hands dirty, whether that be fighting with others or with society or with the idea of nihilism. Tyler embodies very well what Nietzsche was writing about. But Tyler does not live according to his own pleasure, something that Nietzsche believed the Ubermench should do (why else would Nietzsche be a part of Graham’s chapter on egoism?). Tyler embodies the Ubermench without being solely what Nietzsche thought the Ubermench would be. For if Tyler was just the Ubermench, he would be living in bad faith.
Tyler as Radical Freedom
Jean-Paul Sartre posited the idea that man is condemned to be free, that man cannot escape his freedom, and because of this freedom man can only live according to his choices, that he alone is responsible for the world around him. According to Sartre, this freedom comes at the price of anguish; to accept this freedom, a man must understand that he is nothing. Obviously accepting this is not easy, should not be easy. But man is condemned.
Sartre’s theory of anguish is this: in “recognizing our radical freedom as human beings, we are acknowledging that we are nothing, literally no thing” (Graham, 65). Graham goes on to explain that this means we are incapable of explaining our existence in any meaningful way. Coming to the realization that one is nothing, that one’s existence is unjustifiable is cause for anguish. It is cause for pain. But it is through this pain that man comes to accept his freedom.
Tyler is seated at a table, holding another man’s hand. He kisses that hand, then says five words: “This is a chemical burn” (Palahniuk, 75). Why does that matter? Because this is the most pivotal scene of the book and film. The other man faces pain worse than he ever has felt after Tyler pours lye on the saliva covered hand. Pain. Anguish. Tyler is trying to show this other man (his alter ego) what it means to be free. “This is the greatest moment of your life’ Tyler says” (Palahniuk, 77). He’s right. He understands that it takes pain to appreciate freedom.
Freedom is not the only thing Tyler instills into his alter ego or the men of fight club. He tries to warn them of living in bad faith. “The idea is this: faced with the terrifying realities of the human condition (i.e., its absurdity and responsibility), individuals may seek escape by ordering their lives according to some preordained social role” (Graham, 66). To illustrate this point, Sartre gives humanity the example of the waiter. This waiter is too good at his job; he is too much of a waiter. And because of this he is a terrible waiter. How can that be? Because he is more than a waiter. He is a human, condemned to be free and live according to his own choices. By identifying solely as a waiter, he is throwing away anguish and thus freedom for a life he is not meant to live. Tyler puts it very bluntly in the film: “You are not your job. You are not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis” (Fincher). Both Sartre and Tyler agree that humanity is more than labels.
Tyler would say that Sartre hit the nail on the head. To be free, to truly live, one must endure pain. One must accept anguish. If one cannot do this, or refuses to do this, then one’s life is most assuredly forfeit, wasted on trying to be something that one is not. For one is not anything but free. Those are the words of Jean-Paul Sartre. This is the life of Tyler Durden.
Tyler Durden is the fictional creation of one Chuck Palahniuk. He is a character in both a novel and a film. But like the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jean-Paul Sartre he is more than words. He is a way of life. Much like these philosophers, Tyler spends the entirety of his existence attempting to change the world in which he resides in. Unlike these men, he does not do it with words on a page. He does it with bombs made of soap, with soldiers once afraid to live, with human sacrifice. Whereas these men wrote, Tyler did. But by encompassing all the teachings of these men, Tyler is able to prove that living as a human is more than the teachings of any one man.
Tyler’s real strength lies in his fiction. He is a work of thought, no different than any of the works of Hobbes, Marx, Nietzsche, or Sartre. His difference is that he represents a human; the ideas of these men are all theoretical thoughts and ideas. Abstractions. Through the fact that he is a fictional character, he is able to show that living the way thinkers and intellectuals deem correct is more than difficult; it’s damn near impossible.