Purifying Society (chpt 20-28)

At the opening of chapter 20 with the idea of human sacrifices, I remember the story that Tyler told about the creation of soap from the sacrifices being made by indeginous peoples and I thought these human sacrifices, these people in fight club and project mayhem. These are the ways in which Tyler plans to purify society. From the death of their physical lives comes the blood and lye to purify everyone else’s lives, in which God will redeem and save humanity from its greed and consumerism. In previous chapters the narrator talks about feeling responsible for cleaning up the world, and then as a parallel Tyler makes soap for a living. In a way at the end the narrator has sacrificed himself, or Tyler has sacrificed the physical being of the narrator for his own idea of being a legend in order to live forever beyond the realm of physicality.

And I dont think it stopped there either, the metaphor of Tyler sitting in this perfect wooden construction (his view of society) creating a hand that casts over everything at the perfect moment (project mayhem) and him at the center in the dark (the legend). In a way project mayhem working as an organism regardless of Tyler being active ensures that the societal cleansing will continue.  However with the ending of the novel I do not think that Tyler is actually dead, since he is there holding a conversation with God.  And I wondered in the society that he wishes to forge through the cleansing of humanity, does Tyler the “son” then plan to replace the “father” and take on the throne of God???