I am Jack’s psychoanalysis. I am the journey through the minds and actions of Jack and his alter ego Tyler Durden. Both characters exhibit psychoanalytic themes described by Sigmund Freud. The theories of Freud date back to the early twentieth century, yet are still used today. In the film, Fight Club, the main character, “Jack” (as he will be referred to for the duration of the essay), and his personified id, Tyler, act as diametric characters. Jack is submissive and is like the ego. Tyler, on the other hand, is very controlling and forceful and represents the id. Fight Club uses psychoanalytical theories in order to explore Jack’s inner struggle to overcome his id and reconnect with the real.
The state of nature from which our entrance into language has forever severed us is called “the real.” Only as babies is one close to this state of nature, a state in which there is nothing but need, with no sense for any separation between one and the external world (or the world of others). There is a need followed by a search for satisfaction. As far as humans are concerned, the real is impossible because we cannot express it in language; therefore, the very entrance into language marks forever a separation from the real. Yet it continues to show itself throughout our adult lives through a yearning to return to the real. For example, the real continues to erupt whenever one acknowledges one’s mortality, and usually the real is perceived as traumatic to the person (Felluga). Each person, whether consciously or subconsciously, strives to reconnect with the real. In Fight Club, Jack’s search to rejoin the real is shown throughout the film.
Jack’s job as a recall coordinator causes his feelings of extreme separation from the real, as well as with reality in general. By deciding if the cost of the recall is more or less than the cost of lawsuits, Jack is turning human life into a mere number he plugs into an equation. The Freudian concept of the death drive is reduced into a math problem. The death drive is both a need and desire to return to a state of inorganic matter and can produce aggression (Felluga). When Jack disregards the value of human lives, he is in turn developing a loss of feeling about life. He has no real friends, his job is not stimulating, and his self-worth comes from consumer goods. Jack buys objects, mostly IKEA furniture, in order to define himself as a person and try to find his way back to the real. He is redirecting his desires to connect with others towards connecting with furniture items. In the movie Jack says, “I even had to the glass dishware with the little imperfections to prove that they were made by some indigenous tribe of…wherever” (Fincher). In another scene, he is shown sitting on the toilet looking at a centerfold of an IKEA catalogue. His separation from humanity, and detachment from life, makes him feel as if he needs to have a tangible, material connection to the world. Because these tribes put their hard work into the dishware, by buying those products, he can feel closer to humanity (Price). His life, however, becomes a continuous cycle of monotony and makes Jack feel like he is living in a dream; he loses touch with reality and becomes an insomniac. Jack is plagued by insomnia because of his detachment from traumatic events. Although buying consumer goods helps Jack connect somewhat with society, there is no way for him to experience the empathetic energy of humanity. When he is finally able to sleep after experiencing the pain of the support group members and releasing his own emotion, his peaceful sleep proves that his insomnia was caused by a separation from feeling.
The people in the support groups are all suffering from serious, and usually incurable, diseases. Jack is seeking pain from those around him in order to return to the real. After crying in Bob’s arms and sleeping like a baby that night, Jack realizes he can experience life again and becomes addicted to trying to feel. Since the real is a pre-linguistic experience, Jack crying in the arms, and breasts, of Bob is not unusual. Bob, and his massive breasts, symbolize a mother figure and remind Jack of what it was like to be a baby in his mother’s arms and breasts. This experience as a child took place before his introduction to language, when he was still connected with the real. Therefore, being in Bob’s breasts, crying, reminded Jack of his prior connection with the real and helped him move closer to reconnecting with the real. Another example of Jack trying to reach the real in Fight Club is shown when he gives himself the chemical burn. In this scene, Jack is closer to the real than he has ever been before. During the burn, Jack is thinking of words like searing and flesh to describe the “real” he is feeling, but he cannot. This shows how language restricts one’s ability to reach the real. Jack cannot use any words to depict his feelings, he can only experience. He is addicted to finding the real and will not stop at using physical pain to achieve that goal.
This addiction is what leads to his creation of an idealized projection of himself, Tyler Durden. “[Tyler] looks how [Jack] wants to look, acts like [Jack] wants to act, and fucks like [Jack] wants to fuck” (Fincher). Tyler is everything Jacks wants to be, yet knows he should not be. Jack knows what is acceptable in society and acts accordingly. According to Freudian theory, the ego is the civilized part of the consciousness, fighting to find a happy medium between the id and super-ego. It is the part of the psyche that is controlled in order to allow a person to safely interact and be accepted by society. Jack is not a whole person, but simply a representation of a person’s ego. In the beginning of the film, his id is totally under control; his desires are limited to what was publicly accepted, such as consumer goods. The creation of Tyler symbolizes the projection of Jack’s id. He is the embodiment of male perfection, and fittingly, the actor who plays him in the movie is Brad Pitt. At the time Fight Club was released, Brad Pitt was considered to be the “sexiest man alive,” and one of the most in-demand actors in Hollywood. Tyler is created to do all of the things Jack does not think he can do, or is too weak to do.
Because Tyler is the quintessence of what Jack wants to be, it makes sense that Tyler is the stronger, more powerful character. Tyler has dominance over Jack that is reminiscent of a sado-masochist relationship. Jack is fixated in the anal-sadistic phase of Freud’s psychosexual developmental stages. This stage is split between active and passive impulses: the impulse to mastery and the impulse to scopophilia (love of gazing). The active part of this stage is carried out by cruelty, and can be seen as sadism. The passive portion of the stage is a scopophilic one, and can be linked to masochism (Felluga).
Sadism is defined as (1) sexual gratification obtained by inflicting pain on others; also (2) delight in cruelty/excessive cruelty. While masochism is defined as (1) sexual gratification gained by being subjected to pain or humiliation; also (2) pleasure being abused or dominated (Webster). We see Jack relate more with the masochist side from the beginning of the film. In the scene where he is examining the car wreck, Jack is shown with a set, gazing look at the damage. His job is to travel from place to place and gaze at death and destruction (Price). By creating Tyler and Fight Club, Jack can experience both sides of the anal-sadistic fixation. In the film, Tyler and Jack each take on a side of this “S&M;” relationship. Tyler is associated with the sadistic side, whereas Jack is associated with masochism. Throughout the film, Tyler is the aggressive one and Jack is more laid-back. During scenes in the fight club, Tyler is usually shown beating someone up, where Jack is usually shown as the one getting beat up. The relationship is also shown in the chemical burn scene. Tyler is the one inflicting the pain on Jack, while Jack is made to experience it. Although Tyler does have, and exerts, his power over Jack, in time, Jack is able to see that he does not need Tyler.
As the movie progresses, the viewer sees a change in Jack’s persona. As he is forced to confront his desire to return to the real, he becomes more aware of himself and his humanity. Jack starts to realize he does not need Tyler’s help to do the things he’s always wanted, and is finally able to experience pain and pleasure on levels he never thought possible before. After the car wreck, Jack is brought so close to the real that he recognizes the fact that he does not need Tyler anymore and he disappears. He understands that he does not need this sadistic side of himself anymore, and begins to wonder just how perfect Tyler is. Proof of this is shown when Tyler reappears later. His dress and appearance have diminished and he has lost the major appeal he had at the beginning of the film. It is not until Jack realizes he does not need Tyler anymore that he can truly start to live life. At the end of the movie, Jack musters up the courage to rid himself of Tyler, therefore taking control of the ego and not letting his id control his life anymore.
