The film Fight Club and the novella Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde deal with the subject of duality in human nature. Both the major character in the film, Jack played by Edward Norton, has a double who is called Tyler and the protagonist of the short novel, Jekyll has also a double who is known as Mr Hyde.

In both the film and the novel there is a “self” and an “other”. In Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde the “self” has to commit suicide in order to kill his “other” and he dies as well. Here there is no winner or loser. However in the film Jack who is the “self” kills his “other” and becomes the winner. He reaches his identity through Tyler, his other, but when he realises that the other is becoming dangerous for him(the self) he has the power to stop the other’s destructive effects. However, Dr Jekyll does not have the same power to stop his destructive other.

The Victorian society in which the characters of the book lived is a society “prizing decorum and reputation above all and prefers to repress or even deny the truth if that truth threatens to upset the conventionally ordered world view”[3] This is what Jekyll tries to do from his very early age, he sa

Duality in human nature can be accepted to a certain degree, but society in which people live determines the effects of “others” in people’s lives. If the ones having an “other” live in a very perfectionist society in which everything must be ideal then it makes the “others” that are created by selves more uncontrollable. Then it becomes hard to stop their destructive effects.

“....It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations, then any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was, and with even a deeper trench than the majority of man, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man’s dual nature”(Stevonson,49)

Then Jack creates his double, Tyler in his mind, but for a long time he is not aware of it. He tries to gain his deconstructed individuality through Tyler who is just the opposite of him. Tyler seems powerful, he is very masculine and very handsome. He lives in a horrible and damaged house. He works in different job, but mainly he is a soap-maker. He is totally a rebellious against the system in which he lives. He breaks the rules and fights against society's impression on men.

When we look at the film Fight Club which takes place in 20th century America it shows “how consumerism has caused the emasculation of the modern male and tells a tale of liberation from a corporate controlled society”[4] In the film we see a man, Jack played by Edward Norton, works for a very respectable car manufacturer company. He earns enough money to lead a comfortable life, he can afford expensive cloths and furniture. However there is something missing in his life. He is not happy or satisfied with the things he owns, because all the things he owned begin to own him and he feels uneasy without knowing the reason of it. He joins some groups in which people suffering from testicle cancer come together to release their sorrow. He joins such groups in order to feel pain, because he thinks that in this way the meaninglessness of his life will disappear. What he tries to do is gaining back his identity in the 20th century America which has a consumer-based culture and he feels that he is about to be lost in such a society as a man and he does not know what to do. This culture “defines how the modern male should look and how he should wish to look.” [4]

Some topics in this essay:
Dr Jekyll, Edward Norton, Edward Hyde, Jack’s Jekyll’s, Jekyll Hyde, Jekyll’s Jack’s, Jekyll Jack, Fight Club, Utterson Enfield”3, Hyde Jekyll, dr jekyll, fight club, film jack, destructive effects, victorian society, power stop, 20th century america, century america, 20th century, dr jekyll hyde, live jekyll, stop destructive, played edward norton, other’s destructive effects, jack played edward,