Book by Chuck Palahniuk Film by David Fincher

 Cornelius (a/k/a Travis, etc): the unreliable narrator  Bitchtits Bob (a/k/a Robert Paulson): the dead dude  Marla Singer: loser death chick  Chloe: a support group member who eventually dies  Tyler Durden: soap manufacturer  Effing Lou: nightclub owner  Angel Face: too beautiful for his own good  Richard Chesler: Cornelius’s supervisor at work  The Mechanic: HIS NAME IS ROBERT PAULSON  Space Monkeys: members of PROJECT MAYHEM Characters

 In the book version, the setting is Seattle  Could be any overdeveloped huge American city  Closest guess is Wilmington, Delaware (banking hub)  Cornelius works at a sleazy job at a sleazy company  Cornelius lives in a foofy high-rise  He suffers from IKEA NESTING SYNDROME  That is, the conspicuous consumption seen in BoC  He can’t sleep because his existence is so pointless  He starts hanging around in support groups  He first meets Marla Singer The setting

 Cornelius finds happiness at the support group  Breaks down crying in Bitchtits Bob’s arms  Sleeps like a baby; starts going to other meetings  Chloe: the dying woman who wants to get laid  Meets (shudder) Marla Singer: the “tourist”  Marla attends meetings to make herself feel alive  Cornelius attends meetings so he can sleep at night  He can’t cry at meetings if Marla is there  They divide up the meetings between themselves  They exchange numbers but still despise each other Looking For Answers

 Cornelius’s alter ego, whom he meets on a plan  Actually Cornelius’s sleepless schizophrenic self  Works as a projectionist and a banquet server  Makes soap in the house on Paper Street  “Meets” Cornelius in the exit row of an airplane  Takes Cornelius in after his apartment explodes  Co-founder of FIGHT CLUB  Co-founder of Project Mayhem  Becomes Marla Singer’s lover Who Is Tyler Durden?

 Otherwise known as conspicuous consumption  Somewhat similar to Homeric arete  Owning (and using) things ostentatiously  Gogol mocks Major Kovalyov’s purchases  Vonnegut mocks America’s fixation with brands  Cornelius works hard for the car manufacturer  Cornelius is traveling literally all the time  Cornelius’s refrigerator has all condiments, no food  Cornelius is fixated on his own IKEA furniture IKEA Nesting Syndrome

“You buy furniture, you tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. buy the sofa, then for a couple of years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled, then the right set of dishes, then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. “Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things that you used to own, now they own you.” IKEA Nesting Syndrome

 1st RULE: You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB.  2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about FIGHT CLUB.  3rd RULE: If someone says "stop" or goes limp, taps out the fight is over.  4th RULE: Only two guys to a fight.  5th RULE: One fight at a time.  6th RULE: No shirts, no shoes.  7th RULE: Fights will go on as long as they have to.  8th RULE: If this is your first night at FIGHT CLUB, you HAVE to fight. FIGHT CLUB

Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place... We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. Who is FIGHT CLUB?

 Ramshackle house on Paper Street with the soap business down in the basement  Effing Lou’s Nightclub, complete with sleazy basement and Effing Lou’s own personal katabasis  Cancer support groups, where both Cornelius and Marla scoff at others’ suffering  Cornelius’s job with the car manufacturer, working out the recall “formula”  Cornelius’s boss, Mr. Richard Chesler  Fancy banquets where Tyler Durden is a server and urinates into the soup Aspects of Dystopia

PROJECT MAYHEM

 Larger, far more organized spinoff of Fight Club  Recalls the organization of the Nazi Party  A nice big side order of Mao Zedong, also  Everything is subject to the leader, Tyler Durden  The members are addressed as “Space Monkeys”  They look and dress and live all the same way  They perform major acts of violence at first  They are working up to something far worse  They will stop at nothing  They are all around the nation PROJECT MAYHEM

“In the world I see - you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. “And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.” Tyler Durden’s Vision

The Tipping Point

 “Marla's philosophy of life is that she might die at any moment. The tragedy, she said, was that she didn't.”  Is she an actual flesh and blood human being with her own tormented life?  Is she an invented female alter ego expressing Cornelius’s guilt and pain, the way that Tyler Durden is a male alter ego expressing Cornelius’s hate and anger? Marla Singer