Understanding the Three Lines of Fight Club

Fight Club

Fight club is already imprinted in my mind like a textbook recited by an elementary school student. If I want to watch it again, I just need to do a search in my mind. Today, I was free, and I got some insights. I just sorted out my previous experiences, which can be regarded as a summary of this movie.

Jack's self-transformation and growth

Jack is an employee of a car company. Its image is a representative of white-collar workers in society, and it may also represent people from more classes. It is worth appreciating. Then what are his characteristics? The film focuses on two points. The first point is that he is very boring. He works according to the established procedure every day, and even he can know when his boss wears what color tie; the second point is that he is very boring. The point is, he was in pain. This shows his insomnia. He is listless at work during the day and can't sleep at night, so that he is in a state of confusion. He imagines companies such as Microsoft as planets in the business universe, and lays the ground for the split personality behind him. Foreshadowing. So how does he deal with boredom and pain? It was mentioned in the movie that he used to read all kinds of pornographic magazines, and later he became addicted to buying various furniture items, and he had to be very individual. I remember I noticed a small round table in the shape of Tai Chi and gossip. In addition, in order to solve the pain of insomnia, he listened to the doctor's unintentional words and went to a cancer mutual aid group. He didn't have cancer, but he never thought that it would have a wonderful therapeutic effect on his insomnia, a kind of interpersonal relationship. The emotional exchange and mutual comfort provided him with temporary spiritual comfort. From here we can see that Jack is deeply troubled by two aspects, one is mental and one is material, on the one hand he seems to have lost himself, a nonchalant attitude towards work, a mixture of boredom and pain in his face On the other hand, he pursues sensual gratification, fills the empty soul, from pornographic magazines to furniture shopaholics, and presumably evolves into other forms, indulging in material desires in order to obtain the poor satisfy. Even so, he actually hates this kind of life in his bones. He adopts a cold confrontation, that is, a state of seemingly confrontation but no confrontation, reluctant and compelled, which is his cowardly side. It is precisely in this way that the hallucinations of insomnia, as well as the inner self-struggle and confrontation, make Dayton appear, in fact, the other side of himself. In Freud's interpretation, his id appeared, which was the real impulse in his heart, what he wanted to do but didn't do.

So, his house was bombed, and after Dayton, he actually blew it up. Dayton's series of behaviors, such as making soap by hand, driving away other people's luxury cars without hesitation, and living in a dilapidated house His house reveals his contempt and dissatisfaction with the age of industrialization, consumerism, material desires and hypocrisy, as well as his praise and recognition of instinct, decisiveness and courage. Crucially, Dayton taught a masochistic style and ritual that gave rise to fight clubs. This is the beginning of Jack's growth, a primal combat ritual that uses physical pain and displays of courage and strength to awaken instinctual forces, collide and destroy all external forces that bind our spirits. Although it is rough but the effect is obvious, Jack seems to enjoy it, so under the guidance of Dayton, he further escalates, first burning the back of his hand with chemical agents, making him try more painful feelings, and then using the fear of death Forcing the shopkeeper to pursue his own ideals is a demonstration. Only pain, loss and sacrifice can be rewarded. Jack seems to understand something. He lives with an attitude of living towards death. Jack's growth and transformation has reached a climax. That is, when the club was growing so fast that it was about to get out of control, Jack blamed Dayton because he felt he didn't know anything, but Dayton retorted him, don't try to control anything, this place is very interesting, it is Jack's instinct and self-awareness The second conflict (the first time in the small grocery store), but this time, Dayton conquered Jack. He used the conquest of the fear of death to live to death and completed Jack's final transformation.

So after Jack wakes up, Dayton disappears, but Dayton's influence is still there, and that's the runaway of fight club. This will be detailed in the next section. After sobering up, Jack is not as decadent and cowardly as before, but a different scene. I still remember him running on the street, that is the image of Forrest Gump, and he still tried his best to stop the big explosion and shot himself. , that is the image of the hero, it can be said that Dayton, who represents the instinct, completes a self-knowledge and destructive reconstruction in a destructive and irrational way.

The Second Line: Perspective on the Status and Nature of Men in Society

A seemingly funny and boring hand-to-hand fight between Jack and Dayton (in fact, Jack's self-abuse) attracted a lot of passers-by and asked to join the "battle". It seems a bit unreasonable, but it actually has its inner logic. There are thousands of people like Jack, all of them are in a state of boring, painful and meaningless existence. Their work seems to be a forced existence, which makes them unable to find direction and meaning. So no matter whether this kind of hand-to-hand combat is unreasonable or not, but their participation is out of a kind of spiritual desire and need, just like Deton said in the underground fighting arena, their generation, there is no economic crisis, no world war, they have no What a holy thing to fight for, all they have is boring TV commercials that tell you to buy this and that; they tell you that you can be a star, a XXX, when in the end you're just a member of the common people, you don't exist at all any meaning. Therefore, this primitive melee ritual gives them a power to break through the constraints of reality, but this instinctive power develops in an uncontrollable direction. From the closed basement at the beginning, it has grown gradually, and there are branches everywhere, and the method of maintaining the normal operation of the organization has developed from simple physical exchange to destruction, and it has been tried and tested. All the people (males) seemed to be obsessed and asked to join the organization and participate in a great project and cause. Although you may be just a "space monkey", which is incomparably small and worthless, your sacrifice and the pain you have endured are meaningful, which makes everyone find a sense of belonging and existence, and are willing to be A screw on a giant wheel. This reminds me of Germany in Hitler's time. The whole society is filled with an instinctive impulse, but it obeys various arrangements and disciplines of the state and the party, and is willing to sacrifice oneself for the great goals of the party and the state. This impulse It went on until the meat grinder of the war exhausted the last shred of energy of the German people and finally stopped. It was really terrible.

A person who can't find himself, a person who is miserable and bored, can easily fall into a state of hysteria under the agitation of this instinctive energy, whether it is indulging in material desires or boring social games; The so-called great meaning and career are essentially the same. These are two sides of one thing. This is the fate that ordinary people cannot get rid of. Their lives are as respectable and lonely as ants. And only Jack turned back from the dangerous edge of the cliff in time, and did not fall into a doom. So what does Jack, and the heroine in the show, teach us?

An exploration of the value and meaning of men in society

There is actually a veiled presentation in the play, this is a feminist society, not a masculine society. Jack and Dayton had discussed in the dilapidated cottage that they were brought up by their mothers. The lack of male power, including the sarcasm of fitness ads on the bus, is entirely a plea for women, not a worship of male power, purely for external good looks, a kind of similar display of male power through masturbation The way.

The existence of the heroine also proves this. Throughout the story, the heroine does not really participate in Jack's various illusions and facts. Every time the heroine feels inexplicable and doesn't understand what Jack is doing! Because the female protagonist is an aborigines in this society, and the male protagonist shows great discomfort, so all kinds of wandering. Until the end of the film, the female protagonist didn't know what happened, but the male protagonist knew in his heart that he had accomplished a feat. The male protagonist has grown up, otherwise he wouldn't have stopped Dayton, he wouldn't have regained his sense of self, and he wouldn't have finally stopped Fight Club's plan to wreak havoc. But his way of growing up is very bizarre and unbelievable, like a dream. If there is such a thing, this kind of growth is also a very dangerous way. Women are very adaptable in this consumerist society, because women are more human and care more about satisfaction and pursuit in real life, while men are born with a kind of divinity and pursue ultimate meaning and value, they seem not satisfied with reality. Happiness, want a more sacred self.

It may be more necessary and urgent for men to live out oneself, but this road is not so easy. Wang Yangming has set a precedent in China. Many people follow his pace, but they cannot achieve "I have a bright heart" like Wang Yangming. "The realm is more about struggling in the floating world and eventually becoming a slave of fate.

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