“Fight Club” Analysis: Main Characters

The movie Fight Club is attempting to represent society as confinement. We are confined by the normal beliefs that our everyday lives should consist only of work and sleep. We see this throughout the beginning of the movie as the main character leads a boring life. He strives to escape the ideals and standards of society and break free. His representation of this is his creation of an imaginary character by the name of Tyler Durden.

Tyler is who he wants to be. He wants to act like him, look like him, feel like him, and do anything that he does. Tyler also represents a mature and masculine man. As the main character sees it, through all of the therapy, need for other’s attention, insomnia, and crying, he feels like he is losing a sense of his masculinity. This is the main reason why the fight club is created. It is a way for all of men who feel they are losing their masculinity to regain it in the act of fighting. It allows them to overcome their overbearing and weak mind and allow their physicality in strength to show.

The most significant character in the movie that stood out to me was Marla. The whole movie is surrounding the men and their masculinity, and the writer decides to have only one female character, and have her be a mystery. A scene about Marla that stood out to me is when she called 9-1-1 about the girl in the apartment that was trying to kill herself. This girl was herself. On the call, she is very honest with the paramedics about who she is or the “girl in the apartment” is as person. She states herself as human waste, infectious, afraid of commitment, having no faith, and losing the sign of life as she grows older. I feel like Marla’s statement during this scene did not fit in the movie.

Throughout the entire movie, Marla refers to herself in the third person, sort of distancing herself from her identity, acting like she is someone else. On the call, Marla is honest and tells the truth about herself. This stands out in the movie because throughout the entire time, characters have a hard time being honest with themselves, and honest about the identity that they want to have. Unlike the main character, Marla is able to deal with herself and her dual personality head on instead of creating an imaginary character in her head.

The main character creates this other person to deceive himself from who he wants to be. She is honest with herself and doesn’t need an alternate character to prove who she wants to be. We see Marla’s true intentions of wanting to feel more alive through these words and her actions of working at a funeral and attending the support groups. This is how she copes with her split self, who she wants to be, and how she wants to live. However, looking at it at a different perspective, maybe the writer was trying to prove a point. Maybe he is trying to prove that women are more honest with themselves in today’s society.

They know what they want, what their weaknesses are, and how they need to improve themselves. I feel like in today’s society, men are less honest with themselves because they are afraid to admit their flaws, due to a possible recognition of loss in masculinity towards them. Overall through Marla, the writer reveals a mysterious woman that exposes the main character’s conformity within society and his dishonesty with himself. She not only represents a person more open with herself and her feelings but also the general message that women can be more truthful towards themselves and others about who they want to be, what they want out of life, and how they want to live.

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