Chuck Palahniuk: Consensual Contact

Darrell Lowery English 250 Spring 2008

Outline Thesis: Chuck Palahniuk is not taught in literature classes, but he may well be taught in

mens studies or popular culture classes, mainly his book Fight Club. He is well liked for his vivid imagery and descriptions. His works include a commentary on society and are often drawn from his life. 1. Who is Chuck Palahniuk? 2. How do passages from Fight Club reflect his themes and issues? 3. How do Palahniuks characters and plot reinforce his themes and issues? 4. How does Palahniuk demonstrate the ability to increase awareness of men and masculinity in current American culture? 5. What do critics say about his work? 6. How does his work illustrate the course theme of the American experience? Conclusion: By giving us a hyperbolic view of our society, Palahniuk shows us a seldom seen view of men in contemporary American society. Furthermore he makes an attempt to comment on gay men and masculinity on our society.

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Chuck Palahniuk: Consensual Contact

We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday well be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we wont. And were just learning that fact [] So dont fuck with us (Palahniuk FC 166). Such is the world in which Fight Club is based, a world where men no longer sit in the bathroom reading Playboy; instead they read the IKEA Catalog wondering What kind of dining set defines me as a person? (Fincher Fight Club). The characters portrayed and the society in which they live, makes people think of their own lives and the current American society, a culture of consumerism, a world of condiments and no real food (Palahniuk FC 45). Such commentary and archetypal characters have created a phenomenon among a generation who would rather play video games than read. Though Palahniuk is not taught in literature classes, his work would be more apt to be taught in a gender studies class or pop culture classes, due to his critical analysis of modern society. He comments on the waning of masculinity, a need for a revolution against overwhelming consumerism, and a call for freeing oneself. His vivid imagery and descriptions have won him accolades amongst critics, though as of late, his work has become increasingly grotesque, prompting critics to label him as a shock writer. His label as a horror/shock writer is not unfounded, though it is his own life experiences he draws upon to create his stories. In articles on and interviews with Palahniuk, such as: an interview on NPRs program Studio 360, Palahniuk, Foley, Costello Chalmers interview with Palahniuk Chuck Palahniuk:

Stranger than Fiction, Williams interview in the Ann Arbor Paper, and a biography in Literary Guide to Masters and Their Works, we can begin to acquaint ourselves with Palahniuk and the ordeals that shaped him as an author and as a person. Palahniuk grew up in a trailer in Washington with his parents and siblings, a trailer in which his father lived as a child. The Lithuanian poet Czeslaw Milosz once wrote Once a writer is born into a family, that family is doomed (qtd. in Chalmers). So it was, his father recounts his earliest memory as a child of three, cowering under a bed from his father as he searched for someone else to kill. He had already shot his wife over the price she had paid for a sewing machine. Palahniuks father recalled seeing only his fathers boots and the barrel of a shotgun, as he hid from his father, who was looking for another target before turning the gun on himself. When Chuck was fourteen, his father left the family, forcing Chuck to live with his mother and siblings in the trailer in Burbank, Washington. In 1999 Palahniuks father, Fred, answered a personal ad titled Kismet. Little did he know this ad was most likely placed to find the biggest, strongest man she could find. Donna Fontaine placed this ad after divorcing her husband, Dale Shackelford, who was in jail, for a number of crimes. Shackelford had threatened to kill her when he was released from prison. After their third day, Palahniuk and Fontaine were shocked to find Shackelford waiting for them, when they returned to Fontaines home; he then shot both of them dead. Fontaine had met Shackelford while teaching law at a correctional facility where Shackelford was an inmate. The junior Palahniuk believes that Shackelford is most likely using the skills that Fontaine had taught him in jail to appeal his death sentence that Chuck had helped decide. Chuck adds Hell probably die after I die (Chalmers). Milestone events in Palahniuks life: his fathers departure from the family and later his murder, have led to the theme of a generation of men without

Lowery 5 fathers in the novel Fight Club. Palahniuk studied at The University of Oregon and graduated in 1986 with a B.A. in journalism. He then worked several jobs before writing professionally: bicycle messenger, mechanic, dishwasher, movie projectionist, the latter two are jobs which he shared with the character of Tyler Durden. After attending workshops led by author Tom Spanbauer, Palahniuk wrote his first short story and two novel-length manuscripts. His first published novel was Fight Club, in 1996. Although it was his first published it was the third novel he had written. It received attention, not only from publishing firms, but also from 20th Century Fox, which later adapted it into a film directed by David Fincher (see figure 1). Palahniuk is active in the Cacophony Society, a rebellious group that annually holds the Santa Rampage, in which approximately 500 men dressed in Santa suits, crash elegant parties and converge on swanky restaurants. When asked if their drink of choice is a large cocktail, Palahniuk responded, The Reindeer Fucker? [] No. You drink it in shot glasses. Its marijuana soaked for weeks in Bacardi, which is then strained (Chalmers). During another interview, Palahniuk told Karen Valby of Entertainment Weekly, off the record, that is was gay. He later heard rumors that she was planning on outing the author in her article. He wanted to beat her to the punch and posted an audio byte on his website outing himself, saying the spouse he had previously spoken of was, in fact, a man. He also made malicious allegations regarding Valby and a member of her family, effectively showing that Hell hath no fury like a gay man scorned. After the article was published, without any trace of his confidential remarks, he removed the voice diary entry from his website, protesting that he was not ashamed of his sexuality and that he had removed it due to the false comments made about Valby. This shows that Palahniuk, when provoked, can be very vicious, but can also admit when

he is wrong. Palahniuk is enjoying the success of his latest novels Choke, Haunted, and Rant. Choke which has also been adapted into a film released in 2008, has a similar theme to Fight Club, a need for consensual contact in times of social distancing. Haunted, his most notorious novel is a collection of short stories framed by a central story. The most infamous of the short stories is Guts, a retelling of masturbatory accidents. A total of fifty-two people have fainted during readings of this story as of 2004, though it is rumored that the current total is in the eighties (see image 2). Rant is the first of a Sci-Fi trilogy, a genre new to the author. Palahniuk, now living just outside Portland, Oregon, divides his time between writing new novels, performing readings, and running a writing workshop on his website appropriately called The Cult. Palahniuks first published novel, Fight Club, is a first-person historical narrative as told by an unnamed narrator, usually referred to as Joe. The name Joe is a reference to the narrator finding stacks of Readers Digest in the house that he and Tyler, the novels anti-hero, share. A series of articles in the magazine are told from a bodily organs first-person view e.g. I am Joes Prostate (Palahniuk FC 58). Throughout the rest of the story he refers to himself as Joes Raging Bile Duct [] I am Joes Grinding Teeth. I am Joes Inflamed Flaring Nostrils (Palahniuk FC 59). Joes alter ego, Tyler Durden, is a revolutionary created by Joe to destroy all that he hates in his life. Joe is dissatisfied with the state of his life, the consumerist society, the emasculation of men, having to clean up a history of mistakes made generations before his birth. The novel opens with Tyler holding a gun in Joes mouth; Tyler has set explosives in the base of the Parker-Morris building in which they are standing, with the intent to have the building collapse and crush the National Museum next door. This then initiates the flashback

Lowery 7 sequence which comprises most of the novel. It is essentially a biography of Tyler as told by Joe. Joes condo, which has been eviscerated by Tyler with the aid of his homemade dynamite, is a paradigm for excessive consumerism. He places so much importance on material possessions that he finds solace in buying the right sofa: You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple of years youre satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least youve got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. (44) This emphasis on materialism is further exemplified by his refrigerator containing condiments and no real food (45). The condiments symbolize consumerism leading us to buy things we do not need, condiments that do not sustain us, as real food would. This lack of substance is epitomized by his need for clever art or coffee table shaped like a yin-yang, rather than essentials needed for survival. This IKEA nesting (Fincher FC) that drives Joes existence, is an attempt to fill a void in his soul, but to the contrary, as the doorman explains: A lot of young people try to impress the world and buy too many things [] A lot of young people dont know what they really want [] Young people, they think they want the whole world [] If you dont know what you want [] you end up with a lot you dont (45-46). Tyler does not stop at destroying Joes condo; he commits several acts of retail terrorism and food sabotage. Tyler, the guerrilla waiter, urinates in the tomato bisque, farts on the meringues, and even suggests that he may have ejaculated in the cream of mushroom soup. He does not stop there. At a dinner party, where Tyler is a cater waiter, he places a note amongst the dozens of the hostesss expensive perfumes. The note reads I have passed an amount of urine

into at least one of your many elegant fragrances (82). Although Tyler did not actually piss in her perfume (82), he does not feel any guilt about the hostess having a breakdown and threatening to kill her husband because of the situation. He feels that he has set her free from the slavery of conforming to and being subservient to her so called friends. She now realizes that those people only care about status and owning things such as perfume that costs more than gold per ounce (83). Tylers satisfaction with the outcome of this situation is summed up as he says Cool (84) when he hears that she is holding a broken perfume bottle (after having broken all of her bottles of fragrances) and saying she will cut the hosts, her husbands, neck if he came near her. She believes he is having an affair with one of the female guests and that he was the one who had urinated in her perfume, in an attempt to driver her insane. Tylers desire to destroy all aspects of consumerism in society, eventual leads him to the idea of resetting the world to zero, letting nature retake the world. Tylers goal is to make humanity go dormant long enough for the planet to heal itself: Imagine [] stalking elk past department store windows and stinking racks of beautiful rotting dresses and tuxedos on hangers, youll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of you life, and youll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower, Jack and the beanstalk, youll climb up through the dripping forest canopy and the air will be so clean youll see tiny figures pounding corn and laying strips of venison to dry in the empty car pool lane of an abandoned superhighway stretching eight-lanes-wide and August-hot for a thousand miles. (125) Such is the ultimate goal of Project Mayhem, to return the world to it beginnings, because it is only after youve lost everything [] that youre free to do anything (70). He wishes to return

Lowery 9 to a society where men can be men, following the instinctual drive to hunt, to be physical, to be strong in order to survive not to look good, and to be the protector and provider as it is with most animals on earth. Joes frustration with his life also stems from the emasculation of men, in the millennial society, Men, he feels, are no longer men. They are trapped in cubicles unable to be physical. They are programmed to believe that you must be smooth and hard-bodied just for the pure aesthetic, not just being strong in order to survive in the world. Joes first support group in his long list that leads to his addiction, is Men Remaining Together, a group for men who have been castrated due to testicular cancer. This, in itself, is an overt symbol of emasculation, men who do not feel like men due to a literal castration. Big Bob, who has bitch tits because having had his testicles removed six months earlier due to testicular cancer, spends his time crying at the meetings. Joe comes to the meeting and also cries, releasing his frustrations. This also shows the loss of masculinity, instead of choosing to do something about his problems, he just weeps about them. He discovers that he must cry in order to sleep. Later after starting Fight Club, he discovers Big Bob is also in a Fight Club; they both now, fight out their frustrations, rather than whining about them. This also becomes an addiction as Joe discovers that (y)ou can build up a tolerance to fighting, and maybe [ he] needed to move on to something bigger (123). It was then that Tyler invented Project Mayhem. Through the accumulation of home dcor, and the preference of reading IKEA catalogs over pornography, Joe is expressing a feeling of feminization brought about by the adoption of the nesting instinct, which with few exceptions in the animal kingdom, is a female instinct. This is also shown by his need for designer clothes, like those lost when his baggage was detained at the airport. His suitcase contained his CK shirts, [his] DKNY shoes, [his] AX ties (Fincher)

The theme of emasculation may apply more so to gay men in modern society. As the author is also gay we can deduce that his own frustrations of gay men being seen only as effeminate and flamboyant are clearly expressed through the novel. Several homoerotic elements can be found throughout the story, for example: Tyler and Joe meet on a nude beach, later Tyler tells Joe If you love me, youll trust me (??), Tylers kiss on Joes hand is a mark of ownership, the careful description of male nudity, even the implication of the airport security officer that Joes razor may have been a dildo, creates a homoerotic aura around the protagonists. Joe even declares that he is a thirty-year-old boy wondering if another woman is really the answer [he] need(s) (51). Joes aggravation is epitomized when he realizes that he is being held accountable for crimes against the earth: For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. And account for every drop of used motor oil. And I have to foot the bill for nuclear waste and buried gasoline tanks and landfilled toxic sludge dumped a generation before I was born. (124) He is so fed up with the people retaining a history of those who no longer exist. He wants to burn the Louvre [] and wipe [his] ass with the Mona Lisa because, this is [his] world now [] and those ancient people are dead (124). Tyler relays to Joe, Joes subconscious desire to have Project Mayhem break up civilization so [they] can make something better out of the world (125) like a phoenix being reborn from the ashes. Tyler explains to Joe the importance of returning to a simpler life, one without history: We wanted to blast the world free of history.... picture yourself planting radishes

Lowery 11 and seed potatoes on the fifteenth green of a forgotten golf course. You'll hunt elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center, and dig clams next to the skeleton of the Space Needle leaning at a forty-five degree angle. We'll paint the skyscrapers with huge totem faces and goblin tikis, and every evening what's left of mankind will retreat to empty zoos and lock itself in cages as protection against the bears and big cats and wolves that pace and watch us from outside the cage bars at night. (124) This further exemplifies Tylers modern-primitive, nihilistic, revolutionary attitude, and in turn reflects Joes own desires. Furthermore Tylers ultimate goal of destroying the National Museum, effectively wiping out the history of those dead ancient people, through the destruction of the Parker-Morris building never comes to fruition, as the explosive he uses does not detonate. Many critics have stated that this is symptomatic of the decline of the American white male, through the advancement of women and minorities, while white males are losing the power that they have grown accustomed to. Though most critics do not find this a valid conclusion, they do however note men are being marginalized in contemporary society asking how do men become men in a culture in which Rambo, James Bond, and Dirty Harry project an ideal that power does not entail responsibilities, and violence is more gallant than deliberation or understanding? (Mendieta). Men are so torn between the ideal and the real [] that they can only be rendered schizophrenic (Mendieta). The theme of history in Fight Club is an important aspect, because the keeping of history in order avoid repeating the same mistakes inevitably leads us to do just that, Tony Myers explains that history becomes less a punitively disinterested account of the past, than a project

concatenation which yokes together the past, present, and future in a seamless flow leading to some form of enlightenment (qtd. in Friday). Just as in Patricia High-Smiths The Talented Mr. Ripley, Joe feels alienated by society just as Tom Ripley does, and they both feel the need to adopt a more masculine persona. Tom adopts the identity of Dickie Greenleaf, while Joes proleptic imagination [] give(s) birth to an alter ego, the angry white male intent on obliterating history (Tuss), Tyler. Tylers goal of freeing oneself from history, by creating an army to destroy civilization, is contrapuntal to the goal. History was created by the same means by which he is using to destroy it. His space monkeys (12) are his only tools in creating Project Mayhem, eventually, the movement adopts the collective goal of class warfare and revolution, reducing each man to an instrument of the projects collective will Pull a lever. Push a button. You dont understand any of it, and then you just die (12) It is with Palahniuks commentary and the added reach of a film adaptation that he is able to speak volumes about men in America, and extend his message to the American people. This is an oft overlooked aspect of our culture, so it is quite refreshing to have such a hyperbolic very of the society in which we live. It is thanks to Palahniuk that men, straight and gay alike, have something to relate to in regards to their angst about the declining state of masculinity in current American culture.

Appendix

Image 1: DVD cover for film adaptation of Fight Club <http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000067J1H.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg>

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Image 2: Palahniuk reading from his novel Haunted in New York in 2006 <http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/gallery/v/tour/haunted/2006-palahniuk-newyork4.jpg.html>

Works Cited Chalmers, Robert. Chuck Palahniuk: Stranger than Fiction. Independent 1 August 2004. 8 May 2008 <http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/chuckpalahniuk-stranger-than-fiction-554764.html>. "Chuck Palahniuk." Guide to Literary Masters and Their Works (n.d.). Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Columbus State Community College ERC, Columbus, OH. 5 May 2008 <http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.ohiolink.edu:9099/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&A N=MOL9790305717&site=lrc-live>. Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. With Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. Fox. 1999. Friday, Kirster. A Generation of Men without History: Fight Club, Masculinity, and the Historical Symptom. The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities. 2003. University of Virginia. 5 May 2008 <http://www.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/issue. 503/13.3friday.html>. Kerr, Calum A. "Literary Contexts in Novels: Chuck Palahniuk's "Fight Club"." Literary Contexts in Novels: Chuck Palahniuk's 'Fight Club' (2006): 1-1. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Columbus State Community College ERC, Columbus, OH. 5 May 2008 <http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.ohiolink.edu:9099/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&A N=23177092&site=lrc-live>. Mendieta, Eduardo. "Surviving American Culture: On Chuck Palahniuk." Philosophy and Literature 29.2 (2005): 394-408. Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1996. Palahniuk, Chuck. Interview with Laura J. Williams. Ann Arbor Paper. 4 Sept. 2004. 8 May 2008

Lowery 17 <http://www.annarborpaper.com/content/issue24/palahniuk_24.html>. "Palahniuk, Foley, Costello." Studio 360. NPR. 5 May 2006. 8 May 2008 <http://www.studio 360.org/episodes/2006/05/05>. Tuss, Alex. "Masculine Identity and Success: A Critical Analysis of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club." Journal of Men's Studies 12.2 (n.d.): 93-102. Literary Reference Center. EBSCO. Columbus State Community College ERC, Columbus, OH. 5 May 2008 <http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.ohiolink.edu:9099 /login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=12246732&site=lrc-live>.