Fight Club

The narrator and Marla's philosophies on life and death?

fight club

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I think both Marla and the narrator are fatalistic about death until Tyler comes into the picture. Tyler stresses the importance of being fully cognizant of the fact that one's life will eventually end. He employs the "human sacrifice" to shock unwitting "victims" into realizing that their lives are passing them by. By bringing them face to face with the possibility of their deaths, they are pushed to improve their lives. Raymond K. Hessel, for example, wanted to be a veterinarian but abandoned the plan because he found the schooling tedious. When the Narrator puts a gun to his head, he hopes to motivate Raymond to change his life, thereby empowering him but using fear as the mechanism to do so.

This idea also ties in to Tyler's ideology of chaos and societal breakdown. If the disenfranchised classes can be pushed to stand up, the world can be changed.