Aggressive Contexts, Violent Masculinity and the Politics of American Identity in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club (1996)

Abstract

Since its publication in 1996, Fight Club has never ceased to raise and present sensitive issues for discussion and critical analysis. For instance, numerous critical writings on the novel have addressed the issues of masculinity and extreme violence; sometimes with relation to capitalism, to postmodernism and at other times with connection to American ideology and/or politics. Yet, there seems to be no study that has examined the bearing of the American context with relevance to celebrating aggressive masculinity and to shaping the American masculine identity as well.
Therefore, The purpose of the current study is to look into the problems of violence, masculinity and identity in Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club, but in relevance to the American context. It argues that such violence and aggressivity with relation to masculinity

and masculine identity as depicted in the novel have long been nourished and celebrated as a traditional norm within the American context; communal, cultural, historic and literary.