An Analysis On Tyler Durden, Masculinity, and TRP

The umbrella mission of TRP is dually to reclaim your humanity and to understand the humanity (and lack thereof) of others. As men, it is our duty to reclaim our masculinity, to realize our potential, and to cut ourselves out from all the bullshit at the bottom of the barrel. Knowledge is power. Through understanding and application we become masters of our element. We read. We study. We apply. If dominance is partially derived from physique, we lift. We then cleanse ourselves of all the toxic shit we've been fed forever. Beta friends. Bitchy women. Pretension. Because life is short and only fools drink poison. Apply this to school, work, sex - whatever. This is the common denominator of all things TRP.

We currently lack any substantial analysis on Jack (and let's call him Jack), Marla Singer, and Tyler Durden. I'm here to fill that niche, but first the above needed to be clarified. If you haven't watched Fight Club, do that now.

Also to preemptively kill this comment: I'm aware that Tyler isn't real.

Jack's Background: Jack works a white collar desk&travel job as an insurance consultant for a car company. Growing up he had no father. Now he's 30 years old and his life is established. Because he has absolutely no meaningful relationships with anyone at all , Jack turns to materialism. Buy this and that until you've got an with an apartment full of expensive, beautiful shit.

Absolute Materialism has left Jack as something less than human and the Palanuik proposes two solutions to the dilemma.

1. find people worse off so you'll feel superior.
2. become better than you are so you'll be superior.

Jack attends support groups. Once a night, every night, Jack finds company with Testicular Cancer patients and Brain Parasite victims. And this remedies his emptiness like a drug. However, only as an immediate effect and nothing more. The next morning Jack is still empty inside and purposeless.

Option 2 comes in the form of Jack's flaming apartment and consequentially, enigmatic stranger Tyler Durden. Capable, driven, and influential, Tyler Durden is Jack's idealized state of being.

JACK: I had it all. I had a stereo that was very decent, a wardrobe that was getting very respectable. I was so close to being complete. TYLER: Shit, man, now it's all gone.

Most of us are here because our old lifestyle has failed us in some way. Maybe some dumb bitch cheated on you. Or maybe she graced you with the progressive "open relationship" and sold it as opportunity. Fuck it could be a million equally shitty things. Whatever the case, at some point, you decided no more and I'm glad you're here. However, up until that point, if you were to be introduced to TRP, you'd reject it entirely because what you had was "working" (or at least not crashing and burning). Only when the old ways fail you do you turn to something new.

"are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it?" - Intro

When Materialism fails, Tyler's there to offer Jack his humanity back. Nihilism. "God is dead." Morality is merely popular opinion and it's time to stop the groupthink.

Tyler's underlying thesis is that our masculinity is the root of our humanity. So he essentially becomes 2 (similar) things to the narrator:

1. Father Figure
2. Mentor

Tyler comes complete with all his defined and developed philosophies. He knows what he thinks about society, women, fear, masculinity... Everything is all figured out. And to Jack, a man who doesn't really believe in anything, this manifests itself in direction, understanding, and purpose.

"It used to be that when I came home angry and depressed. I'd just clean my condo. Polish my Scandinavian furniture. I should've been looking for a new condo."

Materialism has failed and now it is dead. So what's left? Tyler introduces the concept that feeling is living. Feel pain. Feel fear. Feel rage.

Society has stomped and continues to stomp out masculinity. Suppressing it with video games and television and social norms. Why? Well simply put, You can't control masculinity. People who are self aware are too powerful.

In our society the concept of strength has warped itself from abstract power to something decaying and decrepit. Once upon a time I was talking to a woman (we'll call her Cassandra) and Cassandra told me the familiar feminist bullshit, "anyone who tries to help men instead of women isn't a real man at all." She was of course, referring to men's rights activism, specifically divorce cases. This is the kind of fem-centric thinking that encourages men to betray their masculinity and assume to role of weak, bitchy, supplicator.

LEADER OF SUPPORT GROUP: I look around this room and I see a lot of courage. And that gives me strength. We give each other strength.

Jack looks around. Many of the men are sniffing, sobbing. Jack squirms in his seat.

Everyone's crying and just waiting to die. This isn't living. The rationale is "we have lost everything, so there's no point in living, but we can't face this truth so we'll gerbil our lives away with false concepts of strength when it couldn't be more obvious that we have none."

"I let go. Lost in oblivion -- dark and silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom."

Tyler offers a counter philosophy: "it could always be worse, and it is possible to reclaim your humanity, no matter how fucked you are. Our lack of meaning is what sets us free to create our own." And so he creates a support group of his own. However it's a little different than a normal support group in core concept:

1. Instead of hiding your emotions, run with them.
2. Through pain we are alive.
3. We are here to reclaim the masculinity that the world has drained us of.

"We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need."

This is the only male space in town. This is the only place where you can be a man and not be labelled a criminal. Every Saturday night these men congregate and proceed to vent their primal male aggression. No wonder fight club picks up so fast.

TYLER: Where did you go Psycho Boy? JACK: I felt like destroying something beautiful.

They aren't fighting each other so much as they're fighting all their frustrations, insecurities and demons. Everyone attending is there by choice. When they get the shit kicked out of them, they take responsibility for signing up, and there is no "it's someone else's fault that I lost a tooth." Men are finally becoming men. Suddenly Jack is alive. He's has his make space that's society has denied him and suppressed.

JACK: "Who you were in fight club is not who you were in the rest of the world. A guy came to fight club for the first time, his ass was a wad of cookie dough. After a few weeks, he was carved out of wood."

Men are forged in fire. Through pain we are alive.

Tyler: Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possession!

After X amount of weeks in Fight Club, these men are finally free. They no longer bind themselves to their old gods: concepts of love, social order, and materialism.

They quit their jobs. They join Tyler's PAPER STREET SOAP COMPANY, and sell women their own fat asses back to them.

Though it can be argued that these men traded one god (Materialism) for another (Tyler), it can also be argued that these men finally feel alive. They finally have a sense of purpose. If you think about it, all we've done is trade BP betahood in for TRP. We will always have our gods. One could say that Project Mayhem staff have lost their autonomy as individuals, and while that may true, I'd argue that they've simply invested in something greater than themselves. These are men who want to shake the world awake. They blow up property. They destroy corporate buildings. This is very similar to how the narrator came around to Tyler's perspective: When you destroy the old, Materialism fails you, and now you can finally embrace the new and start living.

Marla Singer: deadbeat Hellcat.

"Marla's philosophy was that she might die at any moment. The tragedy was, she said, that she didn't."

There's something of a split between Jack, Tyler and Marla. Jack is torn between Marla's womanhood and Tyler's brotherhood.

In Tyler there is purpose, vision, and forgotten masculinity. In Marla there is compassion, supplication, empathy. She's the reason that Jack objects to Project Mayhem.

Jack loves Marla. He cares about her. He cares about her safety and well being. And his feelings for her are what anchor him to the reality he used to subscribe to. Marla's philosophy on life is purposeless. She has no mission. And this is how Jack used to be.

Tyler: What do you want?! Wanna go back to the shit job, fucking condo world, watching sitcoms? Fuck you! I don't do it.

If Tyler let's Marla stay around, Jack may choose her over Tyler. And this is the threat that Marla Singer poses: the death of brotherhood. What's more is that Jack and Marla met at the support groups. Marla fully embrace the old way of life: losing all hope is freedom. So Tyler Durden opts to get rid of her.

This is why Jack "kills" Tyler. It's not the property damage that's too much. Its cutting the last tie to his old life and Jack cannot do it. It's hard to reject everything you ever knew to be of value and truth.

So what is Tyler Durden to us?

JACK:"Well,...--I don't know -- I don't understand, why does a weaker person need to latch on a strong person? What is that?"

(Initial) Jack and Tyler are opposite ends of the spectrum. Jack is weak and Tyler is strong. When we first found TRP, most of us were pretty weak. (I know I was.) Tyler is the idealized man: smart, capable, built, and he knows exactly who he is and what he stands for. Jack's BP lack of purpose contrasts sharply with Tyler's absolute resolve. Above all else, he values his mission to awaken all the forgotten masculinity and potential in the world. And nothing else matters.

TYLER: Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who have ever lived. I see all this potential -- God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas and waiting tables; they're slaves with white collars. Advertisements have them chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit they don't need. We are the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no great war, or great depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised by television to believe that one day we'll all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars -- but we won't. And we're learning slowly that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.