Fight Club Chapter 19
Summary
This chapter starts where chapter 18 left off in the car crash with the mechanic, Tyler Durden and three other space monkeys are in the back seat. The car has crashed and is off of the road. The space monkeys are in the back seat quiet, and the narrator wonders if they are passed out or asleep. The mechanic tells the narrator “You had a near–life experience. The mechanic explains to the narrator how the back bumper is hanging off of the car after he ran head on with another car. The narrator asks the mechanic if the car crash is a homework assignment. The mechanic explains that part of it is a homework assignment and that he had to make four human sacrifices and has to pick up a load of fat for the soap. The narrator ask the mechanic what Tyler is planning, and his answer sounds exactly the way Tyler would have said it if he was asked the question. “I see the strongest and the smartest men who have ever lived…and these men are pumping gas and waiting tables”(141).The mechanic goes on saying young men and women are living in a world where they are chasing a false sense of reality by buying clothes and cars that they don’t need. He says that people work jobs that they hate just so they can buy what they don’t really need. “We don’t have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression” (141). The mechanic says that the only way to show people freedom is by enslaving them, and the way to show them courage is to frighten them. “The irony is that Fight Club, and later project Mayhem, reproduce the same effects of capitalism by creating the illusion of freedom through demands for self-regulation and self punishment” (Ta). The mechanic tells the narrator that they are headed to the medical waste incinerator to pick up the fat. == Notes ==
- Corniche[1] (140) - a Rolls-Royce's coupé and convertible version of the Silver Shadow produced between 1971 and 1996.
- Napoleon[2] (141) - King of Italy, Mediator of the Swiss Confederation and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine
- Rockefeller Center[3] (142) - a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering 22-acres between 48th and 51st Streets in New York
- Robin Hood[4] (142) - a courteous, pious and swashbuckling outlaw of the mediæval era who, in modern versions of the legend, is famous for robbing the rich to feed the poor and fighting against injustice and tyranny.
- Hepatitis bug[5] (142) -a gastroenterological disease, featuring inflammation of the liver
Commentary
In this chapter Palahniuk shows how Tyler has taken over the minds of the space monkeys. They all have the same thoughts as Tyler. Tyler's ideas of people working meaningless jobs to buy things they do not need is now what the space monkeys live by.
Study Questions
- What herb is used in making the soap?
- How much is the soap sold for?
- What does the mechanic say they need to look for at the end of the chapter?
- Where does the narrator get hurt in the crash?
- What legendary character does the mechanic compare himself to when stealing the fat?
- Who is the soap bought by?
Works Cited
Ta, Lynn M. “Hurt So Good: Fight Club, Masculine Violence, and the Crisis of Capitalism.” The Journal of American Culture. 29.3 (2006). 265-274.