The Narrator (Fight Club)
The Narrator Tyler Durden | |
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Fight Club character | |
First appearance | Pursuit of Happiness (1995) |
Created by | Chuck Palahniuk |
Portrayed by | The Narrator: Edward Norton (film) |
Voiced by | The Narrator: Dave Wittenberg (video game) Tyler Durden: Joshua Leonard (video game) |
In-universe information | |
Alias |
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Occupation |
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Spouse | Marla Singer |
Children | Junior |
The Narrator is a
In 2008, Tyler was selected by Empire magazine as the greatest movie character of all time,[1] shortly after Fight Club was voted by Empire readers as the tenth greatest film of all time.[2]
Appearances
Novels
Pursuit of Happiness (1995)
The Narrator first appeared in a seven-page short story in the 1995 compilation Pursuit of Happiness.[3] This story later became chapter six of the novel Fight Club, which Palahniuk published in 1996.[4]
Fight Club (1996)
In the 1996 novel, the Narrator is depicted as an average middle-class man employed at an unnamed automobile company, wherein he inspects car accidents to determine if an automobile model should be recalled. Suffering from insomnia and depression, he begins visiting support groups for people with illnesses that he is not afflicted with himself. This induces catharsis within him, enabling him to sleep. When an impostor named Marla Singer begins to appear at the groups, his euphoria is broken and his insomnia returns.
The Narrator meets a man named Tyler Durden in an airplane, and begins living with him after his
The Narrator learns that he and Tyler are, in fact, the same person, as the Narrator's mind formed a new personality that was able to escape from the issues that plagued his life. With the help of Project Mayhem, Tyler plans to destroy a skyscraper and a national museum using homemade explosives. Tyler plans to die alongside the Narrator as a martyr during the event. Attempting to stop Tyler's plan, the Narrator ascends to the roof of the building, where Tyler holds him at gunpoint. When Marla arrives on the roof with one of the support groups, Tyler vanishes, as Tyler "was his hallucination, not hers."[5]
With Tyler gone, the Narrator waits for the explosives to kill him. However, the bomb malfunctions, as Tyler mixed paraffin into the explosives. Still alive and holding Tyler's pistol, the Narrator makes the choice to shoot himself. Later, he regains consciousness in a mental hospital, believing he is in Heaven, and imagines an argument with God over human nature. The novel ends with the Narrator being approached by hospital employees who are actually members of Project Mayhem.
The Narrator does not have a name in the novel, yet is often referred to as "Jack," due to his quotes such as "I am Jack’s [blank]". These quotes refer to the Narrator's reading old Reader's Digest articles in which human organs write about themselves in first-person perspective.
Fight Club 2 (2015)
In the comic book sequel
Fight Club 2 provides a new, drastically different explanation for Tyler: the Narrator discovers that Tyler is not merely his own split personality, but essentially, a sort of meme who can spread from one person to another. The current host of the "Tyler Durden" personality damages the life of a younger child with the express purpose of causing the stress factors that will give rise to a new "Tyler Durden" personality in them when they grow up, thus allowing "Tyler Durden" to achieve a sort of functional immortality. The Narrator's therapist has pieced this together through hypnosis sessions, explaining to him that the Narrator's own father and grandfather were hosts, and that "Tyler" was involved in shaping Marla's life as well—"breeding them like cattle" for generations, so the Narrator and Marla could in turn produce a son, who would be Tyler's host in the next generation. Junior only faked his death in the fire, as he is slowly being taken over by his Tyler Durden just as his father was. The Narrator has to race to stop "Tyler", even though he cannot truly kill him without killing both his son and himself.
Fight Club 3 (2019)
Film
In the 1999 film
The film's portrayal of the Narrator and Tyler is similar to that of the novel, with some differences. Unlike the novel, the two meet during a plane flight rather than on a nude beach, and the cinematic incarnation of Tyler does not murder anyone, unlike the literary version. Furthermore, while the novel ends with the Narrator in a mental hospital, the film concludes with the Narrator and Marla in a skyscraper, overlooking the skyline that is detonating due to Project Mayhem's explosives.
Like in the novel, the Narrator does not have a name, though the script refers to him as "Jack".[17] While the novel features the Narrator referring to himself as "Joe" from Reader's Digest articles, the film adaptation replaces "Joe" with "Jack".
Video games
In the 2004 video game
Reception
In 2008, Tyler was selected by
See also
References
- ^ SlashFilm. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
- ^ "The 201 Greatest Movies Of All Time". Empire. January 2006. p. 98.
- ISBN 0936085304.
- ISBN 0393039765.
- ^ Palahniuk, Fight Club, 1999, p. 195.
- ^ Fight Club 2 #1, Chuck Palahniuk & Cameron Stewart, Dark Horse Comics, May 2015
- ^ "Fight Club 2 #1". Dark Horse Comics. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
- ^ Thompson, Barry (March 31, 2016). "Chuck Palahniuk Destroyed His Legacy With Fight Club 2 (His Best Work In Years)". Paste Monthly. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
- ^ "Fight Club 2 #2 pg.10". Dark Horse Comics. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
- ^ Van Luling, Todd (January 7, 2015). "11 Things You Didn't Know About 'Fight Club'". The Huffington Post. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
- ^ Petrikin, Chris (January 7, 1998). "Studio Report Card: Fox". Variety. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
- ^ Garrett, Stephen (July 1999). "Freeze Frame". Details.
- Premiere.
- ^ O'Neill, Olivia (October 15, 2014). "Fight Club: 19 things you didn't know about the film". The Telegraph. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
- ^ Roger Cormier (December 18, 2015). "15 Things You Might Not Know About 'Fight Club'". Mental Floss. Retrieved January 2, 2017.
- ^ Nashawaty, Chris (July 16, 1998). "Brad Pitt loses his teeth for a "Fight"". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
- ^ Uhls, Jim; Fight Club screenplay; http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Fight-Club.html
- ^ "The Greatest Movie Characters Of All Time". Empire. June 29, 2015. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
External links
- The Narrator on IMDb