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 follow this thread
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad 1899 follow this thread
The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot 1922

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1922

The Waste Land

T. S. Eliot

Modernism. England. Written in English.

A fragmentary long poem of postwar spiritual desolation built from quotation and allusion.

What it handed down

To The Great Gatsby (1925)

Thematic kinship, probable.

The 'valley of ashes' between West Egg and New York echoes Eliot's sterile landscape. Fitzgerald sent Eliot an inscribed copy of the novel, and Eliot replied that it was the first step American fiction had taken since Henry James.

Where it came from

The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du mal), Charles Baudelaire 1857 follow this thread
Inferno, Dante Alighieri c. 1314
Satyricon, Petronius c. 60 CE follow this thread

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c. 1314

Inferno

Dante Alighieri

Late Middle Ages. Italy. Written in Italian.

The first part of the Divine Comedy, in which Dante, guided by Virgil, descends through the circles of Hell.

What it handed down

To The Waste Land (1922)

Direct source, well documented.

Eliot's crowd flowing over London Bridge quotes Inferno III, 'I had not thought death had undone so many'. Eliot's notes cite Dante repeatedly, and the poem treats the modern city as a version of Hell.

To Heart of Darkness

Disputed link, conjectural.

The grove of dying African laborers has been compared to a circle of Dante's Hell, and some critics read the whole journey as an infernal descent. Conrad left no statement confirming Dante as a model.

Where it came from

The Aeneid, Virgil c. 19 BCE

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c. 19 BCE

The Aeneid

Virgil

Augustan Rome. Augustan Rome. Written in Latin.

Aeneas flees Troy, loves and abandons Dido, descends to the underworld in Book 6, and founds Rome's line in Italy.

What it handed down

To Heart of Darkness

Structural model, probable.

Marlow's journey upriver to Kurtz has been read as an epic descent to the underworld on the pattern of Aeneid Book 6, with guides, shades and a final meeting with the dead. Lillian Feder argued this in 1955.

To The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du mal)

Direct source, well documented.

'The Swan' opens 'Andromache, I think of you', taking Virgil's picture in Aeneid 3 of Hector's widow mourning at a false Simois. Baudelaire uses her exile as a figure for the displaced in Haussmann's Paris.

To Inferno (c. 1314)

Direct source, well documented.

Dante takes Virgil as his guide through Hell and calls him his master and author. The descent itself is modeled on Aeneas' journey through the underworld in Aeneid 6, including Charon and the river Acheron.

To Confessions

Direct source, well documented.

In Book 1 Augustine recalls weeping over Dido's death in the Aeneid while unmoved by his own spiritual death. Virgil's poem stands for the pagan schooling he renounces.

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

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 (c. 19 BCE)

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)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Waste Land (1922)

To Heart of Darkness

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Heart of Darkness

To The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du mal)

To Inferno (c. 1314)

To Confessions

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Satyricon

To The Aeneid (c. 19 BCE)

Where it came from

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