Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Petra Mašínová The Element of Violence in Chuck Palahniuk’s Works Bachelor‟s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Veronika Pituková 2013 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author‟s signature Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor, Mgr. Veronika Pituková, for all her help, advice and willingness. Table of Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 5 1. Violence in Popular Culture and Literature .............................................................. 7 1.1. Definition of Violence ............................................................................................ 7 1.2. Violence and the Media ......................................................................................... 8 1.3. Violence and Pleasure ......................................................................................... 10 2. Chuck Palahniuk and Violence ................................................................................. 12 2.1. Palahniuk’s Writing ............................................................................................. 13 2.2. Transgressive Fiction .......................................................................................... 16 3. Analyses of Palahniuk’s Novels with a Focus on the Elements of Violence .......... 18 3.1. Fight Club ............................................................................................................ 21 3.2. Choke ................................................................................................................... 28 3.3. Pygmy ................................................................................................................... 33 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 39 Works Cited ........................................................................................................................ 41 Introduction Violence in fiction, from comic strips to bestsellers, movies, and television, is no longer an aspect of many stories – violence and/or sex, too, is the story. (Hsu 368) Violence is deeply rooted in American culture. It is usual for Americans to own a gun; the estimated number of guns held by civilians is around three hundred million and the amount of deaths caused by guns is approximately thirty thousand every year. It is no wonder then, that violence is omnipresent; it is in movies, video games and also literature. One of the authors who deal with the topic of violence is Chuck Palahniuk. Chuck Palahniuk is becoming increasingly popular every day. This is mainly due to his debut Fight Club and especially due to David Fincher who transformed the novel into a successful movie. There are still people who have never heard of Chuck Palahniuk but it is not easy, especially among young generations, to find those who do not know Fight Club at least as a movie. There is a cult created around Palahniuk and his literary works. People quote passages from his novels and establish organizations similar to Project Mayhem or just get inspired by his characters. For example, there is a man in Florida who inspired by Victor from the novel Choke, walks around beautiful women pretending he is choking, and forces them to Heimlich him and then weeps and shows them pictures of his family trying to build a relationship with them. One of the reasons why Palahniuk‟s novels are so popular are the topics of his novels. Sex and violence were always popular topics in literature and Palahniuk‟s 5 novels offer both. Readers can identify with his characters that are misunderstood underdogs but they still can have their happy endings of some sort. In my thesis I will focus on the element of violence in Palahniuk‟s novels. I will outline the issues of violence in current culture and literature and try to find out, why is a topic of violence so popular among some people. Then through the analysis of three Palahniuk‟s novels, I will explore and compare different types of violence that can be found there. The thesis consists of two parts. First is theoretical and the other comprises of an analysis of Palahniuk‟s novels. In the first chapter I will provide a definition of violence and also take a look at it from the psychological point of view. Next chapter concentrates on the occurrence of violence in the current media, especially in the novels and I will try to explain why the topic of violence is so popular among people in the United Stated in particular. I will also link violence and pleasure and explain why this connection is possible. In the second chapter some events from Palahniuk‟s life will be presented, mostly the violent events that influenced his writing. In this chapter I will also take a look at Palahniuk‟s writing style, his inspirations and research methods and provide a characteristic of a genre called Transgressive fiction which is a genre Palahniuk could fit into. In the second part of the thesis Palahniuk‟s novels are analyzed, namely Fight Club (1996), Choke (2000) and Pygmy (2009). I will highlight and analyze the element of violence on particular passages of the novels. There can be found several types of violence in all three novels; these will be presented and compared. 6 1. Violence in Popular Culture and Literature 1.1. Definition of Violence Patrick W. Shaw, in his work The Modern American Novel of Violence, defines violence as “any action, premeditated or not, that is performed with the purpose of injuring or killing another living creature, especially another human” (2). The term injury is further clarified as a visible wound that would be treated by doctor. Shaw‟s definition is limited to physical injuries which is insufficient. W. James Potter adds a psychological element and states that “violence is a violation of a character‟s physical or emotional well-being. It includes two key elements – intentionality and harm – at least one of which must be present” (80). In The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness Erich Fromm distinguishes two kinds of violence. The first is “a phylogenetically programmed impulse to attack (or to flee) when vital interests are threatened” (24). This aggression is common for all animals. “The other type, „malignant‟ aggression, i.e., cruelty and destructiveness, is specific to the human species and virtually absent in most mammals; it is not phylogenetically programmed and not biologically adaptive; it has no purpose, and its satisfaction is lustful” (Fromm 24). Humans rarely have the need to use violence in a defensive way and if so, it is mostly because other humans behave in an aggressive and destructive way. “Man differs from the animal by the fact that he is a killer; he is the only primate that kills and tortures members of his own species without any reason, either biological or economic, and who feels satisfaction of doing so” (Fromm 25). Even though most humans do not have the need to practice violence directly, there are still a lot of people who enjoy at least watching violence or reading about it. 7 1.2. Violence and the Media Media and especially mass media is a frequently used term nowadays. It can be defined as “any form of communication to which large numbers of people have ready access” (Newton 2). This condition is met for example by newspapers, television, popular music or books. Newton states that the problem of violence in mass media was largely discussed in the 1990s since “almost everywhere one looked during the period, violent scenes and messages abounded. Motion pictures, television, popular music, video games, books, and magazines featured scenes of mayhem, sexual assault, murder, suicide, and other forms of violence” (2) and it was indisputable that so frequent depiction of violence must have had an effect on Americans. Despite the belief that violence is a new phenomenon, in his book Preposterous Violence, James B. Twitchell points out that “violence in literature can be traced back nearly 200 years, almost to the birth of the novel as a literary form” (Newton 3). On this topic Twitchell further adds that two prevailing themes in early and contemporary novel are romance and violence. Already in the eighteenth century the topic of violence was widely popular among the public (Newton 5). The reasons why violence is part of American culture and society can be found in its history. Historians have pointed out that “the United States was founded as a result of violent revolution . As settlers moved west, they waged a campaign of genocide against Native Americans and practiced a particularly violent form of personal and social justice within their own pioneer community” (Newton 6). Defined by their history Americans believe in the idea that it is all right to be violent to gain their goals and that any weakness in unacceptable. John Fiske‟s explanation of the attractiveness of violence is that “violence on television is a concrete representation of class (or other) conflict in society. The heroes 8 and heroines that a society chooses to make popular at any one point in its history are those figures that best embody its dominant values. Conversely, its popular villains and victims are those who embody values that deviate from this norm” (134-5).