Picture this: it’s 1990s America. The economy is booming. Unemployment is falling. The Soviet Union has fallen in 1991 – capitalism has proved itself superior and has triumphed; communism has failed. For our unnamed narrator, however, this doesn’t matter. Work is still a monotonous cycle that tires him out and even results in insomnia. America has reached a point where individualism is much less about freedom, and much more about working to survive. The story of this unnamed narrator in David Fincher’s film and Chuck Palahniuk’s novel ‘Fight Club’ can be interpreted as socio-economic commentary, particularly from a Marxist perspective.
What exactly is Marxism?
The Marxist view is based on the ideas of Karl Marx, who believed that economics had the most important role in politics and society. He believed that all economic systems created two main social classes: the ruling class and the working class. The ruling class uses its power to oppress the working class. For capitalist society, Marx labelled the ruling class as the ‘bourgeoisie’ and the oppressed working class as the ‘proletariat’. The bourgeoisie owned the means of production, and the proletariat were the mass of workers who did the labour to keep the system in operation.
Capitalism and consumerism.
In the film, Fight Club emphasises capitalism in society and expresses a level of contempt for it. The narrator's understanding of capitalism's oppression is demonstrated by a casual throwaway statement: "It will be corporations that name everything." Workers like the narrator are well aware of corporations' growing influence, but there is a more prevalent ethos of 'fending for yourself' that is much too powerful to be overcome. People like the narrator become selfish consumers, jumping on bandwagons and ‘becoming slaves to the IKEA nesting instinct’, ‘just like everyone else’. Everyone in this society started to behave like mindless consumers, and inspired other people to do the same.
According to Marxist theory, the ruling class creates a ‘false class consciousness’ that their current plight would lead to something good, or that their situation is inevitable. They spread their ruling class ideology to the workers to keep them from revolting. Marx first identified religion to be the ideology of the ruling class. He called it the “opiate of the masses,” In Fight Club, religion isn’t the ruling class ideology, it’s consumerism. Workers are led to believe that by working for the bourgeoisie they can purchase more products and improve their situation, causing them to see their current state as temporary and thus ignoring their oppression.
Furthermore, this individualistic way of thinking caused by the ruling class ideology also gave rise to a lack of care. People are unable to acknowledge others, even according to the narrator, who describes the workers who make IKEA furniture as "honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of wherever." The use of the adverb ‘wherever’ suggests a lack of interest. People only care when it applies to them. This, inherently, is an attribute of capitalist society: a place where people are indifferent to one another and must fend for themselves and their personal belongings.
The narrator and Tyler Durden.
Palahniuk and Fincher choose to keep the narrator nameless for the entire story, but occasionally describe his emotions as belonging to ‘Jack’ (in the film) or ‘Joe’ (in the novel). The everyday Joe (or Jack) is used as an extension of the narrator and his emotions. By describing the narrator’s anger as Jack/Joe’s anger, the worker’s resentment and rage against the bourgeoisie is captured. This allows the narrator to become a representation of the average worker and a voice for the experiences of the oppressed.
As well as this, the acts of revenge committed by Tyler Durden (who we find out is actually the same person as the narrator) also gives the narrator, and in turn the worker, power. The violent actions committed by Tyler send a message that the workers, too, possess an ‘inner Tyler Durden’ and have the power to revolt against the oppressive bourgeoisie.
Inequality and the support groups.
The oppression that the narrator faces at work for the first part of the film is entirely downplayed. He experiences insomnia as a result of his stress, which keeps him up at night and gradually ruins both his physical and mental health. He claims that he is ‘in pain’ because of it, but the narrator is told that, weighed up against the men from the support group, his pain was worth nothing. In a way, this acts as a metaphor for inequality that exists in the working world. Some people suffer more than others due to inequality and it is an endless cycle. Only those who benefit from this inequality are able to progress. Those who don’t are left to struggle and fail.
The support groups themselves are the narrator’s first experience of community. Humans can’t be individualistic forever, and the less fortunate tend to create spaces of mutual help. This is the narrator’s first taste of a world without the individualism that cripples him- and it leads to his first full night of sleep. Community, mutual interest- these things are helping him. This doesn’t mean that he has changed his mind yet: the support groups are a cushion to numb the pain that work had brought him. He still needs to work to buy all the furniture of his house and fulfil his material needs. He continues to accept oppression, but his hatred for it continues to grow.
Reification
Reification, according to Gajo Petrović, is “The act (or result of the act) of transforming human properties, relations and actions into properties, relations and actions of man‑produced things which have become independent of man and govern his life.“
So essentially, reification is the conversion of a subject into an object, such as when a worker is turned into a commodity.
The Paper Street Soap Company is the main example of reification in Fight Club. Tyler Durden and the narrator use liposuction fat from human bodies in order to make soap. Palahnuik actually criticises the hypocrisy of Marxism this way. While the narrator despises the company he worked at for reducing human lives to numbers on a page, the Paper Street Soap Company isn’t much better- they too treat human lives as a commodity for their revolution by using human bodies to make their product. The process of making soap acts as a microcosm for the Marxist idea of reification.
Another example of reification is in the narrator’s job. He is required to use a formula to decide whether to recall defective cars or not: “You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C)”. The company reduces risks to human lives to a formula to calculate profit. The company is willing to sacrifice human lives in order to gain profit from their products, reinforcing this idea of reification.
In conclusion, David Fincher's film "Fight Club" and Chuck Palahniuk's novel provide a compelling narrative that is uniquely susceptible to a Marxist reading. The characters of the narrator and Tyler Durden are presented as archetypes representing the average worker and the potential for rebellion against the oppressive forces of capitalism.