Tools of Characterization

Characterization in Fight Club

Actions

Passive. Aggressive.

People who sit lead shorter lives. This means our narrator is knocking years off his life by sitting at his job, sitting on airplanes, and sitting in support groups.

Sitting is very passive, just like our narrator. He's not making any effort to actually do anything. He just sits and…well, he doesn't even really watch. With his insomnia, he tends to see things that aren't even there, or to be paying more attention to the thoughts inside his own head than the world around him. If only he'd get off his butt and do something.

That's where Tyler comes in. Tyler is almost always up and moving around. When we first meet him (officially, not in subliminals) he gets up from the airplane seat and moves around the cabin while our narrator stays put. It's Tyler who prompts our narrator to action by saying in the parking lot, "I want you to hit me as hard as you can."

And our narrator does. The two fight, although, in reality, our narrator is fighting himself. But at this point we don't know that. We only see how our main character is starting to mimic Tyler's actions, and become like him.

Occupation

Safety Measures

The 2014 exploding airbag epidemic sounds like a plot point right out of Fight Club. Our narrator character has the super-sketchy job of trying to decide if an automobile recall is worth it. Let's let him explain the formula, shall we?

NARRATOR: Take the number of vehicles in the field, "A," multiply it by the probable rate of failure, "B," then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement, "C." "A" times "B" times "C"—equals "X." If "X" is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

To put it more succinctly, he's in charge with putting a price on human life. This commodification of life represents the lowest point of capitalism, so it's not that much of a surprise that our narrator subconsciously rebels against this through his alter ego, Tyler Durden.

Washed Out With Soap

Tyler Durden's occupation (which, you realize, is also our narrator's occupation, since they're the same person) is that he makes and sells soap. This sounds innocuous, doesn't it? But like almost everything else he does, it's a front. In one way, it's a stick-to-the-man (or in this case woman) business, because the soap is made with stolen liposuctioned fat. As our narrator says, "We were selling rich women their own fat asses back to them."

It also has a nice by-product. By skimming glycerin off the top, Tyler and Co. has everything they need to make explosives. You might say that business is booming.

Physical Appearances

Bumps and Bruises

Fight Club is the only extracurricular activity (besides professional football) in which its members are identifiable by their signs of physical injury. Our narrator proudly displays them, even wearing bloodstained shirts to work. And as fight clubs spread across the country, our main character recognizes people who participate in them by their black eyes and neck braces.

Chuck Palahniuk was partially inspired to write Fight Club because of his own experience with how people react to others' physical appearance: "I realized that if you looked bad enough, people would not want to know what you did in your spare time." 

In the movie, that is strangely true. The members of Project Mayhem are already invisible men of sorts—waiters, car washers, and gas station clerks—and they become even more invisible with their wounds. As they become even more isolated from society, they're free to do whatever they want in their spare time.