Traditions and ideology have been cultivating for as long as man has existed. Ideology is the body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class, or culture. Furthermore, ideology is the concept behind what is normal and accepted by society. As time has progressed, the people and society itself have developed a certain ideology in which some things are acceptable while some things are not. In modern literature, stories are written for a purpose, which include but are not limited to being: entertaining, informational, opinionated, etc. As Jonathan Culler stated, literature can be either “an ideological instrument: a set of stories that secede readers into accepting the hierarchical arrangements of society” …show more content…
To begin, the story talks about a character named Bob. Bob was a former body builder, gym owner, product endorser, and a juicer (21). Bob can serve as the epitome of a man—tough, masculine, etc.—if it had not been for his misfortune. After “shooting too much testosterone” into his body, he developed “bitch tits” and attended the support group, Remaining Men Together, for his troubles. This issue’s severity is shown by the bleak and gloomy emotions expressed by Bob when he ran to the narrator while crying with his shoulders down (21). Bob’s image of being a man plummeted as he started to become more like a woman. As the story shows, the issues of becoming less of a man caused Bob to feel negatively about himself, as if he had to exemplify the image of a male in order to be accepted by society. There were many others like Bob who suffered from similar discontentment. To improve their masculinity, many “men raised by women” (50) used Fight Club as a way in expressing their masculinity, as if it would have a significant effect on their lives. Fight Club was an area where men could express their masculinity in the way of thrashing on each other. As Fight Club continued, it exponentially expanded, even to other states including Chicago, Seattle, and more (121). This shows that there were many men who felt that being …show more content…
In the story, Tyler Durden, the creator of Fight Club, believed that “each man… had the power to control history. We, each of us, can take control of the world” (87). Tyler Durden decided to create Project Mayhem with a goal of controlling the world. His controlling of the world would ruin the order of society. “Project Mayhem will force humanity to go dormant or into remission long enough for the Earth to recover” (89). With the help from his space monkeys, they created destruction—killing people, destroying buildings, creating bombs, etc. It states in the story, “It’s Project Mayhem that’s going to save the world” (89). He believed that if he controlled the world, he would be able to fix the world and its problems. He planned on saving the world through the demolition from Project Mayhem. In the story, Tyler Durden and the people who follow him are all extremists fighting against society. Society already has a system and set of rules that control what people can or cannot do, what people can or cannot say, etc. In the end of the story, a very dramatic scene occurs. “And I pull the trigger” (205). Tyler Durden, the creator of Fight Club and Project Mayhem, attempted to commit suicide. This concluding event shows that order in society is not meant to be disrupted. It also exemplifies that if an extremist decides to turn against society, he will not be successful. Tyler tried
Over time, the United States has experienced dramatic social and cultural changes. As the culture of the United States has transformed, so have the members of the American society. Film, as with all other forms of cultural expression, oftentimes reflects and provides commentary on the society in which it is produced. David Fincher’s 1999 film Fight Club examines the effects of postmodernity on masculinity. To examine and explicate these effects, the film presents an unnamed narrator, an everyman, whose alter-ego—in the dissociative sense—is Tyler Durden. Durden represents the narrators—thus every man’s—deep-seated desire to break free from the mind-numbing, emasculating world that is postmodern, post-industrial America.
“You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis. You are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.” This is the underlying message in Fincher’s Fight Club (1999), which satirically analyzes and critiques consumerism. The films characters vividly depict society’s immersion in materialism and presents viewers with the harsh reality regarding the irrelevance of material possessions.
“In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four” (Orwell 250). Winston lives in a time where a set of rules preventing him to be free are imposed on him – the Party defines what freedom is and is not. “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows (Orwell 103)”. Winston expresses his views on The Party within his diary even though he knows it is not accepted by The Party or the Thought Police. The narrator in Fight Club uses fighting as a form of escapism from his anti-consumerist ideologies revealed by his alter-ego, Tyler Durden. “Fuck off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns. I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let’s evolve—let the chips fall where they may. (Fight Club)” Tyler urges the narrator to stop conforming to consumerist-imposed views of perfection and break barriers to evolve. Tyler and the narrator create a medium for people in similar positions to escape from societal bound norms; it is aptly named “Fight Club”. In comparison, both Tyler Durden and the narrator from Fight Club and Winston Smith from 1984 share
“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.
Literature leads to the freedom of thought within a society; and with freedom of thought citizens generate new ideas and are not afraid to think their mind. This results in the growth of a culture and teamwork of individuals from coming together to solve a problem. In Fahrenheit 451 and The Book Thief there is a similar issue in the way most of society acts. Both of the cultures in the stories are against literature, this is so every citizen thinks what the government wants it to and does not generate any other ideas. This same situation is shown in the article 11 Book Burning Stories. “… any books they had that were not the Catholic Bible were burned with them.” (Benjamin 3). This shows that specific societies did not want citizens to possibly go against what they wanted them to believe. Books affect cultures and societies in such a way that our world would be drastically different if books were
Ideology is “a system of meaning that helps define and explain the world and that makes value judgments about that world.” (Croteau & Hoynes, 2014). According to Sturken (2001), the system of meaning is based on the use of language and images or representation. Therefore, media texts come along and select what is “normal” and what is “deviant” to the extent that this hegemony of constructed meanings in the viewer’s head becomes “common-sense” (Gramsci in Croteau & Hoynes, 2014). From this standpoint, what America claims to be pop culture which is omnipresent in media internationally, is a representation, through “politics of signification” of what is right or wrong (Kooijman, 2008). An example of America’s cultural ‘manifestation’ is Mean Girls,
Fight Club is a story about the never-ending struggles between classes. The Project Mayhem is formed in an attempt to overthrow the upper class who undermines the lower class. There are a number of scenes in the story, which highlights the struggle between classes. For instance, when Tyler pees in the soup of an upper class person, when he splices pornography into films and the scene when a mechanic takes the unnamed narrator to steal body fat. The characters here do all they can to fight against the upper class people and to get revenge.
The fight club exists because individuals get weighted down by possessions causing them to miss the deep meaning of life. Most of the people in the fight club hold service jobs or lower level management jobs that are meaningless. Society becomes so rationalized that one must push themeself to the extreme in order to feel anything or accomplish anything.
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.
In the chapter masculinity for all their Greer state the expression “ how to make a man of [someone]” (p.731) it then states that when a “boy” into manhood it is normally when they join into a paramilitary organization such as scout movement, cadets, school officer training corps. In program such as these they’re taught how to take a punishment “like a man”. (P.732) They get used to be rough, and tumble. When a young man is learning about masculinity he has to learn to be courageous and strong. Eventually later in life they start to learn that “a man is supposed to be unflinching, and as hard in every sense.” (P.732) It is said that “Real men do not fuss or scurry” (P.732). Men should not have to always stick to theses standards. They should feel as if they can be upset when it if they need to be, even if that means being upset in front of a crowd. It doesn’t make you any less of a man. But women do need a strongman when the time is appropriate....
Male’s naturally become responsible in keeping their peers in check with the strict expectations of masculinity. This is achieved when using such terms like “mama’s boy”, “bitch”, or “faggot”, against a male who acts in a way that is seen to be “un-masculine”. Therefore, it becomes clear that a brutal cycle does exist. Men are consumed with what a “real” man is. They truly believe this criteria is correct and feel that they have to live by it in order to be manly. This type of masculinity, which violence has a prominent role in, becomes expected of them by their peers. When a male fails to produce this behaviour it often results in him being seen as someone who is missing the necessary traits in order to be masculine. Male’s will be harassed and abused by their peers for this presumed deficiency. Thus, male’s act as though they are a regulatory authority or a gender police towards their peers to be able to keep them in check with what society demands of the male gender. Masculinity in society is structured in a way which advocates violence as a way of coping with certain situations and individuals, which ultimately leads to violence against women. The peer’s of a male makes sure that he will contribute to his masculinity by confirming the accuracy of it, and administering not another socially sanctioned way of presenting the male
Ruddell, Caroline. "Virility and vulnerability, splitting and masculinity in Fight Club: a tale of contemporary male identity issues." Extrapolation 48.3 (2007): 493+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Dec. 2013.
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
The narrator is changed by his experience with fight club; his life becomes all about fight club. Fight club becomes the reason for the narrators existence. The narrator experiences a shift in consciousness; in that, he is able to understand more of who he is and what really matters in life through fight clubs trial by fire. Through battle and a mindset of counterculture and a complete expulsion of ...
Literature has had a major impact on society, and, also our history. Literature has reformed and shaped civilizations, changed political systems, and has exposed injustices (3). Our literature has changed and developed as we have, keeping up with our society. “...literature is crucial for the advancement of society (3).” With literary works, we can convince others to view things a certain way, share our opinions, and more. Literature is greatly intertwined with our society and everyday lives, and they would not be the same without it. Literature plays an irreplaceable role in our