For anyone who had come across Marx and his philosophies and also had happened to

watch or read Fight Club, then the subtle yet obvious link between the two cannot be
missed. Fight Club reflects on the kaleidoscopic hues of frustrations and confusions of
20th century individuals or rather consumers. The narrator is one such consumer whose
alter ego Mr. Tyler Durden voices Marxist ideas with a dark, strong and modern
modulated theme. This paper tries to unveil various Marxist concepts behind Fight Club
by drawing maximum parallels with the focus only on these two characters. One will
experience a roller coaster ride into entire Marxism if he/she wishes to look for it each
and everywhere in this club and this paper just acts as a ticket or rather a kick start for the
readers to try this ride.

FIRST RULE: DO NOT TALK ABOUT THEM

The protagonist is our narrator who is nameless (called Jack which goes well with Dude or
anyone). His formulaic job labels him as a recall coordinator in insurance department of a major
car company that makes him feel discontent to the core. He becomes insomniac and finds
assertion in support groups for cancer. He defines himself solely through the taste and choice he
developed for various commodities with price tags. He finds peace in these two, the lifestyle
built of lies.

Tyler Durden, jacks alter ego (split personality) runs a soap company all by himself. He is an anti-
materialist who consistently questions the manipulative tactics of advertisements. He is the man
behind fight club where people fight for recreations. He expands this club and through this
network starts Project Mayhem, which launches large-scale, organized vandalistic attacks on the
oppressive and rich powers.

Indhu Kanth
SECOND RULE: DO NOT TRY ASKING ABOUT THEM

Alienation
The narrator is left anonymous so as to depict an atomized individual, who works for the
existence of the system, but is alienated from every aspects of the society. He is insignificant. He
is nothing. Left alone with his commodities and insomnia. This depicts an exploitation of white
collared individual (managerial) in the consumerist world to an extent that even exploits his/her
consciousness.

Jack makes his living by objectifying others life and reducing them to numbers and then
comparing them with recall costs. Human life turns out to be a commodity with exchange value.

Here lets pause and try understand the reason for the origin of insurance companies especially
health one. We insure products for repair or recovery in case of its damage or loss. The products
are separate from us as we hand it over for replacement. One cannot be separated from his/her
health and health is never considered as a commodity. This implies the idea of health insurance
is impossible but as we all know it isnt the case and in fact it is considered to be the most
important insurance after all. This happens due to the concept of alienation that Karl Marx used
to understand labor product relationship.

We all work to create some product or the other, our labor value gets transformed into a
products useful value. This value holds the congealed abstract labor power through which men
expresses the importance of their own action of producing themselves. But when these products
began to travel in a buy & sell cycle for profits, it brought in a new value in them- the exchange
value that overwrites the use value. In this process the labor value gets erased and the workers
who produced them see their ownership diminish and this brings down the labors own value.
This alienation of the workers in their product means that their labor becomes an external object
and exists independently and becomes the source of profit for those who control it.

In the same way our health, which enables us to work, becomes alienated from us that makes it
both ours, but at the same time not ours. And now if our health is insured, it doesnt mean we
are and if we are not able to produce our health, we are no longer insurable as the ownership of
our health lies with the insurance companies. The healthier we are, the less ownership we have
on it.

Indhu Kanth
Commodity Fetishism

Going back to our Jack, he lived a lonely life. He had no family or friends. He calls his fellow
passenger as a single serving friend. Here the person is viewed as an abstraction of a
commodity. And Jack does the same to himself by defining his identity through it.

Marxist theory argues that in a capitalistic society, a product is desired not for its intrinsic value
but as a collection of social virtues attached to it.
The source of the value of commodities which is the human labor gets forgotten and the world
sees it as if products trades with themselves independent of human agency. Capitalist
production mystifies real social relations by treating goods in this way. The movie depicts this in
few scenes. First when the camera pans out from a dustbin filled with empty products while the
narrator simultaneously talks about the possibility of corporations making these products like
IBM, Starbucks etc. taking over the space in future. They are everywhere. And another scene
where we are shown a glimpse of how Jack views everything around him with catalogue of
instruction, description and price tags.
Added upon to it marketing creates a false need for products which are fulfilled through
consumerism. The corollary of the capitalist mentality is the consumerist. For instance the
narrator gets addicted with consuming in phase with advertisement even if its for no significant
use. When Jacks apartment gets destroyed by an explosion, he felt he had lost himself and got
reduced to nothing. He thinks not of the shelter, but of the possessions he has lost.

THIRD RULE: YOU HAVE TO FIGHT

BOURGOISE & PROLETARIAT

According to Marx, work in a capitalist society is a form of slavery because it is a system that
workers cannot escape as they have to work in order to live.

Indhu Kanth
Says Tyler Durden, the anonymous narrators other and better half who displays Marxist rhetoric
through his day to day life. He works in night time as a waiter in a hotel and movie projectionist.
Tyler urinates in soup, throws food on the customers plate and splices pornography stills in the
movie reel. Here he clearly shows his anger and will to fight back towards the oppressor- the rich
class who treats the workers low and exploits them. He starts Fight club joined by various
workers from different sections of society.

FIGHT & MAYHEM

Tyler urges people to stop being a consumer. He understood that shedding of this consumer
blanket is the first necessary step towards the social revolution. Wearing a wound/scar on face
and blood spilled clothes instead of facial products and costly clothes does this task easily.
Having worn this as their battle dress, they start revolting back at the capitalist oppressors in all
the ways they can.
The objective of Project Mayhem is to destroy civilization as it is currently known; and civilization
as it is currently known is a capitalist civilization. Members of Project Mayhem are referred to as
space monkeys rather than unique individuals. They organize various vandalistic attacks on
corporate companies and destroys corporate art piece.

According to Hegel -It is solely by risking life that freedom is obtained; only thus is it tried and
proved that the essential nature of self-consciousness is not mere absorption in the expanse of
life. The individual, who has not staked his life, may be recognized as a person; but he has not
attained the truth of this recognition as an independent self-consciousness. Members of project
Mayhem are identified as unique individuals only after their deaths. The members use money
only for destructive purposes and for self-burial expenses. The idea of death changes people.
The nearby death experience Tyler gave to Jack by over speeding car ride helped in peeling off
the capitalist layer through which he quantified car crash victims and this is also the reason why
Jack found peace in support groups for cancer patients. One can find many more such instances
in this movie.

SURPLUS SOAP
In Marxs view the workers produce the value that covers the cost of their own existence for
certain part of the day. Any extra value that the worker produces goes to the ones who buy the
workers labor power- the capitalists. This profit they enjoy becomes surplus value.

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 Paper Street Soap Company makes soap using human fat as one of its most important
ingredient. They steal fat from liposuction clinic. Only a rich member (bourgoise) would engage
in such an activity, because only they would afford to be able to do so for sake of physical
appearance. Tyler makes soap out of the excess of the bourgoise and sells it at quite a costlier
price again only bourgoise could afford to pay. He sells the fat back to those from whom the fat
has been sucked. The bourgoise in this aspect is reabsorbing their own excess and paying excess
money (capital) at same time and yet they call it "the best soap .
Also using the ingredients for the soap and from the money he earns, he makes explosives to
destroy corporations run by the capitalists. Tyler thus cunningly brings surplus out of soaps to
bring the capitalists down.

End of M-C-M

Tyler sacrifices himself for the final mission of project Mayhem to explode the credit card
companies so as to erase debt record. Money or the medium of capital is in the question, unless
a person is attached with this factor, he/she can never be liberated and receive freedom. As
money is both the head and tail of this chain, by erasing it, the capitalism shatters. Tyler is a
violent Marx through his actions.

THE LOST RULE

The movie was considered a flop but later became a great cult classic through D.V.D. sales. As
more and more people realized its incredible depth as a severe critic on 21 st century modern
culture using Marxist philosophies. There is much more in the club to be explored about. And
in fact many more novel based movies like American Psycho, V for vendetta echo Marxs voice
through different themes. Readers are welcomed to join the club.

REFERENCES:
1. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
2. Fight Club (1999) Movie & Quotes
3. Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto.
4. Palahniuk, C. (1996). Fight club. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
5. FIGHT CLUB: MARX & HEGEL IN THE PITT by Brendan Lalor, 2000
6. Marx, Durden and Soap- Taftese (http://taftese.tripod.com/other/fightclub.html)
7. Americas Proletariat: Fight Club through a Marxist Lens (https://mypotatofamine.wordpress.com/fight-club-
literay-analysis/americas-proletariat-fight-club-through-a-marxist-lens/)
8. Readings in Space and time Course by Prof. Jaideep Chatterjee

Indhu Kanth