Zombies Ruin Everything

So we’ve established many of the ways that Durden could be an ESTP, yeah? Attention to dress, sensory stimuli, convincing “salesman” attitude. He does sell soap after all.

But we’ve just started to touch on Durden’s Rational-esque tendencies.ENTPs are known for being a bit disruptive. If it’s not because of the wordiness of their diatribe, their specialty often seems to be in breaking down the accepted societal norms for those around them. The less mature ones may just tear things down with no intention of bringing in a new, better system but more often than not, they’re looking for the next, better thing.

This could be said of what Tyler is doing.

What starts off simply as vandalism and brawling in basements becomes something of a cult with the ultimate intention of having man get back to his roots and forsake all ideas of masculinity by way of an ad campaign that promises women if you just use their soap (See what I did there?) or whatever other product you’re told you need.

Tyler’s way of selling his ideas to the patrons of Fight Club aren’t told with a way of convincing them of anything. They came because they wanted to feel the adrenaline and the release of a fight. But what’s that? Tyler’s got a bigger idea than to simply beat each other senseless? It doesn’t stop here?

No.

“In the world I see, you’re stalking elk through a damp canyon forest around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You’ll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You’ll climb the vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down and see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty carpool lane of some abandoned superhighway. Feel better, Champ.”

The easy argument for this is that Tyler wants to live in a jungle world which is a “sensor” world. But that would be missing the bigger point; that Tyler’s idea of the perfect world, or how things should be is simply free from an oppressive society that constantly monitors you, and is ever directing you in the way they want you go, to be what they want you to be and to run their society that you never asked to be in. It seems a bit outside of the ESTP thinking pattern of moving forward and conquering your enemy.

All that is man.

Unless the ESTP were to consider modern society itself the enemy. In which case, it still seems broad for an ESTP to look at the majority of civilization as his wall to break down. It’s possible but unlikely in that case. His speech in general seems a bit more abstract than solid.

Another thing that points Durden to the direction of the Rational, are the Narrator’s functions, then ENTP’s.

ISFJ- Si, Fe, Ti, Ne

ENTP- Ne, Ti, Fe, Si

“Why would anyone possibly confuse you with me?” -Tyler Durden, in coaxing the Narrator to acknowledge out loud that they’re the same person.

While this isn’t a deal breaker so to speak, it does stand to reason that a broken down, schizophrenic ISFJ’s other personality would display the same functions in reverse order. He’s been split into two. As we went over in the Narrator’s post and as you probably knew anyway, psychotic breaks like this don’t exist. So Durden can be whatever he’s typed as if you choose to type him at all. Last point and we’re done.

Is Tyler’s plan a product of Se and Ni…or Ne and Si? The fire in the apartment started it all as we went over in Part I but what was the initial reason he did it in the first place? Indefinitely it was to escape his insanely (literally) dull life, but was there a bigger point originally (like Se and Ni would have created) or was it a spur-of-the-moment decision that was seen as having only exciting possibilities after the fact?

The story of Fight Club itself is bizarre enough that if someone said Tyler Durden couldn’t be typed, this would be the only character I may agree with. He’s not even his own person but an imaginary friend- or enemy depending on how you look at it. He is, a figment of the Narrator’s mind so he wouldn’t have to have opposite functions, but whatever it is the Narrator views as the ultimate male, something that fits ESTP more often than ENTP.

So while I can’t help but lean toward ENTP, if he were to be “officially typed” as ESTP, I wouldn’t really disagree either, other than for argument’s sake. I leave this one up in the air.

Ah, why not? He’s ESTP.

This entry was posted on 08/13/2013 at 2:13 am and is filed under MBTI Artisans, MBTI Rationals, MBTI Stuff, MBTI Whatever with tags entp, ESTP, fight club, mbti in fiction, tyler durden. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.