Normalcy and Deviation in Fight Club and Choke by Chuck Palahniuk: The Average Joe and the Failed American Dream

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1.0, University of Cologne (North-American Studies), course: Chuck Palahniuk and Co, language: English, abstract: The paper identifies important themes, tropes, and types in select extracts from the novels "Fight Club" and "Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk, as well as stylistic and narratological devices with which Palahniuk addresses (and debunks) the idea of normalcy. The authors reading of Palahniuk's novels "Fight Club" (1996) and "Choke" (2001) posits these two as exemplary texts due to the way in which his assessment of the failed American Dream manifests itself. Both novels are organized around individuals who become part of, or form, communities¿e pluribus unum. The titular Fight Club / Project Mayhem and the sex addiction therapy group in Choke respectively become arenas in which seemingly average people act out their social incompatibilities such as their violent desires or the need to talk about their sexual (or otherwise) perversions. Chuck Palahniuk's name has become synonymous with depictions of a dark world populated by morally degenerate characters who are canonically read as both a harsh critique of the United States in times of late / post-capitalism and a negotiation of the status quo of the American working and middle class.