Tyler Durden: Fight Club

When I chose to include "Fight Club" and Tyler Durden in this Independent Study, I wanted to explore the idea of villainy of the self. Where a character, in this case the narrator, creates an alternate personality that becomes self destructive. Because of the constraints of society, the narrator believed that he wasn't capable of making a difference, of having certain qualities, so he created Tyler Durden. The narrator says, "I love everything about Tyler Durden, his courage and his smarts. His nerve. Tyler is funny and charming and forceful and independent, and men look up to him and expect him to change their world. Tyler is capable and free, and I am not" (174). In the movie, Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden tells Edward Norton, the narrator, that he looks the way the narrator wants to look, acts the way he wishes he could act, and even fucks the way he wishes to fuck. So why not just let Tyler take over? Why not be this entity that he created? Tyler is his hero at the beginning but his actions quickly spun out of control until the narrator realized this wasn't what he wanted to be doing and the only way to end it was to shoot himself.
It is precisely because Tyler Durden is the narrator's hero at the beginning of the novel that makes him such a great villain. Palehniuk's writing style slams us over the head with the dreariness of the narrator's situation. It's a very similar feeling to the beginning of "American Psycho," the suffocation of the superficial, trying to find perfection in material things, in Ikea magazines. So when the narrator says, "Deliver me, Tyler, from being perfect and complete" (46) we want it too. The change of tone in the narrator's voice also makes us go along with Tyler's ideas for awhile. "Maybe self improvement isn't the answer. Tyler never knew his father. Maybe self destruction is the answer" (49). And even though we see these guys beating each other to a pulp, just the change in their lives - the fact that they actually seem to be feeling something, makes us also hold Tyler up on this pedestal.
This idealism in such a nihilistic message sets us up for what is coming and we dread the direction the story begins to play out. But it isn't until the death of Bob that the realization of what the narrator has created and supported really hits home. And Tyler becomes something terrifying the narrator has to stop.
Marla Singer is an interesting topic point when it comes to comparing Tyler Durden in literature and film. In the movie, it seems like Tyler Durden doesn't care or really want Marla at all beyond sex. But Edward Norton, as the narrator, comes to really care for her. And when he basically tells Marla that he is not Tyler Durden, Tyler seems to have no qualms with just wanting to get rid of her because she knows too much. However, in the novel, it begins by saying in the first chapter, "I know all of this: the gun, the anarchy, the explosion is really about Marla Singer... We have sort of a triangle thing going here. I want Tyler. Tyler wants Marla. Marla wants me. I don't want Marla, and Tyler doesn't want me around, not anymore. This isn't about love as in caring. This is about property as in ownership. Without Marla, Tyler would have nothing" (14). This basically sets up the novel to revolve around the narrator and Tyler's relationships with Marla. While in the movie, although important, seems to not be the center of the story except at the beginning and then at the very end. In the movie the narrator says, "it has something to do with Marla Singer" not that Tyler hs nothing without her or that it IS about Marla. This makes Tyler's character in the novel more layered because total destruction of society isn't his only goal. If he wants to "own" Marla like "property" then, in a way, this goes against his anti-consumer message as well as the idea that no one is special.
The different endings say more about the narrator than Tyler Durden. In both, the narrator shoots himself and "kills" Tyler Durden but in the film, he talks to other Project Mayhem members and watches the explosions while holding hands with Marla. It almost seems like they will have a happy ending. But in the book, he is in a mental institution, where he refuses to "return" because people still whisper to him "We look forward to getting you back" (208). To me, that shows that the narrator is afraid of Tyler coming back.