Blood, sweat, and tears

He was in the heat of the moment. Blood ran down the right side of his face, with a thick consistency. Gritting his teeth, he takes another swing; miss, again. The club raged with fury, anxiety, and most imprtantly, a thirst for blood. Tyler couldn’t help but collapse. In the story “Fight Club”, by Chuck Palahniuk, Schizophrenic business agent Tyler Durden, aka the Main Character, faces psychological challenges throughout the story.


At the beginning of the story, our main character, meets a young, egocentric man on a nude beach named Tyler. After their greeting, Tyler compiles five vertical logs covered by sand. He describes it when he says that at exactly 4:30 pm, the sand will form into a perfectly crafted hand. The main character finds this untrue, but at 4:30 it does. The author added this to show that the main charcter’s subconsious has a brief side of perfection.

Later on throughout the story, Tyler and the main character transition in a fierce fist-fight in an underground parking lot. Every time the main character swings a punch at Tyler, he aslways ends up missing, resulting in the main character getting puched, kicked, or mauled by Tyler. On the parking lot’s cameras, it looks as though the main character is fighting nothing but thin air. Tyler eventually throws the main character down a flight of stairs.

The main character wakes up tied to a chair in an empty condominium. Tyler has him at gunpoint waiting to become “one step closer to financial equality". The main character has no idea of how to get out, until he remembers that Tyler was a figment of his imagination all along. And if he can do anything Tyler can do; he has complete control. Realizing this, he coverses with Tyler, “If the gun’s in your hand; it’s in my hand.” Using his newly attained ability, the main character takes the firearm, and shoots himself in the cheek, killing Tyler. The author may have added this to show that the term “mind over matter” really prevails, and that one can overthrow any form of terror with their wits.

Schizophrenia challenges the mind beyond unbelievably wild limits. The story ends with a cliché fade-to-black sequence, not to be a disambuigation with the movie. The main character learns that with the correct amount of will and mind power, you might just survive through anything, even Fight Club. Chuck Palahniuk describes the power of the subconscious mind and its raw power.