Fight Club Masculinity

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Chuck Palahniuk portrays men’s struggle of knowing where their position is in the world in his book “Fight Club”. A fight club is created by a man name Tyler Durden, for the purpose of a place that men can meet to fight to relieve stress. Tyler Durden is the un-named narrator’s alter ego who has the complete opposite personality. Tyler has the masculine characteristics that the narrator wants because he lacks direction in life and confidence of who he is. He attends various support groups, where he introduces false names and diseases that he has to make himself feel better because compared to them he is okay. Fight club is group that has helped the narrator. It is not a place where it is necessary to win, but to get some aggression out; consequently the men end up liking the feel…show more content…
Tyler Durden in no doubt is the ideal masculine man in Palahniuk’s Fight Club as he has the attributes of the cultural construct of masculinity. Having created fight club and project mayhem Tyler is the man of rules as he is the one who set them for both of the groups. Feminine traits such as emotional displays are not in the ways of Tyler. His concept of inspiration to the men of the clubs he created is to address the message that: “you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.” Tyler means that one is not visually appealing and originally their own self: “you are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile”. Significantly, Tyler is giving the sense of belonging and portraying that the group is a unit. Meaning that no one is above anyone else they are all alike and going for the same impulse of violence, aggression and destruction. The feel of belonging and manly hood causes the men of fight club to keep showing up and being a part of the group and listening to Tyler. Tyler has all the masculine traits that the each group member desires; therefore they continue to follow in hopes to
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