Analysis/ Opinion The fight symbolizes the protagonist reviving his ability to fight against a monster that is habituation.

Rating: 10/10 (18 March 2020)

The first time I saw this movie I was 13 years old. I had limited ability to cogitate the dimension of the bomb that was chucked into my mind, but my intuitions recognized that this was something special. I am a 31 year old right now. I just watched the movie for a 4th time, and recognized that here is a ridiculous amount of esoteric information thrown to the viewer and with such a unique style that it is passionately invigorating. It hits a chord that wakes up your soul and stimulates you to rebel against otherwise invisible entities. How habituated are we to consumerism? How has consumerism shaped our identity? How much is consumerism debilitated us at diverse dimensions and levels? How alienated are we from our noble savage that we have turned to selfishness and malevolence?
We are presented with the protagonist (Edward Norton). He sets off an identity crisis after accidentally setting fire to his apartment. In the earlier scenes of that movie we see him decorating meticulously every single object of his apartment, like the objects he owns are his identity. "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 years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you."
After the protagonist's commodities are gone he goes into a mental breakdown where he literally has no place where he belongs, no place to stay. Under the severe affliction he meets Tyler Durden. "You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world." Tyler delivers a powerful philosophical dialogue that seems to be exactly what the protagonist needs to hear. Before the night is over Tyler challenges him to a fight. Now this is the critical part about the movie. The fight symbolizes the protagonist reviving his ability to fight against a monster that is habituation. Tyler says: How much do you know about yourself if you have never been in a fight? Basically what it means is if you have not fought for something you believe in to the death, how much you know about what you can accomplish. Tyler teaches him to wake up and care. Care that he has been abused by the system and consumerism to the point that he has a mental breakdown after losing his possessions. Act on the injustice, develop convictions, ideas, care, and become humane, via learning how to fight, fight for what he cares about. This is the central idea of fight club. We are going to teach you to care.
The movie has deep psychological teachings about habituation. At some point of the movie Tyler sends off members of the fight club to fight random people on the street. He specifically instructed them to lose. He wanted to hit the most primal sensation in human beings when they are attempting to survive a life or death circumstance and help them believe that they can win and defeat their fears. He metaphorically attempts to face Carl Jung's shadow. A person cannot be good if he has not learned to dominate his shadow (shadow symbolizing the control the person has to participate in deliberate destruction). Tyler's philosophy aims to make his fighters develop discipline, convictions, identity, resiliency, humanity, fearlessness, and solidarity. Tyler is conducting a concerted effort to target the original and elusive culprit of the fighter's inability to be happy in society. Why are you unhappy in this society? Maybe you need some of Tyler's philosophy.
Before the protagonist met Tyler he was deep in an identity crisis. He had chronic insomnia, a job that he found with lack of meaning, materialistic ideas and behaviors, lack of discipline, lack of ability to suffer, and loneliness. He was suffering navigating through the Jungian analytical process of individuation. Before he could develop and establish an identity that was resilient to consumerist bombardment he had to face his deepest fears and face his shadow. Why have we not faced our shadow? Why are we incapable of being humane? Why do we not have the collective ability to end wars? Why are we so bad at constructing healthy relationships? Why do we struggle sacrificing and suffering for others? The protagonist in the movie understood that Tyler's philosophy was going to emancipate him from his suffering and help him discover his ego and shadow, and allow him to progress to also discovering his anima, animus, and old wise man (archetypes of the collective unconscious).
Anyone that wants to understand this movie and the criticism it does to materialism and consumerism is in for an entertaining, passionate, unique, and frenetic ride. The soundtrack is one of the best I've seen in any movie. The intensity of the scenes is high and the grim violence can be disturbing, but makes it up with witty comedy and a genius dialogue that achieves a deep analysis few movies have demonstrated. I personally have not read the book, but feel satisfied with this masterpiece that transcends anything that I ask of a movie.