Fight Club Essay

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2 February 2011 Consumerism in Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club divulges the lacking individuality and conformity of men in today's culture. Men in Fight Club are becoming defined by how much they provide for their family and the expensive material goods that their families claim. Both the novel and film, express Palahniuk's concern of a vastly growing consumer culture. Fight Club's own protagonist, Jack, is a man consumed by material goods. The material good of choice in Fight Club is IKEA home furnishings, that which Jack uses to substitute in for relationships. In both the novel and film, the narrator explains, in great detail, the necessity of having the IKEA furniture. The narrator explains the importance of the furniture by stating, "Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled" (Palahniuk 44). However, once one object is bought it is another that needs to go along with it; therefore, the consumerism continues from one item to the next. The narrator also utilizes the IKEA home furnishings as a way of describing himself. In the film, the narrator states, "I flipped through catalogs and wondered: What kind of dining set defines me as a person?" (Fight Club). Jack has given himself up to the IKEA home furnishing throughout the beginning of the novel, but once Tyler is developed, Jack loses interest in what he declares as, "[his] life" (Fight Club). Jack had thrown his life and his money into his condominium that was ironically blown up. The irony in the narrator's IKEA filled condominium being destroyed is because it was exactly what Chuck Palahniuk despised. In Terry Lee's article, "Virtual Violence in Fight Club: This Is What Transformation of Masculine Ego Feels Like", he writes, "In Fight Club, Jack unconsciously substitutes the near-perfect IKEA

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