Masaryk University Brno Faculty of Education
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MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO FACULTY OF EDUCATION Department of English Language and Literature Analysing Identity and Romance in Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club Bachelor thesis Brno 2017 Supervisor Author Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, PhD. Kristýna Daňková 1 Prohlášení Prohlašuji, že jsem diplomovou práci vypracovala samostatně, s využitím pouze citovaných pramenů, dalších informací a zdrojů v souladu s Disciplinárním řádem pro studenty Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy university a se zákonem č. 121/2000 Sb. o právu autorském, o právech souvisejících s právem autorským a o změně některých zákonů (autorský zákon) ve znění pozděj ších předpisů. Declaration I hereby declare that I wrote this thesis independently and that I used only sources listed in the bibliography section. Brno, March 2017 Kristýna Daňková 2 Acknowledgement I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Lucie Podrouzkova, who helped me to write this thesis and gave me valuable advice. I also thank her for her support, time, patience and constructive criticism. 3 Anotace Tato bakalářská práce se věnuje literární analýze románu Klub rváčů amerického autora Chucka Palahniuka. Cílem práce j e v daném díle analyzovat poj em identita, sledovat vývoj identity hlavní postavy a rozebrat motivy romance a lásky, které tento vývoj podporují. Teoretická část zahrnuje objasnění pojmů postmodernismus, postmoderní kontext a identita. Analytická část se zabývá použitím těchto poznatků v praxi při sledování vývoje identity hlavní postavy. Následně tato práce ukazuje, jak motiv lásky a citu podporuje tento vývoj a pokusí se zachytit původní zdroj vypravěčovy krize identity. Klíčová slova analýza, identita, postmodernismus, romance, láska, Chuck Palahniuk, Klub rváčů Abstract This bachelor thesis focuses on a literary analysis of the novel Fight Club, written by the American author, Chuck Palahniuk. The aim of this thesis is to analyse the concept of identity in the novel, track the development of the narrator's identity and emphasize the motives of romance and love, which support the development of identity. The theoretical part includes clarification of the concepts of postmodernism, postmodern context and postmodern identity. The analytical part focuses on using these points in practice during an observation of the development of the narrator's identity. In addition, this thesis shows how love supports this development throughout the story. Finally, the thesis aims to pinpoint the original source of the narrator's identity crisis. Key words analysis, identity, postmodernism, romance, love, Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction 6 1.1 Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, its influence and responses 6 1.2 Plot-line overview 10 2 Theoretical background 13 2.1 Postmodernism 13 2.2 Context of postmodernism 14 2.3 Identity in the postmodern world 15 3 Analysis 17 3.1 Quest for identity 17 3.1.1 The narrator's characteristics and identity crisis 17 3.1.2 Formation of an alter ego and identity development 20 3.2 Romance and identity 29 3.3 Deconstruction and identity 37 4 Conclusion 39 5 Works cited 41 5 6 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, its influence and responses Chuck Palahniuk is an American author of novels and short stories. He was born in 1962 in Washington as Charles Michael Palahniuk and his life story is as unusual as the stories he creates. Palahniuk's parents divorced when he was a teenager, leaving his siblings and him to spend their time on their maternal grandparents' ranch. Palahniuk never knew his paternal grandparents and according to an interview with Palahniuk, his grandfather murdered his grandmother after an argument, an incident Palahniuk's father was the witness of. His experience is depicted in Palahniuk's essay collection Stranger Than Fiction (Chaplinsky). Not much is known about Palahniuk's childhood. He graduated in journalism in 1986, but he did not find j ournalism satisfying so he changed profession multiple times, worked as a diesel mechanic and later as an escort for terminally ill hospice patients. He was also a member of Cacophony Society (a network of free spirits raging against the mainstream society), according to Palahniuk, Cacophony society was the inspiration for Fight Club (Chaplinsky). In his mid-thirties, Palahniuk begun writing fiction. His characteristic style formed in „Dangerous writing", a workshop hosted by Tom Spanbauer. Palahniuk started writing so- called „transgressional fiction", which includes characters acting illegally but for noble reasons (Palahniuk). Palahniuk's first literary attempts - If You Lived Here, You'd be Home Already and Invisible Monsters - were rejected for their darkness. The first novel Palahniuk could publish was Fight Club and after the successful film adaptation in 1999, Palahniuk „was given a free reign" (Chaplinsky) to write; he could publish Survivor and rewritten Invisible Monsters. Palahniuk's work is much influenced by his personal experience and trauma. Namely, the novel Lullaby is inspired by the murder of Palahniuk's father, Fred, who was shot in 1999 by an ex boyfriend of his lover. After this tragic event, Palahniuk continued to write and in following years published 9 novels (7 of them translated into Czech), 3 collections of short stories and 1 travel journal. Recently, he begun experimenting with form and image and co-created Fight Club 2, a comic novel and a sequel of Fight Club, and Bait, a 7 short stories' collection in the form of a colouring book. His novel Choke (2001) was New York Times best-seller filmed in 2009 by Clark Gregg. 12 of Palahniuk's books were wonderfully translated into Czech by Richard Podaný, who also provides epilogues for Palahniuk's books. Palahniuk organises workshops and gives feedback to his fans' writings on social media. In addition, he teaches storytelling on website chuckpalahniuk.net, where he provides writing tricks and even gives homework assignments to his fans to learn to apply his advice in writing (Chaplinsky). Palahniuk is known for his uniquely dynamic and simple writing style, traits which make his works famous among young people (Minárik, 34). After Tom Spanbauer's workshop, Palahniuk built his distinctive minimalist style, which imitates speech by using everyday language and its components. His writing is influenced by journalism in many aspects. For example, Palahniuk frequently uses real stories he was told by other people. Another related aspect is objectiveness of Palahniuk's writing. He tries to avoid judgement and in order to do so, he even omits using adjectives when describing a character. Palahniuk uses „choruses" in every novel, short phrases which get repeated multiple times throughout the story (the Fight Club rules in Fight Club, „Sorry Mom, Sorry God" in Invisible Monsters, „Just for the record" in Diary). The aim of Palahniuk's novels is to involve the reader to the story; to achieve this he often directly addresses the reader: „Mix the nitro with sawdust, and you have a nice plastic explosive" (Palahniuk, 12). Finally, Palahniuk uses various „factoids" in all his novels - detailed facts on different topics included in the text (recipes for explosions in Fight Club, facts from art history in Diary, history of sex in Snuff) (Minárik, 34-42). An aspect which brings Palahniuk passionate interest of many readers on one hand and vigorous critique of others on the other hand is his choice of typically controversial characters and content. Palahniuk tends to display the dark side of reality, foregrounds topics such as violence, pornography, prostitution or addiction. His characters, which are considered marginal in our society (outlaws, addicts, transvestites) are a norm in Palahniuk's novels (Gonzalez, 1). Despite the kind of topics Palahniuk addresses, he still remains faithful to „writing without passing judgement" (qtd. in Gonzalez, 1). Finally, Palahniuk's toughness is always counterbalanced by his specifically sarcastic humour (Akbar). 8 Fight Club is a fiction novel written by Chuck Palahniuk in 1996. The basis of the novel was a seven-page-long short story published in the compilation of short stories called Pursuit of Happiness. This short story eventually became chapter 6 of Fight Club. In 1999, David Fincher directed a same-named film on the motives of Fight Club. Thanks to the film release, Fight Club became widely read and popular book. Mainly due to its violent and highly controversial content, Fight Club separated its readers into two groups, those who love it and those who hate it (Bennet, 2). The fanatic reactions of the supporters are being proudly described by Palahniuk in the afterword of Fight Club. After Palahniuk answered fans' questions and said that Fight Club is a fictitious association, there were actual Fight Clubs founded across the USA. There were young men who changed their names to Tyler Durden. Donatella Versace's fashion collection had razor blades sewed into men's clothing, calling it „the Fight club look" (Palahniuk, 209-218). However, it was principally the film version that succeeded in receiving generally positive references. Total film server even declared Fight Club the „Greatest Film of Our Lifetime" (Pierce 11). Unlike the film, critics' reactions to the novel varied to a great extent. Critic Jesse Kavadlo comments on Chuck Palahniuk's writings in this way: Imagine what it's like to have your eyes rubbed raw with broken glass. This is what reading Chuck Palahniuk is like. You feel the shards in your eyes, yes, and then you're being punched, hard, your nose broken. Like the world is broken. Livid because there's violence, but there's sex, there's the bodily fluids that accompany violence and sex. Eyes rubbed in broken glass, first, then in blood and lymph, and you want more. That's just the plot. Don't even get me started on the characters (Kavadlo, 1). Kavadlo notes the controversy of the novel, but at the same time, he appreciates it. On the other side of the spectrum, Henry Giroux found Fight Club to be an "intensely misogynistic representation of women" (17) and Mark Pettus stated Palahniuk is "ultimately fail[ing]" (111) in rebelling against the capitalist society.