Fight Club, directed by David Fincher is an adaptation of a novel with the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. Edward Norton plays the unnamed protagonist (The Narrator). He has a white-collar job but he is discontent with his materialistic life as it lacks thrill. He’s also suffering from insomnia. He meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) on a plane and the two become friends and start the Fight Club, where people meet and fight, it is an underground gathering of people discontent with their lives.
The conflict in the movie is between individualism and consumerism. Individualism in philosophy can be understood through various ways but in basic terms, it means the belief and practice of being independent and self-reliant. On the other hand, consumerism is an idea of increasing the consumption of goods and services being purchases. In Consumerism the belief is that a person’s happiness and well being is dependant on materialistic things and obtaining these possessions.
The Narrator and Tyler represent this contrast between the two philosophies, from the very start we see the narrator suffer from Consumerism and his material possessions not helping him to be happy. As he meets Tyler, this free-flowing personality who isn’t interested in the material aspect of life, we see the Narrator resonate towards him and trying to mimic him. Tyler starts a cult named, Project Mayhem, the final goal is to destroy records of debt. The Narrator is highly disturbed and ends up sabotaging a mission of this cult. Finally, we see the Narrator moving to different cities to find out how much Project Mayhem has expanded; finding out that its nationwide. In one of the cities, a member refers to the Narrator as “Tyler”. Tyler in a confrontation tells the Narrator that he’s his disassociated personality, meaning the Narrator suffers from multiple personality disorder. When the Narrator thinks he’s sleeping, Tyler gets awakens.
In the end we see the narrator shooting himself in the cheek to kill Tyler and is successful but Project Mayhem is a success as the building where debts are recorded is destroyed. So, Tyler is the Narrator’s manifestation to free himself from the chains of consumerism.