Adapting the Unreliable American Anti-Hero: Notions of Narrative Media and the Subversion of Cultural Constraints and Ideas of Identity in Fight Club and Gone Girl, and Their Film Adaptations

Abstract

This essay explores the notions of narrative fiction, their mediation through the adaptation of literature to film, all while considering the impact and influence of conveying controversial stories that criticise and subvert societal standards. The essay begins by establishing the notions of narrative, and how it contributes to a person’s perception of reality and linear time, revealing narrative to be a fundamental and perhaps inherent part of humanity. Narratives can be mediated verbally, audibly, and visually. In this essay, the focus is on the verbal mediation of literature, and its adaptation to the multi-sensual media of film. In that regard, two novels and their film adaptations are explored in detail, those being Chuck Palahniuk’s 1996 novel Fight Club, Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel Gone Girl, and the films Fight Club (1999) and Gone Girl (2014) by American director David Fincher. Next, the process and challenges of adaptation are examined, revealing both negative and positive attitudes towards film adaptations. However, Fincher’s adaptations are considered great achievements in adapting novels to films, and the essay examines the differences and similarities between them. In comparing the characters of Amy Dunne in Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012) and Tyler Durden in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club (1996), as well as David Fincher’s film adaptations of the two novels, the essay reveals some thought-provoking parallels between the two characters and their narratives. These include how the two stories are narrated by unreliable and unstable anti-heroes that challenge the restraints of society, and in return, encapsulate issues of masculine and feminine ideals, as well as consumerism found within American culture. Finally, the essay concludes by considering how mediating irregular circumstances and immoral individuals through fiction provides the general public with a critical understanding of the corruptions within their own reality, as opposed to blindly conforming to society’s expectations.