Fight Club - symbols and motifs

Question 1

Fight Club - all symbols and motifs

Answer 1

• soap
• birthmark
• Tyler’s kiss
• Tyler
• IKEA furniture

Question 2

Birthmark - explanation

Answer 2

• represents constant presence of death in narrators life, as he has a continual obsession with coming close to death throughout the novel (frustration of his current reality)
• represents Narrator’s desire for uniqueness and to stand out from his narrow-box of lower-middle class male

Question 3

Birthmark - quotes

Answer 3

• “The student said everyone thought the birthmark was cancer. There was this new kind of cancer that was getting young men. They wake up with a red spot on their feet or ankles.”
• “I still have the picture in my room stuck in the corner of a mirror in the frame. I comb my hair in the mirror before work every morning and think how I once had cancer for ten minutes, worse than cancer.”

Question 4

Soap - explanation

Answer 4

• the human suffering behind the soap being hid with fancy packaging is proof of the superficiality of capitalism
• the fact it is made from fat from liposuction is a symbol for over-indulgence and excessive consumption
• the soap he is spreading could represent his message of trying to ‘clean’ the world of the flaws of consumerism
• Tyler trying to expose the flaws of consumerism

Question 5

Soap - quotes

Answer 5

• “Tyler says, after a thousand years of killing people and rain, the ancient people found their clothes got cleaner if they washed at that spot.”
• “We made soap out of it. Her. Marla’s mother.”
• “pack the flowers into boxes with a cake of pure tallow that will absorb their scent for making soap with a flower smell.”

Question 6

Tyler - explanation

Answer 6

• represents epitome of masculinity and the ideal of a man that everyone strives for
• he acts as a warning to what happens if a man is not emasculated or tamed, there is detrimental consequences on the surrounding world

Question 7

Tyler - quotes

Answer 7

• “men look up to him and expect him to change their world. Tyler is capable and free, and I am not.”
• “I gave him permission. Be my guest. Kill my boss,”

Question 8

Tyler’s kiss - explanation

Answer 8

• painful pleasure, Narrator obsessed with power of pain and coming close to death bringing ‘real’ feelings
• contradiction of Project Mayhem, about reaching individual enlightenment but everyone the same, feeds into repressive and mindless culture opposed

Question 9

Tyler’s kiss - quotes

Answer 9

• “This is the greatest moment of our life. The lye clinging in the exact shape of Tyler’s kiss is a bonfire or a branding iron.”
• “after a month a few of the space monkeys had Tyler’s kiss burned into the back of their hand.”

Question 10

Ikea furniture - explanation

Answer 10

• flawed priority put on material goods
• stress on objects bringing value but actually this obsession is harmful and unrewarding
• endless cycle of material pursuit

Question 10

Ikea furniture - quotes

Answer 10

• “The people I know who used to sit in their bathroom with pornography now sit in the bathroom with their IKEA furniture catalogue.”
• “You buy furniture. You tell yourself this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life.”