Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club examines and exposes the violent potential of frustrated men who must survive in a consumer culture that does not differentiate between men and women. Like women, men in Fight Club are expected to express themselves through the material goods they labor to buy. While both the book and the film versions are drenched with violence; ironically, it is a kiss that emerges as the symbol that justifies that violence.
For the narrator, Tyler, and all the space monkeys, the lye-burned kiss of death on the back of the hand symbolizes the recipient’s acceptance of his own mortality and his completion of a rite of passage. Both in the book and the film, Tyler explains to the narrator that soap, the agent by which people clean their clothes and their bodies, has its roots in human sacrifices, that the ashes of sacrificial pyres turned into lye from the rains and that the lye mixed with the fat of the sacrificed victims to make soap. Tyler explains, “Soap and human sacrifice go hand in hand” (Palahniuk 75).
This assertion comes as Tyler’s kiss burns into the flesh of the narrator. Jack tries to meditate away from the pain but Tyler keeps bringing him back. “This is the greatest moment of your life,” Tyler says, “and you’re off somewhere missing it” (Palahniuk 77). Tyler wants Jack to accept his own mortality. He wants Jack to let go and let himself hit rock bottom. “Someday,” Tyler says, “you will die, and until you know that, you’re useless to me” (Palahniuk 76). Only by accepting the kiss of death, can Jack liberate himself from his fears and begin to live freely.
In the film, while the kiss still burns, Tyler states, “It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything” (Fight Club). Therefore, the kiss that eventually scars the back of Jack’s hand represents his knowledge of his own unavoidable death. By accepting this, though, Jack has completed his rite of passage into Tyler’s world. Not just a nihilistic symbol, Tyler’s kiss represents submission to Tyler’s will. After Jack has received the mark, fight club ceases to be an end in and of itself.
It is no longer enough to get together with a group of other socially dissatisfied men and to take turns beating each other. The physical and emotional outlets that such violence provides is without purpose or direction. Before Tyler’s kiss, there is fight club, but after Tyler’s kiss, there is project mayhem, and the “fifth rule of Project Mayhem is you have to trust Tyler” (Palahniuk 125). Paradoxically, receiving Tyler’s kiss means liberation from the fear of death, but it also implies unquestioning loyalty and submission to Tyler.
In Terry Lee’s article, “Virtual Violence in Fight Club: This Is What Transformation of Masculine Ego Feels Like,” he explains that part of the reason why Fight Club has an almost cult-like following is because it functions as a “narcissistic alliance” to its viewers. Lee writes, “One wants to see it because, unconsciously, one know he or she needs something that this particular story offers” (422). This “narcissistic alliance” for repeated readers and viewers of the book and film may also very well be applied to those who receive Tyler’s kiss.
Those recipients are able to look at the backs of the hands at any time and be reminder of the symbolism of their scars. Furthermore, keep in mind that the first person to receive Tyler’s kiss is Jack, who in reality is actually just kissing himself, a completely narcissistic act or “alliance. ” As one might expect with a character like Tyler, he manages to take an act so commonly associated with love, gentleness, as well as compassion, and transform it into a symbol of death freely offered unto Tyler himself. It is a powerful and ironic scar not just on the backs of people’s hands, but also on their minds.
