So, masculinity is constantly an issue in this novel. Masculinity is brought up as if it is some sort of secret club. Some men know the secret to being masculine while others never got the memo. The significance of this, as the ”mechanic” so beautifully points out, is that masculinity is handed down from father to son. As we all know, not all sons have fathers and so the quest for masculinity begins. The mechanic lets us know that the father is also the model for God, the removal of the model brings up questions about the signified, or GOD himself. This generation of men searching for fathers, god, and masculinity, at some point, after turning up empty handed their whole lives, will embrace the rejection and formulate their own masculinity. In this way, Bob and his former-body-builder-bitch-tits symbolize the breakdown of a false steroid induced masculinity which is rebuilt with the fight clubs. About the competing masculine metanarratives in this novel, Jameson would argue that there nolonger exists a historical idea of masculinity, ther only exists ideas about masculinity as represented back to us by art.
October 12, 2007 at 5:01 pm
The search for a father is kind of like the search for truth. Once the son has given up his quest for masculinity then he admits that there is not truth- but then he creates his own- reasserting the creation of an ideology. It fills a void. It fills the center. When fight club met everyone stood around in a circle and watched as to individual representatives of masculinity went head to head. It’s like a sphere of religion- if each one were represented by a single individual of fight club the two fighting in the middle represent how religions come in contact wih each other- how they influence each other and then what they come away with, maybe something new.
i agree with what you say and it allows an example of how metanarratives are created and destroyed and how they impact each other.