ipl-logo

Dissociative Identity Disorder In Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club

1154 Words5 Pages

Dissociative Identity Disorder Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club is a pessimistic novel about a man who is trying to find himself. The narrator, who is unknown, is a neurotic, high strung struggling to find his identity in the world. While he is going through this lonely time, he suffers from a form of
Dissociative Identity Disorder which creates his alter ego, Tyler Durden. Tyler is the Identity that the narrator has created for himself, because he is exactly what our narrator wanted to be. Tyler is suave, a free spirit, funny, the opposite of what our narrator is. With this lack of identity our narrator finds company anywhere he can get, in this case it’s a testicular cancer support group.
Our narrator feels that with this …show more content…

Whenever Tyler was having sex with Marla, I was asleep. Tyler was walking and talking while I thought I was asleep”. (Chuck Palahniuk 174). I believe that Chuck Palahniuk put
Tyler in the story to represent the two-different thought processes and ideas that our narrator has come to reconcile with. A big reason people suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder is to help them cope with a stressful time in their life. In some cases, when the person is under stress the personalities don’t notice each other. The book Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll has found a way to “transform” himself into a person without conscious. While Mr. Hyde is having violent tendency which in the end, cause Dr. Jekyll to run from the police. The difference between these two stories having to deal with Dissociative Identity Disorder is that both Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde always remember what the other does. In this case, our narrator knows Tyler is there but doesn’t notice the bad Tyler is causing around with Project Mayhem. As we read Fight Club we are able to see that our narrator creates Tyler to have him be the person he has always wanted …show more content…

Having Dissociative Identity Disorder can often be mistaken for Schizophrenia. The only difference is that in Dissociative Identity Disorder a person’s alter ego cannot remember personal information which is explained more as ‘forgetfulness’. For a person, this could be scary not to remember what or where you have been for a long period of time. Most people who suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder this a common occurrence while the disease takes over they believe that they have been asleep for a longer period. For a person with Schizophrenia they have trouble with telling if what is happening is really the real thing, or if it’s just a figment of their imagination. Some symptoms of a person who suffers from Schizophrenia is the feeling of being paranoid constantly as if someone is out to get them, or as if someone or something is constantly watching their every move they make. This is a great example of why people could often get a person who suffers from Schizophrenia confused with a person who struggles from Dissociative Identity

Open Document