Hello! Could you spare a few minutes of your day to hear about something amazing? (Absurdity Missionaries)

Ding-dong.

Hello, my name is Elder Enchilada, and I would like to share with you something amazing.

Before reading this blog post, keep in mind that this will ruin Fight Club and The Stranger for you, revealing key points in each plotline. If you haven't seen both works, go watch them and come back. If you haven't and you want to read this anyway - hey - who gives a shit?

To start off, I'll recap the two movies.

The movie Fight Club was directed by David Fincher and based off a book written by Chuck Palahniuk. It follows a narrator, an average-Joe insomniac, who comes across a soap maker named Tyler Durden. The two begin a recreational fighting club in the basement of a bar. The club gains popularity as the two set up clubs around the world. Under Tyler’s leadership, it develops into an anti-corporate, underground network. Members pull stunts intended to shut down and expose major corporations. As the movie goes on, Tyler performs several demonstrations to teach the narrator to live a free life. At the end of the film, it is revealed that Tyler and the narrator are actually the same person. The narrator imagined Tyler in order to renew himself into the person he wants to be. Sometimes, the narrator imagines Tyler giving him advice, using Tyler as an entryway into his subconscious thoughts. Other times, Tyler takes over his actions. By the end of the film, the narrator kills Tyler, demonstrating that narrator no longer needs a model for who he wants to be.

The Stranger by Albert Camus follows an indifferent man named Meursault, similar to Tyler in his free willingness. He sees life the way it is. He does not mourn over his mother’s death because he knows she spent the last of her days happy. He does not react to his neighbor beating his wife because he knows there is no reason to sympathize for her. He does not believe there is a God because his existence does not make sense to him. He prioritizes rationality over pleasure, accepting the pointlessness of life. At the end of the book, Meursault is charged for murdering an Arab. The story ends with him in his cell arguing with a priest who insists he looks to God for help. Meursault argues with the priest that God does not exist and tries to expose him to what he believes is reality. The two burst into rage. Meursault unleashes his frustration of how the priest along with many others does not accept reality. The priest launches into a fit in fear that Meursault may be right and that his source of comfort, religion, may be false.

Fight Club and The Stranger have the same goal of helping the audience accept reality and become free-willed. They do this with the same model of having one character as the absurdist and another whom the absurdist exposes to reality. The intent is that as the absurdist takes a character through this process, the viewer will be taken through the process as well and by the end of the story understand absurdism. While these two pieces are equally unique and groundbreaking in their respective art forms, they are made with the same intent.

Tyler threatening to castrate a politician

The absurdist character has values that the writer associates with an absurdist. Tyler Durden believes in facing reality for the way it is in a neutral, rational mindset. He doesn't want himself others to have their lives dictated by fear. He sees most of society living in fear of death and a God who judges them. Fight Club emphasizes capitalism is an enemy to clear-mindedness because it imposes self-consciousness and therefore the fear of judgment by others. The value Tyler created for himself is to destroy the system that hinders clearheadedness and thereby freeing everyone from it. This can be seen in Tyler’s overarching goal of destroying credit card company’s records in “Project Mayhem”. By undermining capitalism, the population would be free to accept reality. Meursault is less self-aware because he is unconcerned with what others believe and has no need to impose his own views onto others. Like Tyler, he sees things the way they are and understand the pointlessness of life. However, unlike Tyler, Meursault’s goal is to simply live a happy life. He spends most of his time in recreational activities when out of work. He spends time with Marie and pays attention to things that fascinate him. Also unlike Tyler, Meursault chooses to stay in work because he is able to tolerate it. His values don't require that he quit his job so long as it doesn't greatly affect his contentedness. With the model characters, both Camus and Palahniuk advocate existentialism since their model characters have freed themselves to dictate their values with their own will. They set aside emotional distractions such as God and the media so that they can make conscious life decisions. They both rationalize that God’s existence is arbitrary. After the priest leaves Meursault thinks, “what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we’re all elected by the same fate.” Meursault believes that we are all equal as human beings despite our belief in God because we are all subject to fate. In one of his demonstrations, Tyler burns the narrator's hand to let him experience a pain harder to accept than reality. This way if he accepts the pain, he can accept more deeply rooted realities. Tyler says, “You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen.” To Tyler, God’s existence is arbitrary as well because his views on us do not matter in our free-willed lives. Whatever happens to us after we die, they are entirely in control of their actions. Both Tyler and Meursault are able to rationalize against religion, although they go about it in different ways.  

The narrator at his cubicle

The character who undergoes the transition is meant to be average and relatable to the audience. Fight Club had begun with Tyler and the narrator as two separate entities since the narrator hadn't yet begun to adopt an existential free will. The narrator lives an average white collar life. He is an insomniac who can only sleep if he attends group therapy sessions. He is unable to sleep because he is constantly suppressing the dissatisfaction he has with his life. He attends sessions because they are the only outlet he has. Like most, deep down the narrator is unsatisfied with his own life and yearns for change. In The Stranger, the priest can be seen as the one subject to a transition since Meursault's thoughts throughout the book culminate to his encounter with the priest. The priest, like most, is religious. He believes that any difficult situation can be remedied by turning to God. His beliefs contrast Meursault’s philosophy that belief in God is arbitrary since human beings are equal. The priest reacts the way most theists would. He withholds seeing reality because his religion is deeply rooted in his emotions. The priest in chapter five asserts, “No, I refuse to believe you! I know that at one time or another you’ve wished for another life." This statement reveals that a reason for him adopting theism is his fear of an ultimate death, in contrast to Meursault's nihilistic perspective. He wants to believe that he will live another life once he dies. The narrator at the start of the film and the priest have relatable characteristics and adopt philosophies that viewers most likely have. In this sense, while these characters beliefs are confronted, so are the viewer’s beliefs.  

The character’s transition into absurdism demonstrates to readers how to undergo the process themselves. Tyler destroys the narrator's apartment and has him quit his job. After burning the narrator’s hand chemicals he says, “It is only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” Fight Club informs viewers that the only way of transitioning is to lose everything you value so that you can realize how meaningless they are. Fight Club contains a scene in which Tyler speaks to the viewer directly. In this monolog Tyler states,
“You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world.” 

The fourth wall break scene in which this is said

With this fourth-wall break, writers are making it clear to viewers that they are with the narrator in his transition. As the narrator is rethinking his ideologies, so should the viewer. The intention is that throughout the film, the audience is creating their own Tyler’s. By imagining their ideal self with free will, they can choose whether to aspire to be that person. At the end of the film, the narrator shoots himself although he misses and survives. Tyler collapses with a bullet hole through his head. This is the scene in which the narrator truly becomes free-willed and no longer requires Tyler as a model. The priest isn't shown to complete the transition into absurdism. He simply leaves Meursault’s cell crying. This humiliating display of the priest growing frustrated and leaving in tears prompt religious readers to process Meursault's thoughts instead of rejecting them like the priest does. The Stranger also has a similar point where the absurdist character sums up their philosophy at the end of the book. While Meursault had always been indifferent about the universe, only now does he realize that the universe is just as indifferent to him. He thinks,

“ for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." 

While the detail that the universe is indifferent to humans isn't made in Fight Club, the central message is still the same: it is only after losing everything that people can see reality for what it is.

The purpose of both books is identical. They expose viewers to the absurdity of the universe, telling them that humans are restricted, and the only way have free will is to lose everything and eliminate value in arbitrary things such as money, jobs, and self-image. They communicate this through the same model of having one character with absurdist traits who influences a relatable character. However, the way in which these characters are utilized are slightly different. In Fight Club, a relatable narrator aspires to be like the absurdist Tyler Durden. Throughout the film, the narrator becomes more like Tyler and by the end becomes so free-willed that he no longer needs him. Viewers imagine their own free-willed, ideal selves and choose whether to aspire to be them. In The Stranger, viewers spend the book observing Meursault and his absurdist views. The book ends with an argument between him and a relatable priest, Meursault becoming self-aware of his values. As Meursault lays out his case, viewers are able to see his argument that God doesn't exist and everything in the universe is arbitrary. Fight Club focuses on capitalism and religion as hindering our clearheadedness, while The Stranger is general. Instead, The Stranger focuses on what it means to be clear-headed and indifferent to the world by focusing on the Meursault as a character. While this model may be unique to these two works, the message of becoming free-willed by eliminating value in material is common in literature and in film. The movie Office Space is about a middle-class worker who finds himself stuck in a hypnotic trance and in a perpetual state of calm. In this state of calm, he becomes free to make his own decisions by disregarding the issues that used to prevent him from doing so. The movie A Secret Life of Walter Mitty describes a magazine writer who is assigned an article that sends him on a bold mission. His mission forces him to make bold decisions, becoming free-willed to take risks. People like this message because it is exciting to watch a character finally stop conforming and making personal life decisions. These stories are in a way absurdity missionaries, spreading the word of the reality and the universe’s lack of purpose. 

If you would like, please attend our free seminar next Friday to learn more about absurdism!

In case you would like a headshot