Fight Club Ending Scene
For me, the most confusing scene in Fight Club is the ending
scene, where Edward Warton’s character, the narrator, takes Marla’s hand and
remarks that she’s “met him at a very strange time of [his] life” as they watch
the city burn and crumble building by building. Prior to this scene, the
narrator just shot himself in the head in order to kill Brad Pitt’s character,
Tyler Durden. When the narrator pulled the trigger, almost immediately, Tyler
fell to the ground with a bullet hole in the back of his head and died. The
narrator himself however, remained alive in the chair while his wound, which
seemed to be on the side of his face rather than the back of his head, slowly
healed itself. Therefore my question is: why didn’t the narrator die like Tyler
when he shot himself?
One theory that I came up with is that the narrator didn’t
actually shoot himself, but rather imagined pulling the trigger. Even to be
able to imagine pulling the trigger shows that the narrator has accepted his
death, which was Tyler’s message for him throughout the film. Since Tyler
represents everything that the narrator wants to be, who is “free in all the
ways that [he] is not”, the act of shooting himself represents that the narrator
has let go of all responsibilities and can finally live freely and enjoy his
life without worrying about always being in control. This shows that the
narrator has, in essence, become Tyler, which is why he was finally able to get
rid of him and ‘kill’ him. The ending scene implies that the narrator will be
able to live with Marla in the ideal world that he’s constructed.
After reading through many blogs in which everyone seems to believe this dual personality is true, I have decided to rewatch the movie to pick up on these nuances that you and Ari have pointed out. For example, the narrator recalling his fight with himself as similar to his fight with Tyler supports this theory. If Tyler were to represent the mind of the narrator, then shooting himself in the head would effectively kill Tyler and leave the narrator in the chaos of the exploding buildings. One idea that I don't understand, is why does only Tyler like Marla?
ReplyDeleteI guess the narrator feels attracted to Marla in the first place because they are essentially the same kind of person who pretend to have cancer and go the support groups and actually are indifferent to their life. The narrator has ambivalent feelings for Marla as he says that Marla reflects his lies. I consider Marla to be a catalyst to the invention of Tyler Durdan, the self-destruction or liberation of the narrator's free will. Tyler, however, is not that drawn to Marla because Marla is more connected to the past of the narrator, and Tyler who represents the opposite personality of the narrator is trying to take over to be the dominant personality. Tyler probably does not like the influence Marla has on the narrator.
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