The Story Of Marla Singer

"The girl is infectious human waste, and she's confused and afraid to commit to the wrong thing so she won't commit to anything." (Palahniuk 61.) Marla Singer. This lying, filthy woman who holds her own strength and stands up for herself, helps the whole story of fight club unravel down to the cold hard truth. Being the only woman in a novel and movie must really say something about her character. Without her, our narrator would not have figured out who he truly is.

When our character is first introduced, she is repeatedly called a liar. “She’s a fake. She’s a liar… In this one moment, Marla’s lie reflects my lie, and all I can see are lies. In the middle of all their truth.” (Palahniuk 23.) As the reader, we are given the idea that Marla cares for nobody around her and she does not care what others think about her. For example, when she first walks into Remaining Men Together, the testicular cancer support group, she is surrounded by 20 men in a church basement. “This is cancer, right?” she said. Then she said, “Well, hi, I’m Marla Singer.” (Palahniuk 23.) As she stays in the basement, nobody cares to let her know what kind of cancer the support group was for in the first place. Our narrator describes Marla when he first sees her. “Short matte black hair, big eyes the way they are in Japanese animation, skim milk thin, buttermilk sallow in her dress with a wallpaper like pattern of dark roses…” (Palahniuk 18). As being the only female character in this novel and movie, we expect her to be strong, especially in a movie titled ‘Fight Club’.

Because Marla is the only female character, the reader or audience would like to know what she has to do with the characters in the movie, why she here in the first place. Starting thi...

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...ck of delivery trucks to survive. This woman is blunt and full of the truth which helps her character stay strong no matter how much a man may dictate her life.

Marla never needed Tyler or Jack (our narrator) in her life. All she wanted to do from the very start was attend support group meetings to cope her depression and loneliness. When she met the narrator’s character, she knew what she was getting into. She wanted his attention and she was disparate for companionship and/or a relationship. Kind of like the brain parasites patient, Chloe, she was desperate to get laid, or in Marla’s case, find a friend or a relationship to start with any other human being on this planet. Like Jack mentions at the end of the movie, Marla, “You met me at a very strange time in my life.” If she had never met him in the first place this story would only be about men and their needs.