The influences behind Fight Club

1996

Fight Club

Chuck Palahniuk

Late 20th-century American. United States. Written in English.

Chuck Palahniuk's debut novel follows an unnamed insomniac office worker who, with the anarchic Tyler Durden, founds a bare-knuckle fight club that grows into a terrorist cult, before Tyler turns out to be the narrator's other self. It is written in a clipped, repetitive minimalist style learned in Tom Spanbauer's workshop.

Where it came from

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1925

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Lost Generation. United States. Written in English.

Nick Carraway narrates the rise and death of the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby on Long Island.

What it handed down

To Fight Club (1996)

Structural model, well documented.

Palahniuk has said in interviews that Fight Club is The Great Gatsby updated: a witness narrator tells the story of a larger-than-life hero who dies so the narrator can survive. The narrator's relation to Tyler mirrors Nick's to Gatsby.

Where it came from

Satyricon, Petronius c. 60 CE
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad 1899 follow this thread
The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot 1922 follow this thread

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c. 60 CE

Satyricon

Petronius

Neronian Rome. Imperial Rome. Written in Latin.

A fragmentary comic novel of rogues' wanderings, including the feast of the vulgar freedman Trimalchio.

What it handed down

To The Great Gatsby (1925)

Direct source, well documented.

Fitzgerald's working title was 'Trimalchio in West Egg', and the novel calls Gatsby's career 'as Trimalchio' over in Chapter 7. Gatsby's lavish parties for strangers are modeled on the freedman Trimalchio's vulgar banquet.

To The Waste Land

Direct source, well documented.

The poem's epigraph quotes Trimalchio's tale of the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a jar and wishing to die. It sets the theme of a life that cannot end or renew.

Where it came from

The Odyssey, Homer c. 725 BCE

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c. 725 BCE

The Odyssey

Homer

Archaic Greece. Archaic Greece. Written in Ancient Greek.

The epic of Odysseus' ten-year journey home from Troy, including his descent to the dead.

What it handed down

To Satyricon (c. 60 CE)

Structural model, well documented.

Encolpius' wanderings parody the Odyssey: he is pursued by the wrath of Priapus as Odysseus was by Poseidon's. Characters quote and burlesque Homeric episodes.

To The Aeneid

Direct source, well documented.

Virgil's first six books rework the Odyssey: Aeneas wanders the Mediterranean, tells his story at a banquet, and visits the dead as Odysseus does in Book 11. The poem's second half answers the Iliad.

Where it came from

This is one of the oldest surviving works in its tradition; the line ends here.

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Where it came from

What it handed down

To Fight Club (1996)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Great Gatsby (1925)

To The Waste Land

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Satyricon (c. 60 CE)

To The Aeneid

Where it came from

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