Prometheus Unhinged—Madness, Myth, Terrorism, and Outcast Identity in Fight Club

Abstract

Identity, in all its simplicity and complexity, can be defined as a continuum of the ego or the sum of the representations of the self. However, when the different parts in the sum wage war to one another in a split personality that stems from the unbearable weariness of the Byung-Chul Han’s achievement-subject, how can one’s identity be defined and realized? This article answers this question by using Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club and its protagonist, and to this end, a post-structural, psychoanalytical analysis is provided which explains how Fight Club can act as a revisitation of the Promethean myth in a comparison with Kafka’s Tired Prometheus, and how Byung-Chul Han’s Burnout Society and Jean Baudrillard’s The Spirit of Terrorism can help explain the context of the mythical struggle between the neglected subject and its creator, and why it occurs thus in a post-industrial society.