with a severe case of insomnia. He describes it: “with insomnia, nothing is real.