North Dakota Law Review Volume 83 Number 2 Article 5 1-1-2007 Is Tyler Durden Insane? J.C. Oleson Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/ndlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Oleson, J.C. (2007) "Is Tyler Durden Insane?," North Dakota Law Review: Vol. 83 : No. 2 , Article 5. Available at: https://commons.und.edu/ndlr/vol83/iss2/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Law at UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in North Dakota Law Review by an authorized editor of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. IS TYLER DURDEN INSANE? * J.C. OLESON I. INTRODUCTION: WELCOME TO FIGHT CLUB Literature is peppered with heroes who are opposed not by external enemies but by splintered aspects of their own imaginations. Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov curses the devil conjured by his own fevered brain;1 Shakespeare’s good Prince Hamlet is hounded by a ghost that might be a bona fide supernatural apparition or that might be the product of filial guilt;2 and of course, the monstrous Mr. Hyde is none other than the shadowy aspect of Stevenson’s Henry Jekyll.3 More recently, the same theme has been effectively used in motion pictures. In Jacob’s Ladder, a Vietnam veteran struggles against a conspiracy of “demons” produced by his own mind;4 in Identity, an individual with multiple personality disorder pits one fractionated personality against the others;5 and in the based-on-a- true story A Beautiful Mind, the dizzying intellect of Nobel Laureate John Nash turns against itself in a Kafkaesque sequence of schizophrenic hallucination.6 One of the most exciting films to make use of this device, however, is David Fincher’s Fight Club,7 the movie adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s *Chief Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Staff, Administrative Office of the United States Courts; J.D., School of Law, University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall), 2001; Ph.D., University of Cambridge, 1998; M.