Abstract

Psychoanalysis has been used for decades to explore the hidden motives and explanation of violent behavior of the characters in a novel.  This paper analyses Chuck Palahniuk’s famous novel Fight Club using Freudian psychoanalysis. It explores the Freudian concepts of Id, Ego, and Super-ego as portrayed in the character of Tyler, the narrator, and the society in the novel. The research show how the characters of Tyler Durden with his violent behavior and the narrator with his passive lifestyle are a suitable representation of Freudian Id and Ego, respectively. The paper also throws light upon the role of society with its intricate web of rules and its influence on the behavior of the narrator and the violence of Tyler Durden.

Key Words

Id, Ego, Super-ego, Nature, Instincts, Psychoanalysis

Introduction

Chuck Palahniuk, a famous American novelist of the contemporary age, whose writings, particularly Fight Club, have been criticized for its portrayal of violence and aggression. However, the research compares the ideas of Psychologist Sigmund Freud with the ideas of this transgressive novelist Chuck Palahniuk in relation to human nature and societal nurture by analyzing this novel psychoanalytically.

According to the famous psychologist Sigmund Freud, human beings have always been struggling with the internal animal self and the external environment that has been trying to nurture them. This struggle has increased with the evolution of modern society with its intricate web of rules. The more societal and cultural nurturing forces man to change, the more he desires to resist this change. This idea of struggle and its resulting issues have been depicted in many dystopian novels in the history of literature. The study attempts to address the increasing intensity of some of these issues in the contemporary post-modern society, as shown in the novel Fight Club written by Chuck Palahniuk in1996. 

The discussion in this paper is about Freudian Id, Ego, and the Super-ego and their manifestation in major characters of the novel. The Id is manifested in the character of Tyler Durden while the narrator is discussed as to incarnation of the ego. Similar to the Id, Tyler works on the "pleasure principle," always trying to fulfill his natural desires and instincts irrespective of their consequences. He does not care about the rules and regulations of the society. The narrator, on the other hand is a rational human being. He works on the "reality principle" and tries to avoid conflict by suppressing his basic instincts and desires or channelizing them in a reasonable and socially accepted way. He is influenced by nurture, while Tyler is dominated by nature. 

The super-ego represents the rules and regulations of the society that has nurtured the narrator to become the man he was before the appearance of Tyler. After the appearance of Tyler, the struggle of nature and nurture against each other worsens. The narrator and Tyler both strive for power and domination, but mostly Tyler is the one in the driving seat of making decisions. Even after the appearance of Tyler and or the dominant Id, the super-ego still sometimes reminds him of the consequences of his actions. The analysis also shows an unhealthy interaction between the personified Id (Tyler), Ego (the narrator), and the Super-ego (societal norms, customs, and rules and regulations) in the novel and their relation to the narrator’s insomnia and the Dissociative Identity Disorder that he suffers from. It seems like the real natural aspect of Id in the form of Tyler struggles against the nurtured aspect of Ego in the narrator and the super-ego in the society. 

Literature Review

This short novel of Palahniuk has traces of many other themes, including fascism, feminism, Marxism, and homosexuality. The discussion is ongoing, but the themes selected for this analysis serve as backdrops to give us an insight into the expression of violence in human nature and the role of societal nurture in the creation of these problems in society. The detailed discussed  issues like consumer society, troubled masculinity, identity crises, violence, a utopia for dystopia, etc discussed by the critics comes down to its roots in psychoanalysis.

The narrator in the novel has a neurotic ego that does "let go of these reigns attached to the Id" (price, 2002, p.3). Consequently, his Id is projected externally into his alter-ego. The entire novel is an analysis of the personified Id, Tyler Durden, as a schizophrenic psyche. Through the creation of Tyler, the narrator now can act upon his basic desires of aggression and sex by fighting in Fight Club as and having sex with Marla Singer as Tyler. Tyler assists in fulfilling these desires without having the guilt from the super-ego. 

Initially, Tyler and the narrator d appear as the perfect ally for each other. The character of Tyler opposes that of the narrator. Tyler is "a tough fighter who thrives on being bad, not good; on living in a dirty pit, not an IKEA palace – on having women, not sofas" (Lee, 2002, p. 420). However, finally, we come to know that Tyler is nothing but his surrealistic doppelganger. He is a delusional figure and a manifestation of an aspect of the Narrator's own psyche. The appearance of the character of Marla Singer highlights the theme of gender that initially fills the sole function of annoying the narrator. The narrator is just an – "IKEA boy" – a man who fails to live up to the contemporary idea of man in society. Since his natural desires of aggression and sex are suppressed, he becomes obsessed with collecting IKEA furniture to decorate his home and simply "apply the formula" to make a living. His inability and failure to fulfill the cultural demands of hegemonic masculinity turn him violent in the end (Lee, 2002). 

The plot twist occurs towards the end in the form of "a startling self-discovery" (Crowdus, 2000, p. 46), as the narrator realizes the risk of Fight Club evolving into "a larger, much more destructive force" (Lee, 2002, p. 420). The narrator finally starts questioning Tyler's intentions, and eventually revolts against Tyler.  This motivational novel of Palahniuk ended up inspiring the formation of several real underground fight clubs across the USA and became somewhat notorious for its influence (Crowdus, 2000).

The Fight Club does not seem to care about the basic societal problems of unemployment, job insecurity, destructive institutions, or the general public good. It rather explores the violence of capitalism as an aggressive attack on the traditional idea of masculinity and "wages war against all that is feminine" (Giroux, 2001). The narrator in the novel seems to deny and repress pleasure to pay full attention to his work and be more productive. Being abandoned by their fathers, they don't have a good male role model, so their pent-up anger turns to violence. The narrator thinks that modern feminist culture has stolen the "rugged individualism" of men (Ta, 2006, p.65).

The narrator is on an ever-going journey of near-death experiences, starting with the opening scene of the novel when Tyler places a loaded gun in his mouth just to remind the narrator about the importance of death as the first step toward eternity (Bennet, 2005). Bennet opposes Giroux's conclusion that Fight Club is "survival of the fittest…legitimating dehumanizing forms of violence as a source of pleasure and sociality" (Giroux, 2001). Giroux seems to overlook Tyler and the narrator finding much pleasure in their private troubles and turning violent, and they both find it even more humanizing (Bennet, 2005).

Tyler makes the narrator threaten Raymond K. Hessel's life in the novel. However, he is spared with the promise to take this near-death experience as the push to have him leave the job that is taking him nowhere. The narrator wants Raymond to leave his current job and pursue his real dreams. The narrator "seems to employ violence here…to re-humanize his victim and to liberate him from the ideology of the market" (Bennet, 2005, p. 70). Such kind of "dread-induced" near-death experiences may bring about the freedom from the expectations of the consumer society of corporate America. 

Many things change when Tyler comes on the scene. Ruddell argues that the narrator "create[s] a double that he believes to be stronger than him" (2007, p. 495). Tyler is the kind of person that helps provide what the narrator is lacking in himself. The narrator is weak and feminine, so Tyler provides strength and masculinity. The narrator cannot act upon his desires because of society, so Tyler delivers the confidence to fulfill his basic desires by flouting the rules and regulations and not caring about the consequences of his action. The narrator feels guilty, so Tyler provides an outlet free of guilt.  The narrator's anxiety about his masculinity that may also be related to his obsession with collecting consumer goods, assumes a patriarchal force in his life because of his lack of father figure. It is suggested that Tyler is just a myth and an ideal manifestation of hyper-masculinity of the narrator's suppressed psyche in such consumer culture. He has created Tyler because of the lack of expressed masculinity. This suppressed masculinity in the narrator is the root cause of everything he wishes he should be, but he is not, so Tyler brings all of that to the table (Ruddell, 2007).

Paul Kennet argues that the narrator thinks that his crisis of masculinity lies in the fact that he lacks his sense of identification. The narrator escapes his alter-ego to have a successful identification in his Oedipal Complex (Kennet, 2005). The reason behind the creation of Tyler is related to the development of the narrator self in Freudian Oedipal Complex. Although the narrator sees Tyler as dangerous but still identifies with him. Once that feeling is achieved, he immediately starts planning to "kill off" the father-figure to establish his own masculine identity. The analysis in this research explores the narrator's desperate need to seek his natural identity in a constantly nurturing world. 

The research reviews the novel Fight Club with the help of the Freudian psychoanalytical lens to analyze and compare the Freudian concept of Id, Ego, and Super-ego to that of Tyler, the narrator, and society in Palahniuk's novel.

Theoretical Framework

Freud developed his popular three-part division of the mind that proposes three essential structural parts of the human psyche i.e. Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The Id is the most primitive part of the human psyche set firmly within the unconscious in early infancy. It is the key factor to what is considered as basic human drives or instinct, to the point of returning to man's primal, animalistic nature. These drives are such needs as sex, hunger, dominance, and comfort. These drives manifest themselves in multiple ways. Freud felt that these natural drives need to be discharged or pressure builds up inside the mind. Although Freud emphasizes the sexual drive as the dominant one, other drives include life instinct for self-preservation (Eros) and  death-instincts (Thanatos) that lead to self-destructive drives and the drive for aggression.  

The Id doesn’t know what is morally correct and has no understanding of the boundaries set by reality. “It simply seeks gratification, operating according to the pleasure principle” (Nye, 1996, p. 9). The Ego is the development stage of personality with the beginnings of rational thought established through social interaction. It is a form of safety mechanism that “seeks to express and gratify the desires of the id in accordance with the restrictions of both the outer reality and the superego” (Hjelle, Ziegler, 1981, p. 35). This conscious mental state is governed by the reality principle. 

The superego is a person's own establishment of morality and his own sense of mortality, focusing more on ideals such as loyalty, family, and social acceptance in a particular society. It is the "system of values, norms, ethics and attitudes which are reasonably compatible with that society" (Hjelle, Ziegler, 1981, p. 35). Superego is responsible for the conscience, which creates feelings of guilt and anxiety by confronting the ego with moral rules. The Ego strives to reconcile the conflicting demands of the id with the superego. 

The competition between the Id, Ego, and Superego results in conflict and eventually neurosis. The aggressive and violent behavior originates in early childhood. Every child has to adapt to the three Freudian components of the mind that creates personality. The Id's irrational strivings from within and the superego's demands of society for socialization by parental injunctions results in the ego's growing desire for independence, autonomy, and self-direction in the child. The internal conflict between these three components leads to personality disorders, resulting in aggression. When the id is restrained from "the pleasure principle," it originates anxiety. It is observed that the Ego grows from the Id to carry out the drives on the reality principle in socially acceptable ways. The super-ego develops from both parents and society and internalizes the moral standards and ideals. Based on idealistic principles, the superego tries to suppress all the unacceptable desires of Id and provides guidelines for making judgments and acting in a perfectly civilized way in society. It is concluded that a balance between the Id, the Ego, and the Superego is indispensable to a healthy personality (Kendra, 2014).

Discussion

The ego develops from the id and keeps an eye on the id. It works on 'the reality principle' and makes sure that these drives are fulfilled in a rational and socially acceptable way. The Ego makes a connection between the superego and the Id. It realizes the importance of the expression of the Id but also the curbs of the superego; therefore, it seeks safe and healthy channelization of the desires under the bounds of the superego. A critic remarks, "The ego is that part of the psychic apparatus that is modified so that a being can interact safely with other beings and thus remain accepted within the social group" (Price, 2002, p. 5). The socially acceptable and healthy interaction of human beings depends upon the ability of the Ego to create a balance between the id and the superego. 




The Narrator as to Incarnation of Ego

In the novel Fight Club the character of the narrator seems to represent the Ego of the human psyche. Essentially nameless, the narrator is presented as a typical and acceptable "everyman" of the society with no special attributes, no interests, no hobbies, and no particular role worth living for. He has a decent job, lives in a well-furnished condo, and spends the typical consumerist lifestyle. He collects the furniture he likes, and right set of dishes, the perfect bed drapes, and the rug until he is trapped in his own lovely nest.  “The things you used to own; now they own you” (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 25). Such a consumerist society molds people to adopt a lifestyle that is comfortable but monotonous. The narrator strives to fill the emptiness inside him by purchasing material things and furniture. Between his Id and his super-ego, he does not know who he really is. As part of the consumer society, he seems to believe that the things around him give him an identity. He even asks himself, "Which furniture really describes me as a person?" (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 25), so that he can buy them and feels fulfilled.

The narrator is struggling with his inner feelings of depression and alienation: “And I’m lost inside” (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 17), he remarks about himself. Since he doesn't know how to deal with his natural drives and super-ego of the consumerist society, he seems to be dying on the inside. Suffering from chronic insomnia, he feels like "… insomnia distances everything, you can't touch anything, and nothing can touch you" (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 8), and he resorts to attending support groups of people with fatal illnesses so that he can relieve his stress. They could make him cry, and crying helps him take a good night's sleep. Nonetheless, this reprieve is short-lived since the intrusion of Marla Singer in the meetings makes him feel like a liar.  She was also lying to be terminally ill like the narrator to join the support group. The narrator states, "Marla's lie reflects my lie, and all I can see are lies" (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 10). Marla being 'a liar' or 'a fake' projected the narrator's lie and took away his sleep again. 

A perfect victim of a consumer society, he successfully controls his Id and tries every available and socially acceptable way to channelize his feelings but eventually fails to satisfy the Id. Initially, he uses consumer goods and then the support group to fill his emptiness inside in a civilized way. However, in the materialistic and consumer society, he is unable to balance his natural drives and societal demands. Later, the intensity of insomnia weakens the control of the ego and empowers the Id. Finally, Tyler Durden appears as the incarnation of the narrator's Id, who will take full control of his life.  

The advantage of creating a Tyler is that the narrator can avoid accepting responsibility for the actions that he wants to do and does too. Since he is in the control of his Super-ego, the society, and he cannot go against it, he needs to split his personality and blame the fulfillment of his drives on Tyler. "I didn't kill anybody, I say. I'm not Tyler Durden. He's the other side of my split-personality." (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 133) When various situations in the plot hint toward him being Tyler, the narrator denies Tyler's actions and behavior as his own. The narrator thinks that even if Tyler is his split personality, he still is not ready to take responsibility for Tyler's misdoings. The narrator is not even ready to accept that he has fingerprints all over the deeds of Tyler in Project Mayhem. "Tyler and I just happen to have the same fingerprints, but no one understands" (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 132).  He is still in the denial stage in taking responsibility for what he has done as Tyler. 




Tyler Durden as to Incarnation of the Id

The Id lies entirely in the unconscious and is innate like the unconscious. The Id contains our primal instincts of Eros (life instinct) and Thanatos (death instinct). It has sex that promotes life and aggression that destroys life. The Id is essentially the driving force that functions on the “pleasure principle”. Sigmund Freud showed the relationship between the Id and the Ego by comparing the ego to a man and the Id to a horse: “…like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse” (Freud, 1995, p. 636). Just like the horse with its unmatchable power can show real aggression and speed is controlled and checked by the man riding it, the Id must be kept in check with the help of the ego.

 The entirety of the novel Fight Club is an analysis of the human psyche played out as schizophrenia, personifying the Id. The narrator of the novel has a neurotic ego that 'let go of these reigns attached to the id' (Price, 2002. p. 3) and eventually projects his Id into his alter-ego, Tyler Durden. Tyler Durden represents the Freudian Id with his Hedonistic, child-like, and rebellious personality. Tyler does not seem to care about the rules and norms of the society and strives for the satisfaction of instincts only. Under the guidance of Tyler—the Id—the narrator soon becomes Hedonistic and gives way to his desires. The intensity in Tyler control over the narrator's body makes him a fascist, authoritarian at the end. In both Fight Club and in project Mayhem, he expects people to follow him without question or hesitation. This is what makes the narrator realize his mistake of creating Tyler. The purpose of creating Tyler was to resist the corporation that creates machines like a man such as a narrator in the society. Tyler, however, becomes more like the corporation, the machine, the very thing he is fighting against.

Before the emergence of Tyler—the Id—the narrator has a strong sense of ego. He tries his best to suppress, repress and sometimes channel his emotions in a logical and acceptable way. With The appearance of Tyler, the Id takes over the body of the narrator. Based on the pleasure principle, the Id, however, seeks immediate gratification even if it is against the logic. Marc Price uses Lacan's theory to describe Tyler by stating, "Man is not lived through the id as Freud might argue but is instead 'spoken' by the id" (Price, 2002, p. 5). Tyler has the capacity to control the narrator through the way he speaks and the way he phrases his ideas. The narrator knows this and laments at numerous junctures, "[t]hese are Tyler's words coming out of my mouth" (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 61). Id speaks through the narrator trying to get him out of the control of the ego. The Id in the form of Tyler puts words into the narrator's mouth and induces the speech within the narrator. Since Tyler, in actuality, is a fragment of the narrator's disjointed psyche, it becomes clear that Tyler himself comes out of the narrator's mouth. When he expresses his Id, Tyler comes to power. 

When Tyler comes in power, he seems bold, courageous, and active. Unlike the narrator, who, despite his miserable condition, remains passive, Tyler does what he wants to do. He does what he believes in no matter how anarchistic. Just like a typical man living in a corporate-ruled, consumerist society, the narrator is utterly unhappy with his lifestyle yet does nothing about it. Tyler is a rebel and free. He travels about as he pleases. Tyler is a non-conformist that represents the freedom to act upon one's beliefs, to practice desires without the fear of violating societal rules. Tyler is actually empowerment of the narrator's Id, everything he wants to be. Tyler looks just like the narrator wants to look and behave just like the narrator wants to behave. He wants to behave freely following his basic instinct of Id like Tyler (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 64).

Sex exists as a dominant drive in the Id of the narrator, which is fulfilled via Tyler.  Before the influence of Tyler, the narrator has suppressed this instinct of the mind. It is Tyler who starts the sexual relationship with Marla and contributes to the fulfillment of sexual needs. The narrator, on the other hand, denies being involved in any sexual relationship with Marla. He believes he is asleep every time Tyler has sex with Marla. He states, "Whenever Tyler was having sex with Marla…I thought I was asleep" (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 117). The reality, nevertheless, is that at night or daydreams, the narrator's Id takes over the body and fulfills his needs in the form of Tyler. That is the reason why the narrator has dream-like memories of Tyler's doings; such is when "dreamed that he was humping, humping, humping Marla Singer" (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 59), indicates that Tyler is actually the narrator’s Id working for him. 

The narrator seems to realize the growing power of Tyler. Tyler—the Id, takes control over the body at night like natural instincts in Id do at night. Now the narrator tries to fight back to take control of the body. Since he knows now, if he succumbs to his natural drives of the Id (Tyler) every night, he might lose control of the body. Tyler may be the one in full control of the body. He argues, "And if I went to bed earlier every night and I slept later every morning, eventually I'd be gone altogether" (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 117). Since he does not want to lose control on reality, he soon takes measures to ensure his presence and maintain a balance between his Id, Ego, and Super-ego. 

The narrator is afraid of acting upon his Id by giving control to Tyler at night. He seems to be scared of the power of his real wild nature that only works on the 'Pleasure Principle.' Although he needs to stay in touch with his inner nature, nonetheless, he knows the dominance of his nature if it gets out of the control of his ego. The narrator states, "I'd just go to sleep and never wake up" (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 117). It Hints toward the total control of the Id—Tyler, in the absence of ego. Since the narrator represents the ego aspect of his personality, he is inclined to worry about the necessary curbing of Tyler. 

Tyler tells the narrator that the Id is the wish of the mind. The id cannot come to power unless the ego and superego are weak or too suppressing. Tyler says, "I wouldn't be here in the first place if you didn't want me. I'll still live my life while you're asleep, but if you …take big doses of sleeping pills, then we'll be enemies" (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 111). Just like the Id, Tyler will try to live in the unconscious at sleep unless the narrator tries to suppress the Id through the socially accepted way of medication. That much suppression could lead to the internal conflict of conscious and the unconscious and neurosis-like the Dissociative Identity Disorder and Oedipus complex. 

Chuck Palahniuk sometimes seems to declare the winner of the struggle between nature and nurture with one sentence, "You know it's useless to fight us" (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 126). It is useless to fight against the id, to suppress it for life. Although one can try and suppress nature for a certain period of time with the constant expenditure of the libido eventually, the id fights back with more power and when it overcomes, no one can fight back. The members of Project Mayhem were so trained by the Tyler that even after the revival of the narrator's ego, the narrator cannot fight back, and the mighty Id wants the narrator to succumb to it.   

Tyler on the other hand knows his power over the body now. He knows that he cannot be suppressed like before. He does tell the narrator over the Id's control over the body; however, he also tells him about the importance of Tyler in the mind. When the narrator denies his role, Tyler challenges his state of mind. The narrator challenges the reality of Tyler as his identity disorder nothing else. Tyler counter-states, "Maybe you're my schizophrenic hallucination" (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 112). Now, they openly challenge each other over the lasting control of the body and the conflict of Id and ego enters into the climax in the mind of the narrator. Both seem to believe that the one existed before the other in mind. Freud's Id exists first than the ego, and this remark is pointed out by Palahniuk in the last portion of the novel. The struggle of "let's just see who's here last" (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 112) between Tyler and the narrator in Fight Club seems to be concluded in the triumph of Tyler. Since Tyler and the narrators are the manifestations of innate nature (Id) and societal nurture (ego), respectively, nature dominates at the end. This has been hinted in the hospital scene when, despite the narrator's attempt to shoot Tyler out of his mind, everyone in the hospital recognizes him as Tyler and welcomes him back as Tyler. The end indicates that the Id exists before the ego or super-ego in the mind and lasted too. Nature is eventually more powerful in its struggle against nurture. 

The Nurtured Super-Ego in the Narrator

The superego is the exact opposite of Id. It is the moral values that surpass the Id's desires, characterized by responsibility and the presence of a conscience. The superego "provides guidelines for making judgments'' (Kendra, 2014, p. 3). The guidelines come from the upbringing and surroundings of the person that is societal nurture.

The Narrator in the novel seems to value the superego. He is very reserved sometimes and blindly follows societal norms like an upstanding citizen is supposed to do. The superego shows a picture of what the narrator considers that society demands from him. Therefore, superego is a structure that society put together to control individuals in the name of progress. Tyler wants the superego gone, and so does our sense of guilt and morals. It's like the chain that pulls us down, preventing from living this very moment.  

The moment he realizes that Tyler is not another person, rather his own unconscious—his Id, his super-ego responds with regrets. He realizes and repents when he says, “The world is going crazy. My boss is dead. My home is gone. My job is gone. And I'm responsible for it all” (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 130).  He confesses that he has killed his boss and has lost his home and job. All these symbolize the loss of his ego. He now takes responsibility for Tyler’s actions, which is an aspect of his mind.

In the final scenes of the novel, the narrator appears so helpless and weak the hands of his own Id that he wishes to be dead instead of taking over by his own id in the form of Tyler. His ego and Id are in constant conflict due to the struggle between his nature and society. He states, “If I knew how this would all turn out, I'd be more than happy to be dead” (Palahniuk, 1996b, p. 3).The nurtured aspect of the narrator seems to succumb to the powers of the nature. The nurture created the ego in the narrator to suppress the real nature that is the Id. However, after nature fights back and dominates in the form of Tyler, the narrator seems helpless to defend the mind from the control of Tyler. Hence guilt and anxiety follows the actions of Tyler who uses the body of the narrator. Such kind of anxiety and guilt is the product of the Super-ego in the society.

Conclusion

The Freudian psychoanalysis makes it a perfect allegory for Freud’s "structural theory" or, more specifically, the tripartite of the human psyche—the Id, the Ego, and the Super-ego. 

In the novel, Tyler represents the Id since he does not think about the implications of morality and ethics. He lacks empathy and shows aggressive thoughts. The unnamed narrator, on the contrary, has a powerful conscience and symbolizes the Ego. He acts rationally and realistically, and is usually tagged along with ethics and morality of the society. He is deeply affected by what he has learned and adapted from his surroundings and experience in the society through constant nurturing. Unlike Tyler, the narrator thinks about the consequences of his actions using his mind. In the early scenes when Tyler asks the narrator for a fight without any reason shows the absurdity and irrationality in the demands of the Id (Tyler). Working on the pleasure principle, Tyler has a weak reasoning sense while the narrator turns to logic, reason, ethics and morality. Despite the consideration and judgement of the narrator, they always end up acting upon the desires of the Id—what Tyler wants to do.

The analysis also shows Id as the basic and the true nature of man and the Ego and Super-ego as by-product of the society that become the permanent parts of personality with time. However, humans always have to deal with the internal struggle of the mind if the intensity of the nurture, super-ego, increase and eventually results in the explosion of the suppressed Id. The Comparison of Sigmund Freud’s Id, the Ego and the Superego to Chuck Palahniuk’s Tyler, the Narrator, and society in the Novel Fight Club

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