The Quest for Identity in Fight Club, a Novel by Chuck Palahniuk

Musician and blogger Cameron Harwick once wrote that “Man is an undoubtedly social being. Nearly everything he does is in regard to another human being”. The insight touches on the theme of “group instinct”, connecting it to Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club. At the heart of Fight Club is the question: Who am I? Fight Club asks readers where one fits into humanity. How can one feel that they are useful and important to mankind? The reason men flock to fight club and Project Mayhem is because of human being’s natural desire to be part of a group. The four main groups that present themselves throughout the novel secure the connection between man’s sense of belonging and masculinity. Between society, the support groups, fight club, and Project Mayhem, the narrator attempts to depend on various groups to shape his unknown identity.

The largest group that the narrator attempts to fit in with is general society; the narrator’s group instinct portrays itself here. At the very beginning of the novel, he explains his desire to own the perfect furniture and live a normal life. He works hard to ensure his place in society as a normal, law-abiding citizen, under the belief that his adherence to societal norms will give him an identity. The narrator has trouble defining himself as a person, and doing what anyone with this problem would, he attempts to be like everyone else. The narrator dedicates his life to material; he buys the “right” kind of furniture, gets a job, and tries to join the typical American male category. What the narrator fails to comprehend is that while creating an identity through material, he is identified by stuff, not his person. Man’s natural instinct to belong to a group plays an important role in the narrator’s adherence to society. Fitting in with everyone else is simply what feels like the natural thing to do when lost. However, the narrator finds no happiness in his “normal” lifestyle. Palahniuk writes in the thoughts of the narrator, that everything in society is “a copy of a copy of a copy” (21). The narrator still has no identity, and he turns to support groups to try and find something of worth in his life.

The narrator joins various support groups to fill his empty identity. True he does not share anything in common with the cancer victims and sick patients, but within each group the narrator finds a sense of belonging. The love and general interest of each support group member is enough to satisfy the narrator’s need for fellowship. The group displays compassion to each of the other members and they all show a genuine interest in what each person has to say. The narrator feels important and listened to, like he is a significant member of humanity and brings value to mankind. By surrounding himself with others who are worse-off than him, the narrator ups his sense of importance. He reflects, “Walking home from a support group, I felt more alive than I’d ever felt. I wasn’t host to cancer or blood parasites; I was the little warm center that the life of the world crowded around” (22). The narrator’s motifs for attending these groups are simply his herd instinct, which justifies his anger when Marla tells him that he can only attend one group per week. To the narrator, taking away daily group meetings feels like stripping him of his new-found and young identity. The support groups are simply a category that the narrator can fit into and feel connected with; the specifics of the category are not important. The support groups do offer some sort of worth for the narrator, but eventually he turns to fight club for more identity.

The fight club group setting delves deeper into the instincts of the narrator. Like the support groups, fight club has no real connection with the personality of the narrator, but the natural need to belong to a group takes over the narrator’s judgment. The purpose of the group no longer matters. The morals and general feeling of the group no longer is important. The fact that the narrator has something to do and somewhere to go is enough. Fight club also lets the narrator feel important and needed. The narrator is the center of observation during a fight. Everyone else looks at him; everyone cheers him on. This attention that the narrator receives makes him feel like he is valued. He feels connected to every member of fight club, and this connection creates an identity. In fight club, the narrator begins to cling onto the illusion of masculinity. Yes, society and support groups made him feel important, but fight club makes the narrator feel like a man. Palahniuk’s subtle definitions of masculinity throughout the novel further prove that the reason men like the narrator flock to fight club is simply herd instinct. Being part of something with other men makes one feel manly and more masculine. In fight club, there are no women. This factor contributes to the appeal of fight club. Finally men have found a group setting where they feel needed and significant, and where they can project their masculinity. Cameron Harwick continues his thoughts on this connection when he writes, “Certainly this tendency is found in all peoples across all times. From the factions of the ancient Greeks, fighting for the honor of their tribe, to the irrational animosity between fans of different sports teams, it’s not difficult to point out numerous examples of the instinct”. Fight club seems to fill the narrator’s need for identity, but Project Mayhem takes his quest even further.

Project Mayhem represents the narrator’s last attempt at an identity. Men are drawn to fight club and Project Mayhem because of the human instinct to belong to a group and the natural desire to be regarded as important, and the narrator is no exception. In Project Mayhem specifically, men know who the narrator is; he belongs; he has important input. The more the narrator feels like he belongs, the less important the purpose of the group becomes. The narrator’s instinctual desire to feel appreciated as a significant member of mankind is the drive behind his involvement with the project. But Project Mayhem is not simply a group in which the narrator finds himself. The narrator is Project Mayhem. Unknowingly, the narrator is in charge of the entire operation. No longer will the narrator have to search and hunt for attention and the feeling of importance because through Project Mayhem, he suddenly is the most important person in the room. By becoming not just a member of a group, but a leader, the narrator has not just found his identity as a person, but also as a man. With the natural competition not present in the project’s group setting, the narrator is top dog; he is the most important, and the most masculine. Project Mayhem is the final group in which the narrator’s herd instinct is displayed.

The very core of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club is the narrator’s grapple with finding and uncovering his identity. Group instinct refers to man’s natural desire to be appreciated in society, and Palahniuk’s narrator displays group instinct on his quest for identity in the novel. Through society, support groups, fight club, and Project Mayhem, the narrator attempts to answer the question: Who am I? The reasoning behind the appeal to these groups is herd instinct. Human beings wonder their place in civilization; how can one feel useful and important to mankind? Through herd instinct, the narrator attempts to build his own identity, and the group that brings him the most unique and significant identity will be his eventual downfall.

Works Cited

• Harwick, Cameron. “The Origin of Group Instinct.” Thrica. Cameron Harwick, 08 June 2010. Web. 01 May 2013. <http://thri.ca/>.
• Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club, New York: W.W. Norton &, 1996. Print.

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