Is It All in My Mind or Not?
Once you get past the initial violent context of the movie, Fight Club, the viewer bears witness to an intriguing narrative about a man with Multiple Personality Disorder. Revolving around three central characters; a nameless narrator (Edward Norton), his alter ego Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), and his girlfriend Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), Fight Club is a movie about an individual who is engrossed in everything around him he does not know where it ends and he begins. He not seeks to redefine himself in Tyler’s image, but also everyone and everything in society. The narrator uses his imaginary friend, Tyler, and his following, Fight Club, as a means to escape everyday life and embark upon a journey of self discovery filled with mischief and mayhem. Using several key elements concerning the film’s plot line, like story time and narrative time, flashbacks, action time and suggestive language, the narrative is able to manipulate the storyline. Keeping the viewer in suspense as to not only the events of the narrative but also whether or not the narrator is actually the one telling the story. The movie begins in a most ambiguous state with the narrator and Tyler Durden waiting what is to be the climax. Almost immediately, t . . .
” (Fight Club) The movie then shifts into the flashback sequence looping all the way around to the eventual ending, three minutes later. Tyler’s words bring people to believe that their lives have brought them to a state of solidarity and confinement “We are the all singing all dancing crap of the world” (Fight Club). However, in the case of this narration the viewer finds that the narrator has manipulated much of it although at no fault of his own. His bouts with insomnia where he is never really awake or really asleep, “I can’t sleep-have I been sleeping” and his feelings of dejavu are all keeping the narrator from telling the entire story. Using repetition, Tyler drowns out individuals’ thoughts for that of his own. Once the viewer realizes that the narrator has Multiple Personality Disorder, it becomes clear as to why the narrative is difficult to understand. In the opening scene Tyler checks his watch saying, “Three minutes, this is it. It begins once the narrator starts speaking and does not end until the story has concluded. Duration of sequences is also crucial to the manipulation of the narrative paying close attention to the amount of time Tyler spends alone with the narrator. Time as both personalities begin to blend so much that the narrator never really knows who he is. Therefore, he has little to no control over what he tells to the viewer. We watch them unfold as the narrator remembers them happening which becomes exceedingly difficult to understand. Words can hurt, they can show concern and they can especially influence. Ground zero…Two and a half, think of all we have accomplished. In actuality, he is the one who orchestrates everything but only his subconscious mind is aware of that.
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