Pleasure, Perfection, and Jouissance in Fight Club

I. Pleasure and Perfection

The effort that characters in Fight Club put forth in order to sustain a sensation of pleasure is often self-destructive. According to Richard Howard in the preface to Barthes’ The Pleasure of the Text, pleasure refers to a state, and in this essay, it is one of satisfaction and enjoyment (vi). This essay focuses on pleasure derived from control, which means to possess the function or power of directing and regulating, having domination and command (OED). This pleasure comes at the perfect moment.

When Tyler Durden makes the giant hand out of driftwood on the beach, creating a perfect moment, he asks the narrator what time it is. The narrator responds by asking where, and he says, “Right here. Right now (32).” Tyler enforces the idea that the narrator should be aware of his life at that moment and says that he needs to know the time so that he knows when the hand he created casts the perfect shadow. By saying, “ One minute was enough. A person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection (33).” In saying this, he acknowledges perfection for what it truly is – momentary.

II. Pleasure’s Limits

Noting that perfection is momentary indirectly states another side to it – perfect can’t last forever. The word perfect can be traced back to the Latin word perfectus, which means fully realized, complete, [and] finished (OED). Perfect is a climax. It is a final state. Like other states, it passes and it is not something that can be maintained. Perfection should be appreciated while it is there, but it should not be expected to last indefinitely. Many instances of satisfaction in life are momentary.

The narrator tries to make aspects in his life, such as his furniture, both perfect and unchanging. The narrator describes an instance of perfection when he says, “You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you’re satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you’ve got your sofa issue handled (44).” For a period of time, you are content with what you have since it’s what you wanted. After some time, though, your furniture, or whatever was perfect, no longer satisfies you. The pleasure it once brought you leaves. It follows the rules of perfection since its worth comes to pass.

The narrator subconsciously creates the character of Tyler Durden as a representation of everything that he imagines as perfect. He says, “I love everything about Tyler Durden, his courage and his smarts. His nerve. Tyler is funny and charming and forceful and independent, and men look up to him and expect him to change their world. Tyler is capable and free, and I am not (174).” Tyler has the looks, the job, the money, the freedom – everything that the narrator wishes he could have, and he’s the person that he wishes he could be. The narrator feels more in control and is more pleased with his life with Tyler in his company and through his help. However, Tyler is still just another example of perfection. Just as he provides pleasure, as other moments of perfection do, he also cannot remain as a constant. He functions as the narrator’s game, and as Huizinga says, “Play begins, and then at a certain moment it is ‘over’ (9).” Tyler must abide by these rules, and he does. He is present, and then he leaves.

III. Jouissance and Puerilism

If a person is able to transgress “the pleasure principle it is not more pleasure, but pain that they get, since there is only a certain amount of pleasure that the subject can bear. Beyond this limit, pleasure becomes pain, and this ‘painful pleasure’ is what Lacan calls jouissance; ‘jouissance is suffering’ (S7, 184 QTB Evans).” Amid one of Tyler’s absences, the narrator needs to find him, and he tries to search him out. While he’s searching, at “every bar [he’s] walked into, everybody called [him] sir,” and he wonders, “ how can a stranger know who I am (158)?” He is confused and talks with Marla to try to find out if they had sex. He believes that they didn’t, but Tyler did, and if strangers think he’s Tyler, he wants to know who Marla thinks he is. In doing this he’s trying to sort things out. When he asks, she insists that they did. She reminds him, “That night I said I wanted to have our abortion (160).” Upon hearing this he says, “We’ve just lost cabin pressure (160),” as he realizes that Marla really does believe that he’s Tyler Durden and he is feeling a loss of control. He feels unsure about his life again as he wonders what could be happening. Even more now, the narrator desires to find Tyler Durden so that he can find out what is going on and regain the pleasure from certainty. He wants the feeling of having things going perfectly back, and he wants his sense of control. He tries to break through the limit on enjoyment, known as the pleasure principle (92, Evans). The narrator doesn’t want to be left in the dark as to what is happening with the fight club and what Tyler is doing. He enjoys the control that Tyler makes him feel that he has, and the extra confidence. He feels like he is winning at life because of Tyler, but the narrator starts to lose that feeling when he leaves. He states, “I am nothing in the world compared to Tyler (146).” When he is present, though, he feels more powerful. His life is like a game and, as Huizinga states, winning means showing oneself superior in the outcome of a game (50). Tyler’s absence creates a feeling of inferiority in the narrator. Despite the paradox in his endeavors, of getting a painful pleasure, the narrator continues on his mission. Jouissance is an action, and not a state, so it can be maintained (Howard’s preface to Barthes, vi). The attempt to regain Tyler in his life refers to what Huizinga calls puerilism. Puerilism is a quality “which, to a superficial eye, [has] all the appearance of play and might be taken for permanent play-tendencies, but [is], in point of fact, nothing of the sort. Modern social life is being dominated to an ever-increasing extent by a quality that has something in common with play and yields the illusion of a strongly developed play-factor (205).” Even though the narrator is aiming at winning Tyler back in his life, it is not a true game. As hard as he is trying to get the outcome of a game back, the pleasure, he is pursuing this outcome through the actions of a false game.

IV. Jouissance and Libido

Jouissance is not the only action that is false game. Around 1957, jouissance became connected with a sexual connotation of enjoyment. As Evans says in An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, “there are strong affinities between Lacan’s description of jouissance and Freud’s concept of the LIBIDO (S20, 26 QTB Evans).” Both jouissance and libido are attempts to extend the time frame of a pleasurable moment – with the sexual connotation; it is referring to an orgasm. Jouissance is an action like libido in that it functions as the drive for a person who desires to extend the enjoyment. After the sexual climax, or the orgasm, both jouissance and libido drive the person to try to sustain the moment, even though it can’t be maintained.

According to Freud, “there is only one libido, which is masculine,” and according to Lacan, “jouissance is essentially phallic, which means that it does not relate to the Other as such (S20, 14 QTB Evans).” Both statements suggest that the “Other,” referring to females, do not experience this drive. However, Lacan goes on to say that there is a “specifically feminine jouissance (S20, 58), which is ‘beyond the phallus’ (S20, 69 QTB Evans).” According to Lacan, the feminine jouissance is incapable of being expressed in words since, even though it is experienced, the Other knows nothing of it (S20, 71 QTB Evans). Women, unlike men, don’t realize that they have the drive. Despite the variation in how it is experienced, both sexes may endure a type of jouissance.

V. The Death Drive

The feminine jouissance applies to Marla. She has what Evans refers to as the death drive. This is the name given to that constant desire in the subject to break through the pleasure principle towards the THING and a certain excess jouissance. Thus, Evans remarks, jouissance is ‘the path towards death’ (S17, 17 QTB Evans). Marla even says herself, “she can die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn’t (108).” She tries to play off the idea that she has no concerns and that she has gotten to a point in her life where she can just go with whatever happens to her – she can go from place to place and what ever may come of it, it doesn’t matter. It is almost a subconscious drive to try to make her life as carefree as possible. One morning she came into the narrator’s kitchen saying, “Look, I’m a mermaid (107).” She has accidentally slips both legs into the same pantyhose, and she takes the time to recognize the moment and laugh at it. She lives her life one moment at a time, and points out small innocent mistakes for the fun of it. Despite this fact, she still does have concerns. She doesn’t want to know that she’s going to die, and when she gets another lump in her breast, it concerns her.

The narrator shows a good example of masculine jouissance. In the end of the book, it is the climax for both the story and for the narrator – though it is a climax that he obtains through jouissance. He is finally in control of his life and the current situation, with the gun in his hand. All the time that it has taken to get to this point of perfection is worth it, as Tyler says earlier in the book. However, this cannot really be perfection since he gains it through jouissance. It would be more fitting to this situation to say that all the time it takes to destroy something is worth the end result. When you finally achieve what you have been working towards, that perfect moment overshadows all of the work you have put into it. The narrator is close to achieving what he has been striving for, but he will never obtain it since that would be breaking the pleasure principle – an impossible feat. During this scene Tyler is in the middle of what Huizinga refers to as false play. Huizinga says, this type of “play-form may be used, consciously or unconsciously, to cover up some social or political design (Huizinga, 205).” Tyler is trying to make the narrator think that he needs Tyler and that he isn’t in control, despite the fact that Tyler is imaginary and is only inside the narrator’s mind.

Marla and other people from the support groups come to help the narrator, saying, “Wait. Stop. We can help you (204).” However, to accept their help would mean giving up his absolute control of the situation and he does not want to do that. He is driven by the death drive in conjunction with jouissance. He wants to keep his control away from Tyler. Once his moral sense takes a role in altering the game (Huizinga), he wants to end his game and put an end to Tyler. At the end, when he turns the gun on himself in order to kill Tyler, he is no longer playing. Huizinga would classify the narrator’s actions as puerilism. He is now doing this to set things in order and put himself back in control. By shooting himself he attempts to maintain his control, and he continues down ‘the path towards death’.

All of the narrator’s attempts to prolong his pleasurable moments of perfection only make his situation worse. Through jouissance he ends up causing himself pain in his attempt to find pleasure.


Works Cited

1. (vi)
Roland, Barthes. The Pleasure of the Text. Translated by Richard Miller. Note on Text by Richard Howard. Hill and Wang New York; a division of Farrar Straus and Giroux Inc. ©1973, translation © 1975

2. (vi)
Pleasure
(Howard)
Roland, Barthes. The Pleasure of the Text. Translated by Richard Miller. Note on Text by Richard Howard. Hill and Wang New York; a division of Farrar Straus and Giroux Inc. ©1973, translation © 1975

3. (OED.com)
Control:
“Oxford English Dictionary”, Oxford University Press,
Copyright © Oxford University Press 2008
SECOND EDITION 1989
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50048961?query_type=word&queryword=control&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=1&search_id=t41Q-lU0awH-9717&hilite=50048961

4. (OED.com)
Perfect:
Perfectus:
“Oxford English Dictionary”, Oxford University Press,
Copyright © Oxford University Press 2008
SECOND EDITION 1989
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50175288?query_type=word&queryword=perfect&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=1&search_id=t41Q-8AYg64-10095&hilite=50175288

5. (92, Evans)
Pleasure principle
Evans, Dylan. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. Published by Routledge, 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE, England; 29 West 35th Street, New York, New York 10001, USA and Canada. ©1996. Printed and bound by TJ Press (Padstow) Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall.

6. Jouissance
QTB Evans, Dylan. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. Published by Routledge, 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE, England; 29 West 35th Street, New York, New York 10001, USA and Canada. ©1996. Printed and bound by TJ Press (Padstow) Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall.

QTB Evans:
(Page 91)
a) (S7, 184)
Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar. Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-60; trans. Denis Porter, notes by Dennis Porter, London: Routledge, 1992
(Page 92)
b) (S17, 17)
Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre XVII. L’envers de la Psychanalyse, 1969-70 ed. Jacques- Alain Miller, Paris: Seuil, 1991
(Le Séminaire. Book 17. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis)
c) (S20, 14)
d) (S20, 26)
e) (S20, 58)
f) (S20, 69)
g) (S20, 71)

7. (32)
Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York. 10110. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT. © 1996

8. (33)
Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York. 10110. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT. © 1996


9. (44)
Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York. 10110. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT. © 1996

10. (107)
Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York. 10110. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT. © 1996

11. (108)
Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York. 10110. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT. © 1996

12. (146)
Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York. 10110. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT. © 1996
13. (158)
Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York. 10110. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT. © 1996

14. (160)
Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York. 10110. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT. © 1996


15. (174)
Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York. 10110. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT. © 1996

16. (204)
Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York. 10110. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT. © 1996

17. (Winning)
Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Ed. And trans. Not fully attributed: “This edition is prepared from the German edition published in Switzerland, 1944, and also from the author’s own English translation of the text, which he made shortly before his death…” London: Beacon Press, 1950: 1-27, 46-75, 89-104, 119-135, 195-213.
(Page 50)

18. (Time frame)
Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Ed. And trans. Not fully attributed: “This edition is prepared from the German edition published in Switzerland, 1944, and also from the author’s own English translation of the text, which he made shortly before his death…” London: Beacon Press, 1950: 1-27, 46-75, 89-104, 119-135, 195-213.
(Page 9)


19. (Peurilism)
Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Ed. And trans. Not fully attributed: “This edition is prepared from the German edition published in Switzerland, 1944, and also from the author’s own English translation of the text, which he made shortly before his death…” London: Beacon Press, 1950: 1-27, 46-75, 89-104, 119-135, 195-213.
(Page 205)

20. (Moral)
Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Ed. And trans. Not fully attributed: “This edition is prepared from the German edition published in Switzerland, 1944, and also from the author’s own English translation of the text, which he made shortly before his death…” London: Beacon Press, 1950: 1-27, 46-75, 89-104, 119-135, 195-213.
(Page 210)

21. (false play)
Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Ed. And trans. Not fully attributed: “This edition is prepared from the German edition published in Switzerland, 1944, and also from the author’s own English translation of the text, which he made shortly before his death…” London: Beacon Press, 1950: 1-27, 46-75, 89-104, 119-135, 195-213.
(Page 205)