Preview

"Fight Club" Shadow Interpretation

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
896 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
"Fight Club" Shadow Interpretation
“Fight Club” Shadow Interpretation In the movie “Fight Club” is about the narrator, Jack’s, fantasy of an alternate reality, his personal shadow. Tyler Durden represents Jack’s unconscious collective shadow. Jack, the protagonist, has a meaningless, boring and empty life, and suffers from insomnia. Jack tries to lend color to his insignificant life by purchasing new commodities like his furniture which are the fetish items of the narrator and they provide him with more meaningful existence. Jack has a dull life and he could not find any time for his hobbies due to his busy business life. He has no girlfriend or even a close friend. He does nothing to have fun and he suppresses all his instincts for pleasure in his unconscious. Although he is not happy about his life, every morning he wakes up, goes to work and travels frequently. He suffers from insomnia because he is suppressing his shadow. Later, he finds the idea of participating in cancer and disease support groups. Jack lacks the courage to confront his shadow. Instead, Jack indentifies with her persona, the role the world expects him to play. As the movie progresses Jack gradually begins to become aware of his shadow, and how it motivates his behavior. It is only by doing so that he begins the process of self-realization. One criticism that will be made is that the movie depicts a superficial and incomplete process of self-realization. “Jung considers the confrontation with the shadow, with one’s own evil, to be of the great psychological value. Understanding something about one’s shadow side is the beginning of self-knowledge. Without the realization of the shadow all real further psychological progress is blocked” (34).
As I mentioned before, Tyler Durden is the collective unconscious side of Jack. In other words, Tyler represents the shadow of the narrator in “political confrontation”. Jack projects onto Tyler, the enemy side, which we view as hopelessly corrupt, sadistic, vindictive, and inhuman.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Sympathizer Sparknotes

    • 1519 Words
    • 7 Pages

    As the narrative progresses, Jack loses his grasp to maintain his self image as his life challenges accept fear; as a result, the story grows unhinged as he questions the implications of choosing a reality. After Babette admits to sleeping with Willie Mink for Dylar, he becomes obsessive and unable to fully control himself, finding release in nearly killing Mink. Fear never leaves Jack’s narrative, but it fluctuates after Jack is infected by the airborne toxic event, despite the uncertainty of an effect. Dylar is Jack’s hope to escape death, much like the self he projects covers his true self, because death is the one fact of life no one evades. Sadly, Dylar only worsens one’s grasp on reality, as shown in Mink’s insensible trance at his roach motel. Leading to a decline of sanity, Jack has two personal identities, a professor and an alternative. As a professor, Jack looks to reach Hitler’s public persona’s size and stature; he tries to be mysterious, stern, and exceptionally intelligent to account for his inadequate core self, but none of those traits are accurate depictions of his self. Outside of work, he tries to exude an air of knowledge and understanding for his family’s sake, and he assures himself this perception is truthful. Both personas originate from Jack’s…

    • 1519 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Consumerism In Fight Club

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Fight Club, directed by David Fincher and adapted by Jim Uhls, focuses on an insomnia stricken narrator by the name Jack (Edward Norton) who develops a relationship with a rather esoteric character by the name of Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Through their friendship they develop fight club, an underground boxing club turned anarchistic organization, by the code name of ‘Project Mayhem’. The idea of ‘Project Mayhem’ is to dismantle the American social structure, replacing as Tyler puts it “men raised by generation of women” with men not consumed by a fear-driven lifestyle. Tyler feels he lives in a society completely enveloped in a consumer culture, due to people’s reliance…

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fight Club Film Analysis

    • 1027 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Brash, self-confident and dressed like a pimp, Tyler describes himself as a soap salesman but he gives every indication of leading a darker existence. Tyler Durden’s clothing is usually red throughout the movie, which symbolizes fire, blood, rage, passion, etc. The Narrator finds himself drawn to Tyler Durden and in the end of their short trip together they exchange their business cards and are on their separate ways. When the Narrator arrives back at his apartment building, he finds his apartment on fire. His precious Ikea furniture and all his belongings have been destroyed in a mysterious explosion. With no one to call, he turns to Tyler and the two immediately bond. During some pitchers of beer at a bar Tyler identifies the cause for the Narrator's desperation. Tyler explains the Narrator is a victim of a feminized consumer culture. Tyler's therapy is simple, he helps the Narrator correct the imbalance in his own life by making him feel like a real man by fighting, actually beating each other up. On their first fight in a parking lot between the narrator and Tyler starts a ritual between the two, in which they discover there are many other men like them. Tyler Durden and the Narrator begin an underground fight club where regular, ordinary men meet to ruthlessly fight one another, releasing aggression and resisting traditional social norms with their…

    • 1027 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The name of the movie I chose to do this assignment on is Fight Club released October 15, 1999. I choose this movie because the main character has several disorders that the text discusses. Ranging from insomnia, dissociative identity disorder (DID), to hallucinations. I believe the main mental illness implied throughout the movie was (DID). He surfed from extreme hallucinations which caused him to see his other personality as a real person, who was actually his best friend named Tyler Durdnt. He was so unaware that he had a disorder he would actually argue and get into fistfights with Tyler. Which turns out he was actually fighting himself.…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The narrator was becoming overwhelmed with how big Tyler was trying to go with his new project, also realizing that he was becoming less needed by him, he was dumped. In his search for Tyler he had a chance to make a wish and it was “My wish right now is for me to die. I am nothing in the world compared to Tyler” (Palahniuk146). He thought why live when Tyler is what the world needed, not him. Himself becoming less and less while Tyler becomes bigger and bigger. Around the time the Narrator figures out that Tyler was really the alter personality he had created as he…

    • 1471 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Fight Club Analysis

    • 1099 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The first scene of the film opens up inside the mind of protagonist, Jack/the Narrator. The camera slowly moves along pathways of Jack’s mind and then emerges out of his head. There, we see Jack seated with a gun in his mouth. On the other side, holding the gun is Tyler Durden. The two of them are placed on what looks like the upper floor of an office building. You hear Jack in voice-over claim that his current situation had something to do with Marla Singer. The next scene takes place in a support group containing men who are recovering from testicular cancer. Jack apparently has been attending various support groups. However, Jack is completely disease-free. Jack attends these meetings to allow him to cry and accept the pain and misery of…

    • 1099 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Fight Club has been seen as a film which embodies the idea of Nietzsche, meaning the idea of a superhuman self, which can be shown through subliminal flickers of Tyler Durden at the start of the film. Before the narrator meets Tyler Durden, we see flickers of Tyler in random scenes at the start of the film. Tyler is able to take control and dominates over the narrator which reinforces his masculinity from the start.…

    • 1116 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lord of the Flies

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages

    But slowly his actions started to change. He realized there were no repercussions for his actions. He was free from punishment. He chose to give in to his evil desires. And when he painted a mask on his face, he lost all sense of humanity, his transformation into a savage was complete. “He began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling. He capered towards Bill, and the mask was a thing on it’s own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness.” (58). Jack used the mask to let out his evil desires and hide from shame. He was masking his the identity of what was a chapter chorist and head boy into a maniacal and manipulative savage. But, the mask can’t hide the fact that we are capable of evil. Evidently the only thing separating us is our choices.…

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jack's behavior goes through a moral and social transformation when he paints his face. Jack paints his face red, black, and white before he goes hunting. He now looks scary to the other kids. "Beside the pool his sinewy body held up a mask that drew their eyes and appalled them." Jack's physical transformation is clearly seen but he also has an internal transformation. He had bad feelings about himself but felt liberated about these sad feelings with the paint on his face. "...behind which Jack hid, liberated from the shame and self consciousness." This describes how Jack felt differently with the paint on his face.…

    • 419 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Jack's conformity follows him to work as he becomes a doormat. His socialization is confined to the limits of his cubicle with the only exception being when he…

    • 1364 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Trace the influence of Jack throughout the novel and note his relationship with Ralph. What does Jack represent?…

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Flight Club

    • 511 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Jack's insomnia and lack of satisfaction in his life stem largely from his isolation. Never does he mention any friends in his voice-over, nor do we meet any. Jack has to attend support group meetings just to experience a human connection. He longs for a place where his feelings can be expressed openly, even if they are dark or sad in nature. He seeks a truth that he is not finding in his job or his day-to-day life.…

    • 511 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The third part is how Jack relates to certain aspects of religion. Jack breaks practically all of the seven deadly sins associated with evil people. He lusts…

    • 638 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The narrator in Fight Club, along with Tyler Durden, creates a club where other men who also feel discontent with their lives experience a sense of freedom through fighting. “ …by exposing himself to the mortality of others…every moment of his life becomes more valuable” (Suglia par. 1). When he is still discontented, he sets out to destroy his boss and rebels by punching himself and receiving a settlement from his company; this enables him to have fight club seven days of the week. His company pays him to stay quiet, and he beats “the system.” He also rebels by working for himself and making soap out of human fat that he steals from liposuction clinics. He sells fat back to the same ladies who get it taken out surgically and beats the system once more. “Tyler and the narrator form a masculine unit that exists apart from the feminized support groups, which are populated by man-women such as Bob, an…

    • 1870 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Fight Club tells the story of an unnamed narrator who’s boring and pathetic life changes radically when he meets and befriends a man named Tyler Durden. The narrator, whose identity remains anonymous throughout the story, and Tyler create a strictly ruled fighting club that meets once a week, where men come to let out their emotions on each others’ faces and body. Fight Club attracted many people and, from this, a sort of revolutionary group, called Project Mayhem, branched out, lead by Tyler Durden. The actions of this group were questioned by the narrator shortly after one of his friends dies during an operation. The narrator begins his attempts to destroy this organization, only to discover that it his himself who is running…

    • 1224 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays