I Am Joe's Identity

I Am Joe’s Identity Crisis

The human psyche is a delicate thing indeed. In Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club the unnamed narrator suffers from dissociative identity disorder and severe insomnia which in turn affect his ability to function wholly. Aside from his psychological disorder, the narrator continuously refers to himself as “I am Joe’s (insert body part function)” to convey emotions. The use of this literary device begins after the narrator's apartment blows up and he meets and moves in with his alter self, Tyler, and discovers stacks of old Readers Digest magazines with a column using this same literary device. Examples range from “I am Joe’s prostate” (Palahniuk 58) to “I am Joe’s Raging Bile Duct” (Palahniuk 59). Throughout Chuck

The narrator’s namelessness implies he is nobody worth knowing. As Ana Sobral states in her book Opting Out: Deviance and Generational Identities in American Post-War Cult Fiction “The fact that he does not even have a name contributes to his image as “everyman” and suggests that he is, in fact, an indistinguishable particle of a homogeneous mass” (Sobral 221). Sobral’s quote supports the claim that the narrator’s namelessness shows that he identifies with being nobody, consequently pointing to the narrator’s dissociation of self. The narrator’s life involves traveling from city to city for work, a banal desk job, and an apartment full of possessions. He believes he is defined by these possessions as he states, “I loved my life. I loved that condo. I loved every stick of furniture. That was my whole life. Everything, the lamps, the chairs, the rugs, were me. The plants were me. The television was me. It was me that blew up.” (Palahniuk 110). He even appears to relate to his condo being blown to bits, as if his own identity has blown up with it. The narrator’s strong association with his dismal possessions that he believes define him suggests he does not know who he is without his job and belongings. In addition, After the explosion of his condo, the narrator moves in with Tyler and finds the stack of Reader’s Digest with the series of

In Fight Club, the narrator feels he is imprisoned and has no control of his life in his society, the elaborate whole. The narrator is imprisoned by his banal yet high paying job and catalog ordered belongings because his society tells him that is what defines him and gives him worth. The narrator's role is to serve as a cog in the machine system of his capitalistic society. Once fight club is formed and anarchy ensues, he ironically is still a small pawn helping a whole function. Furthermore, within this machine system our narrator is aware that he is not in control, one of the driving forces of his identity crisis. The narrator feels a dissociation of self within this culture that he has been embedded into. Palahniuk’s use of “I am Joe's...” is a subtle yet effective metaphor of exactly how the narrator feels in addition to the lack of control he feels over his emotions. For example when the narrator’s boss confronts him about the rules of fight club that he left in the copier, “ ‘I hope this isn’t yours.’ I am Joe’s Blood Boiling Rage” (Palahniuk 96), he appears to lack control of his anger for a second, which is when “I am Joe’s....” is employed.