An analysis of the film Fight Club essays

An analysis of the film Fight Club essays For years, David Fincher has been turning out some of the most stylish and inventive thrillers to ever hit the American screens. In spite of critical and public backlash, his Alien 3 remains the most technically interesting of that series, and Seven stands as the suspense film upon which all other modern suspense films are based. With The Game, he proved himself more than a one-movie wonder and emerged as one of the most original filmmakers working in Hollywood. His new film, Fight Club, however, is his most challenging piece of work. It is a film that demands that its viewers look past what's on the surface and find something deeper. Fight Club is a multi-layered film with many subplots and multiple themes. Fincher delves into such topics as consumerism, the feminization of society, manipulation, cultism, fascism, and even the psychosemantics of the human id and ego. Primarily, it is a film that surrealistically describes the status of the American male at the end of the 20th century: disenchanted, unfulfilled, castrated and looking for a way out. It depicts how consumerist males have been emasculated by their modern life styles, by a feminized consumer culture that places more worth on nice furniture and nice wardrobe than masculine values like power and strength. The central character in the film, who remains nameless and who is played by Edward Norton, is very much like Lester Burnham of American Beauty. He is trapped in the corporate world and finds himself increasingly dissatisfied with the fruits it is supposed to deliver. Norton's character leads an unfulfilled and aimless life. Rather than masturbating as an outlet, he buys furniture from IKEA. It is by no chance that our Narrator is not given a name: he is the Everyman of the 90s, "a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct" (Fight Club) with an apartment that owns him more than he owns it. He also suffers from insomnia for which the only cure seems to come in the form...

Hobbes and Rousseau essays

Hobbes and Rousseau essays When comparing Hobbes and Rousseaus state of nature one must be aware of not only what the conditions are for each philosophers realm of savagery. Each has a different setting, different time frame, and different abundance of resources. Where Rousseau sees a world much like the Garden of Eden, Hobbes is much more brutal and cold. Rousseau had a specific time frame in mind; prehistory, where as Hobbes had no specific time frame. One of the few things they do have in common is that neither claim to be more than models, theoretical attempts to describe what life was like prior to civilization. The most important parts of these settings are the psychological compositions of the people living in each respective state. Hobbes argues that natural man has three inherent instincts which cause him to quarrel: competition, diffidence, and the want for glory. Rousseau believes we have two more tranquil instincts: pity and self love. The only thing his savage would need is nourishment and sex. Th e main difference that causes these drastically different models is not the removal of man from civilization, but the removal of civilization from man in Rousseaus. Hobbes model has men thrashing about madly trying to get the material comforts society had offered him while Rousseaus has men without any desires past satiating his biological requirements. The only thing that is the equal are the people to each other in each scenario. Equality, Hobbes writes, is what causes these horrid conditions because everyone wants the same things and wants all of it. However if self interest is also one of our main desires we would avoid that which would bring conflict and when struggles arise the absence of the concept of dignity would give no physical need to win a fight. Hobbes ignores the biologically instilled notion of retreat and that self interest does not always equal avarice. Rousseaus the ...