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Foreshadowing
Genre
Explanation and Analysis:
Fight Club can be considered an example of postmodernism, a literary movement that came to prominence in the 1960s through the work of writers like Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon. Postmodern literature is characterized by experimental writing that makes use of techniques like metafiction, unreliable narration, and intertextuality.
Fight Club fits into this movement because of its use of unreliable narration. For much of the novel, the Narrator believes Tyler Durden is a real, individual person, when in fact he’s a subconscious facet of the Narrator’s own personality. As a result, the Narrator isn’t able to accurately report his own thoughts and actions. Postmodern literature also often demonstrates a concern with contemporary political issues. Fight Club enacts this aspect of the postmodern aesthetic through its complex critique of consumerism and conformity.
Fight Club can also be considered a satirical novel. Its societal critique depends not only on postmodern techniques like unreliable narration, but also on heavy irony and dry humor. The characters’ exaggerated habits and hypocrisies shed light on what the author considers to be shortcomings in a capitalist, emasculated society. One example of this is the Narrator’s addiction to shopping—his fixation on the luxury goods that fill his apartment makes an over-the-top mockery of consumerism and the way it distorts societal values.
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