3t: Themes from Fight Club by Mette Vollbrecht Würtz Petersen https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi Pick one theme. Write a paragraph down where you explain why you think this is a theme that fits the movie/novel. Use at least one scene/one quotation from the movie to back it up and upload it to padlet. Use the notes from the group work yesterday to find arguments. (Focus here is on reaching the highest taxonomic level when analysing) Social Class //Masculinity // Violence // Identity // Love // Consumer society // Alienation // Mental Illness en-us 2020-06-24 14:21:25 UTC 2025-12-14 19:03:30 UTC hello@padlet.com Masculinity https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814090 The novel Fight Club depicts men as being emasculated; the men in the novel have entirely forgotten what it means to be real men. As a response to this Tyler Durden and the narrator creates the Fight Club, which has the purpose of letting men rediscover their true potential and masculinity. To the people in the fight club, a real man is a man who is willing to feel and dole pain out to other people. The fight club therefore offers a thbrilling sense of life, which the rest of society surely lacks, because they are living consumerist lives, which is centered on shopping, clothing and physical beauty. 

]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814090 social values https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814091 Tyler Durden: Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. The theme of anarchy and identity is something that really shines through in this quotation, where the ultimate kind of equality is mentioned - that we're all the same, and no one should be treated otherwise. - Victor]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814091 Consumer society https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814093 Rasmus k - In the scene where the protagonist is flipping through the ikea catalog, we see a clear exaple of the criticism towards consumer society. Tyler is an insomniac who tries to fill the void in his life, with unpersonal mass produced furniture from one of the biggest companies in the world. The furniture does not help him, and in the end he is more happy when he has blown up his apartment.]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814093 Violence https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814094 Johanne and Hannah - violence is an important theme since it gives the members of the figth club a feeling of being alive. They have jobs they do not like and feel an emptyness in their lives but the physical pain they get during fight makes them feel alive. The violence and pain give them a purpose with their lives]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814094 Criticism of society emma_bolsen1998 https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814095 Emma O- Criticism of the fact that in our society today everybody thinks that they are diffrent, our in some kind speciel, but he(the protagonist) says that all people in fact are the same. All people are just "robots" of society, and nobody cares when anybody dies.
"A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."

]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814095 Consumer Society https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814096
Rasmus J - Tyler clearly doesn’t like the attachment to objects that the protagonist has at the start of the movie. His house becomes the symbol of how materialism and the need to always have the most updated articles is an essential, but to Tyler, unneeded part of life. He wants to take a stand against the consumer society, and he forcefully tries to take the protagonist away from it, and instead make him hit rock bottom. The protagonist then becomes the evidence of how meaningless the consumerism is, since he after getting his house blown up slowly realizes that they were just dead items and thus doesn’t try to rebuild it instantly. He doesn't like how the items control our lives, and says: "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." Tyler thinks that the items lock up our lives, and that we should be freed from them.


]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814096 Anarchy https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814097 Astrid - one of the themes in Fight Club is anarchy. Tyler represents a wish and a dream for anarchy and a world of chaos. "This was the goal of Project Mayhem, Tyler said, the complete and right-away destruction of civilization." (p. 125) In Tyler's opinion the world can only get better, if the world first hit bottom. From the bottom the world can rise again. Tyler is not even afraid of God being angry with him; "How Tyler saw this was that getting God's attention for being bad was better than getting no attention at all. Maybe because God's hate is better than His indifference" (p. 141) ]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814097 Consumer Society https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814098 The idea behind projekt Mayhem and destryoing the Parker-Morris building, acording to the book, was to hit another targtet. The Musuem. Tyler wanted to be rid of the history which binds people in a past. 
"It's only after we have lost everything, we are free to do anything. Tyler hates that people have material affection. People should live and feel themselves - like when fighting in the fightclub. Tyler tries this on Jack by making his arpartmenet explode. And it works Jack started a whole new life together with Tylers low-cost life, living in the destroyed manor.]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814098 Identity https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814099 Sofie - Identity is an important theme in Fight Club. The protagonist says that: 
“Like so many others, I had become a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct ... I’d flick through catalogues and wonder, ‘What kind of dining set defines me as a person?’” 
- This indicates that he, first of all, have a hard time finding out who he is, and second of all, defines himself based on what sort of things he buys. And this goes hand in hand with the consumer-culture that Fight Club is a breaking out of. Fight Club therefore kind of starts with the protagonists lacking identity. 
]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814099 Mental illness https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814100 Amalie- I think one of the clear themes in both the novel and the movie is mental illness. Because both show how much control the mental illness have and how it can take over your life and your actions. This is obviously a severe case of mental illness because he actually hallucinate his schizophrenia (what I think is his illness) In the book it is clearer than in the movie, because we see him ending up in a mental institution, where he is medicated.  
This is also a theme because when you suffer from a mental illness, you become unaware of what is going on, because it can take over everything it changes your entire personality, it changes what you say, what you do and the way you think.
And Tylor(Brad Pitt) is obviously not the way the protagonist is, så all that Tylor represent is the things that the protagonist can't control.]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814100 Violence https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814101 Nicolai - Violence in the movie 'Fight Club' shows a lot about the portrayed society. The society is trying to protect the citizen from feeling anything, whether it is pain or joy. The consumtion of anti-depressants is higher than ever before. The fight club is focusing on feeling anything at all, even if it is just pain.  The movie focuses on allowing people to feel pain, as it is more human than not feeling anything at all. A quoutation that shows this, is Tyler talking about pain.
Tyler Durden: Without pain, without sacrifice, we would have nothing. Like the first monkey shot into space.
He defines pain as the factor that has allowed the human race to accomplish things, our incentive.
]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814101 Violence & Meaninglessness https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814102 Emma H - I think one of the most dominant themes of Fight Club is meaninglessness which is shown in the extreme violence. Especially, meaninglessness express it self in the creation of Fight club. The narrator and other regular people, with everyday jobs, live a meaningless and superficial life that is being dominated by materialistic goods. There is no purpose in life, and therefore they pursue to create a meaning with life by seeking near death experiences, violence, and pain in order to feel closer and accessing the society they aren’t in connection with, in their everyday life. In a large part of Fight Club, the characters consider death and pain to be more real than the life they live when they aren’t in Fight Club. For instance this is seen when the violence occurs in the scene with Tyler's Kiss, when Tyler says:
"(...) stay with the pain, don’t shut this out. The first soap was made from the ashes of heroes, like the first monkey shot into space. Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing".
Furthermore, the goal with fight club, is to  bring people closer to a meaning with their life by embracing the moment, by living on the edge and experiencing real pain, near death experiences and violence on their body that is also why Tyler asks the members to go out and do dangerous tasks, to feel the thrill in life, like when Tyler drives the car and they crash. 
]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814102 Masculinity https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814104 Lukas – In the movie, one of the mest important aspects is the fightclub itself. As we see, more and more people join and in the end it is a nation wide concept. The basics of fightclub is to get in touch with your inner most animalistic fighting instincts. They fight, not for the sake of hurting each other, but for the sake of carrying out this need of masculinity. We see how the protagonist has insomnia, but when he starts fightclub, he is so relieved that he can finally sleep again. Applying this example to every other fightclub member, we see how much men is in need of having a society where they can execute some of their deepest masculine desires.]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814104 Consumer Society helleskjoeth https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814106 Helle - I think consumer society is a theme in Fight Club, because it is what Tyler/the protagonist tries to break away from. Tyler says: "The things you own end up owning you", which is a pretty spot on representation of what Tyler hates about society. Tyler is angry about how money is the sole purpose of life, and how "white collars" treat hard-working citizens that are just as good people, just because they earn less money. I think this might be why Tyler consistently forces the protagonist and others (Raymond K. Hessel) to consider what their dying wish is. He makes people realise that money is not what they wish for, or the newest sofa from IKEA, but it is rather an education og a relation to someone that they wish they had kept. Project Mayhem is also destroying buildings, public property etc. to proof that it is not things that matter.]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814106 Identity problems kasper123jensen https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814108 Emilie - I think that one of the themes could be identity. This is based on how the protagonist obviously is going through a though period of his life. He has a hard time trying to find meaning with his life, he is a well dressed man, who lives in a apartment as if it was taken directly from a IKEA magazine. But this perfect surface is hiding a man, who is broken on the inside. The protagonist has a hard time figuring out who he really is, and that could be why he creates Tyler Durden. The creation of Tyler is the protagonists way of escaping, by becoming Tyler he can put his own person behind him, and be someone else for some time. But in the end of the book/movie is Tyler's personality taking over the protagonists personality, and this makes him face himself and his own personalty again. ]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814108 Identity https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814109 Alberte - The protagonist has problems with his identity. You could say he has an identity crisis or a pre-midlife crisis. He has to accept who he is and take responsibility of his own life and choices. Instead he flees into another persona - he creates Tyler Durden subconsciously. With this id, this character he is free to do whatever he wants without needing to take responsibility and there are suddenly no expectations he has to live up to. Tyler Durden is really the person the protagonist wants to be. He admires and envies his courage and free mind. In the end Tyler is beginning to be more and more a reality and the protagonist realises that he is soon losing himself. "Is Tyler my bad dream? or am I Tyler's?" He has to face himself and accept himself. ]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814109 Identity https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814110 Mads - I think the main theme is identity because during the movie the protagonist cannot find himself. In the beginning he is a mainstream man with a well-paid job and an IKEA stile in his apartment. For him this life does not make sense and he needs to be unique which reflects the postmodernist society. Tyler Durden helps him to be unique, but in the beginnig they seem very different. Sooner Tyler Durden "takes over" and dominate his mind. Tyler Durden is a part of his mind which facinates him, but it is also a part which represents his bad sides. Tyler has always been in the protagonist's mind "Tyler had been around a long time before we met". ]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814110 Mental illness emma_sang https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814111 Emma & Emma - This is a big theme in both the novel and the movie: Fight Club. The protagonist
hallucinates and sees e.g. Tyler Durden who is not a real person. He has the mental illness schizophrenia, which makes it difficult for the sufferer to differentiate the real from the unreal. That can include talking, seeing and hearing things that are not there. A quotation which underlines this is from the movie: "Is Tyler my bad dream? Or am I Tyler's?". This shows that he finds it difficult to see the different between him and Tyler, and also the different between real and unreal. There i also a scene where he mentions that: "It's not clear if reality slipped into my dream or if my dream is slopping over into reality". He no longer knows what is reality and what is not. ]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814111 Identity https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814112 Thea - The protagonist has difficulties controlling his identity, because it is split in two: between himself and Tyler. At some point Tyler says to the protagonist: "All the ways you wish you could be, that's me". Tyler thereby indicates that he himself represents all the sides of the protagonist which the protagonist suppresses. Tyler is a projection of the protagonist’s shady sides - a side which the protagonist wants to get rid of. 
In the beginning we experience that Tyler and the protagonist have very separate personalities, but later as they get more and more involved in the projects they begin to resemble each other.

]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814112 Consumer Society https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814113 Kaya- This theme is presented in the movie/novel. E.g. it is a part of society that Tyler hates, and he wants people (MeMbers of project mayhem) to create distance between themselves and their belongings. "The things you own end up owning you. " Consumerism, which is a postmodern aspect, is rejected. His apartment explodes (His alter-ego caused this) and with it all his beloved belongings. After he gets rid of them, he is no longer bound by them. When recruits have to present themselves for project mayhem, they may only bring the bare necessities. ]]> 2020-06-24 14:21:26 UTC https://padlet.com/qrv6rfap5x/o8q8gnm0x3qehkgi/wish/638814113