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“Simulation of authority figures and self-destruction as a discourse of protest in the postmodern world in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club”
“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.
Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read.”
(Often attributed to Groucho Marx)
Table of contents
- Abstract…………………………………………………………………………….2
- Introduction………………………………………………………………………..3
- Theoretical framework……………………………………………………………4
- Analysis
Chapter I: Everything is a copy of a copy: Simulation in Fight Club…………….8
Chapter II: You have to fight: Constructing male gender and a discourse
of protest……………………………………………………………....19
Chapter III: A father to complete ourselves: The role ofmale parents in the
postmodern world………………………………………………….....31
- Conclusion………………………………………………………………………...38
- Works cited………………………………………………………………………..40
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Abstract
This paper aims to discuss Chuck Palahniuk’s portrayal of the state of postmodern reality, postmodern masculinity and the role of authority figures such as that of the father and that of God in his novel Fight Club. Discomforted and frustrated, the unnamed narrator is a fine example of the postmodern man: he struggles with the consumer-driven goals of society, the diminished condition of manhood in a Hyperreal world and the emptiness such world makes him feel.
By analyzing works from the perspective of gender studies and psychology, this project intends to explore and review concepts such as social constructionism of gender, fatherhood, simulation, and Hyperreality in order to discuss broader topics such as violence and self-destruction as means to reassert masculinity and as a discourse to protest against postmodern society.
Key concepts: Hyperreality, simulation, masculinity, self-destruction, discourse of protest
Introduction
In a world where male role models are dictated by advertisement and mass media, discomfort and frustration among men begin to set in. An example of this kind of man is the unnamed narrator of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, who finds a way to reject the spoon-fed approach to contemporary living.
In the first chapter, titled “Everything is a copy of a copy: Simulation in Fight Club”, a definition of the concepts of Hyperreality proposed by Jean Baudrillard as a real without origin and simulation as a vehicle to alter reality is provided. Baudrillard’s understanding of God as a mere simulacrum of His own is also defined in this chapter as it will be useful to the analysis of the main characters attempts to transform their own life. The second chapter, titled “You have to fight: Constructing male gender and a discourseof protest”, explores social constructionism of gender and Fight Club as a vehicle that helps in such process. The discussion encompasses the fields of gender studies and psychology by reading the novel’s manifestations of masculinity in the light of critics and theorists such as Judith Butler and R. W. Connell. This chapter also incorporates Nigel Edley’s discourse-oriented approach on manhood as an aid to the discussion of violence and self-destruction and the role of these practices in the configuration of the narrator’s identity. The third and final chapter “A father to complete ourselves: The question of fatherhood in Fight Club”, applies Anthony Clare’s discussion on the role of male parents in the life of the postmodern man, focusing on the experiences of the narrator portrayed in the novel.
Theoretical framework
This framework is intended to provide an overview of the theories to be revised in the examination and analysis of Chuck Palahniuk’s portrayal of the state of masculinity, the configuration of authority figures and the setting and kind of reality in which events in his novel Fight Club take place. In order to do so, research and analysis on different academic fields will be carried out: Theories ranging from gender studies to psychology will be of help in the development of the discussion of concepts such as social constructionism, masculinity, violence, self-destruction, Hyperreality, and fatherhood.
In regards to gender studies, the concept of masculinity will be defined in an attempt to better understand its relevance to literary studies. Similarly useful will be psychological approaches when examining the masculine identity crisis experienced by the narrator of the novel. Likewise, issues such as the significance of the creation of an underground fighting club on the reassertion of postmodern masculinity and the rejection of the role of men as dictated by the postmodern world will be analyzed.
First of all, ideas proposed by Jean Baudrillard about Hyperreality as a real without origin, simulation as a vehicle to alter reality, and God as a mere simulacrum of His own will be useful when analyzing the narrator’s attempts to transform his own life. Many of the events within the novel taking place in a dream-like artificial state of consciousness, at one point the narrator states that “with insomnia, nothing is real. Everything is far away. Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy” (Palahniuk, 21) In other words, the novel, the literary text (as well as the movie) would be the embodiment of a postmodern reality whose boundaries with fantasy become blurry. Baudrillard’s contention that to simulate is "to feign to have what one hasn't" (2) will serve as ground for discussion of the narrator’s attitude towards life when attempting to cure his insomnia by attending to support groups. Another instance of simulation may well be found in the name of the street (Paper Street) where the narrator’s alter-ego supposedly lives: “Paper street” refers to a street that is depicted on a map but does not actually exist. Tyler Durden is the work of the unconscious that the narrator has produced. In other words, Tyler is the simulation; the narrator, the simulator. Tyler represents the narrator’s unconscious. Tyler's work, as a projectionist, a banquet waiter, a soap distributor and all his work with and around Fight Club is performed and produced in the real by the real (the narrator). So despite he believes that Tyler is doing all the work and is therefore real, it is, as a matter of fact, the narrator’s unconscious being produced in the real by the narrator. Baudrillard’s claim that simulation "threatens the difference between 'true' and 'false,' between 'real' and 'imaginary'” (2) will be of help as well to analyze Palahniuk’s characterization of Tyler Durden and his existence being only in the narrator’s mind.
From the perspective of gender studies, Judith Butler’s thoughts on sex and gender as being socially and culturally constructed through the reiteration of stylized acts in time will be discussed. According to Butler, “gender requires a performance that is repeated” (140) She further argues that if gender does not exist, but is rather performed, it is up to individuals to perform individual gender roles that fit their lives more appropriately. By doing so, she rejects the fact that gender arises from biology. In Fight Club, the narrator is looking for ways to recover his sense of manhood that has been lost to a consumerist society. One of these ways is through violence, a primitive form of masculinity that has been present in humanity from early years.
Similarly pertinent to the analysis of Palahniuk’s novel are R. W. Connell’s ideas on the masculinity, especially his proposal of the existence of more than one kind of manhood. One of these categories is hegemonic masculinity, regarded as the norm at a certain time and place. In Fight Club, an example ofsuchcategory would be the tendency to purchase and accumulate material goods as a way to channel one’s frustration and to fill the emptiness of life, an experience that is depicted in the characterization of the narrator of Fight Club. In addition to that category, Connell claims that there are also subordinate masculinities, which does not only include within itself homosexual masculinity but also any other large group of men whose members are systematically excluded from political, social and cultural contexts. In this respect, the narrator in Chapter 6 refers to participants of Fight Club as being part of a “generation of men raised by women” (Palahniuk, 50). Such allusion may well fit the description of a rejected group of men, which is, in this case, a large group of postmodern individuals who have grown without an authority figure (God and/or father) in their lives. In addition, Nigel Edley’s discourse-oriented approach on manhood will be employed for the discussion of violence and self-destruction as a discourse of protest against the postmodern society and its consumer-driven goals.
Throughout the novel, several allusions to authority figures (God and father) are made. In this regard, psychiatrist Anthony Clare’s thoughts on masculinity as well as his ideas on fatherhood are examined, taking into consideration the narrator’s experiences that are depicted in the novel. Clare, for example, poses the question of the usefulness of the father figure in today’s society. “If men still have a role as fathers”, he demands, “then it is time they explained what it is. And it is time they fulfilled this role.” (222) He further asks, “What is it that fathers do? What is it that fathers are? What do they bring to society that society cannot do without?” Without a male role-model provided by a father figure, the narrator has been accepting what postmodern culture, mass media and advertising has been telling him about the role of men in society (to have a good job with a good salary, to own the finest car, the finest house, the finest technological device and the like) and such lifestyle eventually overwhelms him. Such questioning by Clare might well find answers in the realization that the narrator (a postmodern man who resents the absence of a father in his life) and his alter-ego Tyler Durden (a kind of surrogate father) are the same person, thus rendering the role of an authority figure useless or, at least, subject to be questioned.
Chapter I: Everything is a copy of a copy: Simulation in Fight Club
Before addressing issues such as the condition of masculinity in the postmodern world and the importance of authority figuressuch as that of the father and that of God in the configuration of postmodern manhood, it seems pertinent to describe the context in which Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club is set.
In his essay “The Precession of Simulacra”, Jean Baudrillard provides significant elements for the discussion and the revision of the conditions of postmodern culture and society as they are depicted in Fight Club. As a starting point, he takes Jorge Luis Borges’ fable On Exactitude in Science, in which “the cartographers of the Empire draw up a map so detailed that it ends up covering the territory exactly”, as an example of what once was “the most beautiful allegory of simulation”. When the Empire falls, the only thing that is left is the map. However, Baudrillard contends that “[t]oday abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance” but it is “a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal” (2). It is the real, not the map, he argues, whose vestiges remains until today. "The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that precedes the territory—precession of simulacra—that engenders the territory" (2). He further develops that “[i]t is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real” and now the development of every real process is by means of its “operational double, a programmatic metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real.” (3). Such machine or machinery may well be the kind of society depicted in Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club:the unnamed narrator’s (and also the main character) experiences take place in a world where everything seems to be handled on a plate, provided that you have the job and thus the money to afford it: from furniture to food, every single basic human need seem to be covered in such a way that an individual needs not move from his desk to get what he needs; there is no urge to get the paper at the newsstand: you can read it online; there is no urge to cook: you can order fast food for delivery; there is no urge for sex: you can watch pornography and so on and so forth. Thus, the narrator is a fine example of a postmodern man who has been deprived of all his drives by a consumerist society that has taken all his agency away, who now finds his life devoid of meaning or direction and whose role in society is passive. As the telling of the story progresses, we learn about the miserable, lonely life that he leads and we eventually get to sympathize with him: he works as a recall specialist for the automobile industry and his duty is to survey nationwide car accidents involving his company’s car so that the firm is able to determine if it is worthwhile to pay for the damage caused by their cars; it is as if human lives are set a price, a job morally questionable and undoubtedly depressing that even makes him wish he was dead: “Every takeoff and landing, when the plane banked too much to one side, I prayed for a crash” (19).
Baudrillard’s idea of hyperreal (“a real without origin or reality”) has a resonance in the narrator’s statement that “(…) Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy” (21) Postmodern culture is, according to Baudrillard, a chain of substitutes for a non-existent reality; many of the events within the novel take place in a dream-like artificial state of consciousness which serves as an embodiment of the postmodern reality: a reality whose boundaries with fantasy have been blurred.
In fact, as a result of the stress of his job as well as the jet lag induced by constant business trips, the narrator develops insomnia. In seeking treatment, he goes to a doctor hoping for a pharmaceutical solution to his problems. He, instead, suggests that the narrator attend support groups for people struggling with terminal diseases to see other people suffering, in an attempt to find out what is keeping him from falling asleep and focus on that, an advice the narrator follows. The first instance of simulation can be observed at this point: the narrator attends meetings for people who are struggling or have been struggling terrible life-threatening or life-altering diseases, despite the fact that he is physically healthy. With the hope that he will feel some kind of engagement to society, that is meaningful connections with other people, he ends up becoming addicted to these meetings and finding comfort with the support group for victims of testicular cancer. The members of this group prove to be the only individuals to whom the narrator relates. In fact, he finds a way to release his suffering by crying for the very first time after a man named Bob, a former body builder who lost his testicles to cancer caused by abuse of steroids, embraces him. Later that night, the narrator manages to fall asleep. (“And I slept. Babies don't sleep this well” [22]). Thus, the narrator has been able to find relief and things in his life have been back to normal by, following Baudrillard’s premise, substituting signs of the real for the real. The narrator’s statement in the very same page illustrates that he is living another kind of reality: “This is better than real life”. By “this”, he is referring to the support groups, which have come to constitute the simulated reality he has been living in, a world of his own that provides him with a shelter from the postmodern consumerist culture he has been wishing to escape from.
The gesture of visiting support groups exemplifies what Baudrillard in the section “The Divine Irreference of Images” defines as simulation: “[…] to feign to have what one doesn’t have” (3), as opposed to dissimulation, which is “to pretend not to have what one has” (3). He further develops this idea by quoting Littré who states that "Whoever fakes an illness can simply stay in bed and make everyone believe he is ill. [But] Whoever simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms." Interestingly enough, it can be argued that it is not the narrator himself the one who has produced the symptoms of the life-altering condition that he feigns to be ailed with and that actually affects members of the support group for victims of testicular cancer. Instead, the narrator’s emasculation has been caused by a postmodern society that has taken his agency away and is best seen as a metaphorical removal of his sexual organs. Thus, some of the symptoms of the illness or condition in question –in this case, testicular cancer- are somewhat produced in the narrator, although not by he himself. The kind of society in which he has lived has taken his agency away by providing men with few or no opportunities whatsoever so that they can do things for themselves. Having the courage –or, to use the rather sharp metaphor, having the testicles– is not really necessary becauseno much effort has to be made in order to get things done in the world depicted in Fight Club. Nevertheless, such symptoms is what enables him to be placed in as equal position as the rest of the members of the group: they share the same signs –or in this case, consequences- of the disease, only with the exception that the narrator’s castration is metaphorical rather than literal. According to Baudrillard, pretending or dissimulating leaves “reality intact”, whereas simulation replaces reality by altering it, something the narrator does by faking he is suffering from the same conditions that affect other members of the group. In fact, he acknowledges that he disguises his real identity when introducing himself to support groups (”I never give my real name at support groups” [22]).Only after he simulates what he is not and what he does not have (that is, by entering the world of the terminally ill and by doing so with an identity that is not his own) is he able to find relief. By being embraced, that is, by establishing meaningful contact with somebody else, the narrator is able to cry and feel accepted, even if it is not by society as a whole:“Walking home after a support group, I felt more alive than I'd ever felt” (22)