Romance and Identity in Flight Club

Chuck Palahniuk\u27s novel Fight Club has been the subject of much critical contention over the years. Typical analyses of the novel revolve around its existential or nihilist comedy, homoerotic elements, or commentary on consumer culture. However, no critics to date have studied Fight Club\u27s romantic elements, despite indications by the author that the novel is, in fact, intended to be a romance. This study reimagines and interprets Fight Club, the novel, as a work with romantic elements essential to the structure of the narrative itself. Additionally, it studies the complex interplay of Palahniuk\u27s romantic elements with questions of gender identity and masculinity. It is concluded that, in Fight Club, romance drives the narrator\u27s quest for identit