“Fight Club” by Chuck Palahniuk (post 2): Public, Filmmaker, Publisher all try to ignore or minimize protagonist’s explicit, pivotal, multiple personality.

The Wikipedia entry for the novel makes relatively brief reference to alternate personalities, and does not mention multiple personality by name, except for a link at the bottom of the page to dissociative identity disorder (formal name for multiple personality). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Club_(novel)

The Wikipedia entry for the film version makes only passing reference to “dissociated personalities” and does not discuss multiple personality by name. Moreover, the casting of two different actors for the protagonist’s alternate personalities (they share the same body) shows the filmmakers’ attempt to minimize the issue of multiple personality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Club

Even the novel’s publisher tries to ignore the protagonist’s multiple personality. The title of the novel, obviously, makes no reference to it. But there is also the copyright page’s list of subject headings under which the novel should be indexed. It makes no reference to multiple personality: 1. Millennialism—United States—Fiction. 2. Young men—United States—Fiction. 3. Apocalyptic fantasies. I. Title.

In short, even when multiple personality is an explicit, pivotal issue in a novel, many people try to minimize or ignore it, especially when the author does (see previous post).

Chuck Palahniuk. Fight Club [1996]. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 2005.