Fight Club is a movie that is based on a Chuck Palahniuk novel of the same name. The movie adaptation was written by Jim Uhls, directed by David Fincher and released October 15, 1999. The movie is about the life of the narrator, a depressed insomniac who works as a recall coordinator for an automobile company. The narrator is refused medication by his doctor, he turns to attending a series of support groups for different illnesses and uses these support groups for emotional release and this helps to temporarily cure his insomnia. This newfound cure ceases to help him when a girl, Marla Singer who is not a victim of any illness for which the support groups are offered begins to attend the support groups. The narrator returns from a business trip to find his apartment destroyed by an explosion, he calls Tyler Durden, a soap maker and sales man he met on one his business trips. Tyler offers the narrator a place to stay and together they start an underground “Fight Club” the narrator uses as his therapy for his insomnia. The club grows and becomes a source of psychotherapy for many other men. One of the concepts highlighted in the movie is how modern-day men in a supposedly civilized world use violent aggressive acts towards each other to as a means of emotional release and satisfaction.
In this paper I intend to explore how the ideas of civilization and the human aggressive instincts portrayed in the movie characterize reality. This is going to be achieved using psychoanalytical concepts of civilization and the individual’s inevitable quest for satisfying their instincts as identified in Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents. The paper will focus more specifically on the instincts of aggression and self-destruction as op...
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...social relationships and cultural behavior, both of which play a key role in defining our perception of reality.
Works Cited
Fincher, David. Fight Club, (motion picture) 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2000.
Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents, (Trans. James Strachey), New York: Norton Books, 1989.
Fine, Reuben. The Development of Freud’s Thought: From the Beginnings (1886-1900) Through Id Psychology (1900-1914) to Ego Psychology (1914-1939). New York: J. Aronson, 1973. Print.
Oliver, Roland and Anthony Atmore. Africa since 1800. 5th ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. Print.
“Fight Club.” Wikipedia 2010. Wikipedia Foundation, Inc.. 7 November 2010
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Club_(film).>
Uhls, Jim. Fight Club Final Script, Internet Movie Script Database. 7 November 2010
Freud, S., & Strachey, J. (19621960). The Ego and the Super-ego. The ego and the id (pp. 19-20). New York: Norton.
The thought of Freud has a total focus on an individual’s mind and how this internal struggle effects how humans interact within society. Freud argues that every human has three functional parts of their personality that exist within the mind itself: the id, super-ego and the ego. Thurschwell describes these three layers as how they relate to each other. The id is the deepest level of the unconscious, which is dominated by the pleasure principle and has no concept of time except for the present, demanding instant gratification of sexual and aggressive (Eros and Thanatos) urges. The superego originates through identification with the individuals parents, functioning as an internal censor witch represses the dangerous urges of the id. The ego starts as part of the id but is more sensible as it has knowledge of the outside world. Unlike the id, the ego is dominated by the instinct to protect oneself. Although these three layers cannot be physically mapped out in the mind they do show how Freud constantly focused on the internal mind...
Freud, S., Strachey, J., Freud, A., Rothgeb, C., & Richards, A. (1953). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (1st ed.). London: Hogarth Press.
“I am Joe's Blood-Boiling Rage “ (96). Anger is one of the seven deadly sins which is defined by Christopher Marlowe in Doctor Faustus as, “I am Wrath. I had neither father nor mother. I leapt out of a lion’s mouth when I was scarce an hour old, and ever since have run up and down the world with this case of rapiers, wounding myself when I could get none to fight withal. I was born in hell, and look to it, for some of you shall be my father” (Doctor Faustus 2. 1).
Ed Norton is the main character in the beginning. He has a meaningless job and he has to go to support groups to feel anything. There he meets Marla, a woman who does the same as him; they are both addicted to support groups. He then meets Brad Pitt. Pitts character forces Norton's character to see that life is meaningless and they begin the fight club. It starts in the basement; it is in confines and is completely regulated. It then shifts to cultural anarchy of vandalism and attacks. Then the members have to pick a fight and lose. The idea of the fight club spreads and becomes like an army and the members become militant. The members no longer "take it out" on each other, they take it out on everyone. The idea of the fight club becomes facist and Tyler becomes like Hitler.
Trupin, James E. West Africa - A Background Book from Ancient Kingdoms to Modern Times, Parent's Magazine Press. New York, 1991.
Mazrui, Ali A. "The Re-Invention of Africa: Edward Said, V. Y. Mudimbe, and Beyond." Research in African Literatures 36, no. 3 (Autumn 2005): 68-82.
Freud, Sigmund. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. Ed. James Strachey. Trans. James Strachey. Standard. Vol. 22. London: Hogarth Press, 1964.
Freud, Sigmund. Ego and the Id of Sigmund Freud (The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological works of Sigmund Freud Series).
The aim of this essay is to clarify the basic principles of Freud’s theories and to raise the main issues.
Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 to Jewish Galician parents in the Moravian town of Pribor in the Austrian Empire (“Sigmund Freud” n. pag). During his education in the medical field, Freud decided to mix the career fields of medicine and philosophy to become a psychologist (“Sigmund Freud” n. pag). During his research as a psychologist, he conceived the Structural Model Theory, which he discussed in his essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The theory states that the human psyche is divided into three main parts: the id, ego, and super-ego (“Id, Ego, and Super-ego” n. pag). He concluded that the id was the desire for destruction, violence and sex; the ego was responsible for intellect and dealing with reality; and the super-ego was a person’s sense of right and wrong and moral standards (Hamilton, n. pag). Freud argued that a healthy individual will have developed the strongest ego to keep the id and super-ego in check (“Id, Ego, and Super-ego” n. p...
In addition to Freud’s stages of development his best-known concepts are those of the id, ego, and superego (Crain, p. 268). The id personality called ‘the unconscious” is the personality that focuses on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain through reflexes and drives such as hunger or bladder tensions (Crain, pp. 268-269). The id concept is impulsive, chaotic and unrealistic.
... Cambridge Encyclopedia of Africa. Ed. Roland Oliver. 1. New York: Trewin Copplestone Books Limited, 1984. Print.
Psychological disorders are widely represented in films, as well as in other media texts such as novels, television shows, etc. One film that portrays more than one example of a psychological disorder is Fight Club, a Twentieth Century Fox movie released with an R rating in 1999. Directed by David Fincher; and produced by Art Linson, Cean Chaffin, and Ross Grayson Bell, the movie mainly introduces Dissociative Identity Disorders (also known as Multiple Personality Disorders), but also hints at insomnia and depression. The movie is adapted from the book Fight Club written by Chuck Palahniuk. Fox marketed the movie using a “myriad of merchandise, including posters, the soundtrack, and even email addresses (yourname@fightclub.com)” (CNN). The movie’s production budget was set at $63,000,000 with the movie grossing $37,030,102 (Daily Box Office). The characters of the movie refer to themselves as the “middle children of history” with the feelings of having no purpose or place in life. They convey that they have no history-making events or real set goals and/or destiny to look forward to. They were brought up by society to believe that one-day they would be rich, famous and loved just as those depicted on television. This is symbolic of society during the surrounding time of the movie’s release. It is prevalent in modern society to strive to become someone/something that one sees in the media. The movie is directed towards Generation-X, but the “…hope was that the film would demonstrate the themes of the story to a larger audience. It would offer more people the idea that they could create their own lives outside the existing blueprint for happiness offered by society” (Palahniuk). This message was one that demanded that its viewers put all that drives them aside, and rethink what they had been taught from childhood. After the film’s release, instead of delivering the message that was intended, it was met with criticism and misunderstanding. This was due partly to the fact that it was scheduled for release shortly after the Columbine shootings. The movie became an easy target for those upset by the blatant violence which surrounded the Columbine incident. Although Fight Club is a film full of violence it is in reality one that promotes anti-violence, and points out to the audience the human impulses that cause violent behavior. Ironically, despite all of the med...
The New Imperialism and the Scramble for Africa 1880-1914. Jeff Taylor, n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.