Fight Club Rules and Order

Whenever a society experiences a major change—death of a monarch, coup of a dictator, destruction of a SIM city—the first thing to go down is usually the creation of new rules. And Fight Club is no different. Everyone knows the rules of fight club: #1, don't talk about fight club. But guess what? Everyone's talking about it. And just like that, a rule is broken. In the end, it seems like that's what fight club is really about: breaking rules.

Questions About Rules and Order

1. Does Project Mayhem seek to establish new rules or to cause total anarchy?
2. Why does everyone break the first rule of fight club?
3. In what ways does Marla break rules? Why doesn't she feel the need to join Project Mayhem?

Chew on This

Not everyone in Fight Club feels constrained by rules. Some people create new ones to give their lives a sense of order. Our narrator's boss even wears color-coded ties depending on the day of the week.

Different subcultures have different rules. Just as the support groups never use specific terms like "parasite," Project Mayhem believes in confronting things head on.