Chapter 14
My life began and ended on a Saturday night in the basement of a bar. When Tyler brought me here, I couldn’t have known what I was walking into. The air was thick with the smell of beer and sweat, the scent of vomit faintly lingering in the background. The first thing you notice is the scowl on the face of every man in the room, each staring down at the unidentifiable face at the bottom of their glass. The closer it gets to empty, the clearer the image becomes.
I’m thirty years old and haven’t seen the bottom of my cup.
When Tyler has the idea for fight club, for a second I’m thinking there’s no way any of these zombies is going to fight him. And then one person stands up and I see the familiar face of the kid who works at the copy center.
I help pick up what’s left of Tyler off the floor, paying no mind to the blood stains like fog on a windshield. The next thing I know, the man, regaining his balance and still bleeding from his nose, is pointing a finger at me. “You’re next.”
This is the thrill serial killers get. There’s no sensation that can compare to the taste of blood in your mouth. Seeing the blood on your hands. The sound of your heart pounding in your ears like the footsteps of a herd of elephants.
Except electroshock therapy. Doctors used to treat depression by electrocution, with no anesthesia or muscle relaxants. It would send the patient into a seizure and sometimes cause memory loss or heart failure.
I know this because Tyler knows this.
Tyler believes depression is a result of the expectations of the modern world, and the moment you release yourself from those expectations, you can experience true freedom. Otherwise there’s no point. I guess willingly having my face rearranged in the basement of a bar is release.
You’re the prey in a nature documentary.
My head is being pounded into the red stained ground with the force of a man who has nothing to lose. He swings and his fist collides with my eyelid and all I can think is how bad would electrocution really be.
Reflection
In my adaptation of the writing style used in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, I mainly wanted to capture the uniquely confusing and nihilistic approach of the narration in this novel, with a focus on Tyler’s character. Tyler is portrayed as impulsive, thrill-seeking, and persuasive, which is frequently demonstrated through his actions and the narrator’s descriptions of him. This story is told from the first-person perspective of the protagonist, who is a limited, and sometimes unreliable, narrator. This adds to the confusing nature of the story, but gives some insight to readers about the narrator’s thoughts, including about Tyler. Stream of consciousness is a key method used in this style of writing, and arguably makes the story what it is. The constant quick shifts from one topic to another, refusal to tell the story in chronological order, and random tangents throughout make up the vast majority of the narration. This technique allows readers to understand the narrator’s feelings toward Tyler, especially during moments in which he ends a tangent by saying “I know this because Tyler knows this.” It becomes clear not only what kind of a character Tyler is, but also the effect he is having on the narrator. Moreover, after the narrator uses that phrase, he begins the following sentence with “Tyler believes…” which indicates once again the effect he has on the narrator. Tyler’s strangely philosophical ideas, which make an appearance frequently throughout the novel, are perhaps part of why the narrator is so drawn to him; Tyler’s perspective is so vastly different from his own nihilistic, pessimistic one that he finds it refreshing and even hopeful. A metaphor is used to describe the sight of the blood on the floor, which greatly contributes to the bleak, unrefined style used in this novel. The blood stains are mentioned once in passing before the narrator immediately changes the topic, which could indicate how insignificant and unemotional this detail is meant to be. Additionally, the fact that Tyler was the one who had the idea in the first place, and likely knew this kind of injury would be a likely possibility, says a lot about his character’s impulsivity and disregard for consequences. Furthermore, this part of the chapter clearly shows the influence Tyler has on the narrator, who is willing to put himself at risk because of him, even after witnessing the aftermath of the first fight. One reason why Fight Club has become as widely recognized as it is has to do with its unflinchingly real portrayal of human emotion and struggle. The novel deals with the issues of toxic masculinity, materialism, and a fundamental lack of purpose in one’s life. One moment in which my writing reflects these themes is near the start of the chapter, during the narrator’s observation of the other men in the room. This could be interpreted as the narrator dwelling on the idea of being unfamiliar with one’s own identity, or the lack of self-reflection so many men suffer from, which can lead them to some of the decisions the characters make throughout the story. The fact that the narrator has enough self-awareness to understand how he also perpetuates this behaviour, but not enough care to do anything about it, could give the reader an idea of why he is so easily influenced by Tyler’s actions.
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