Narrator seeks intimacy, but avoids it with Marla Singer, seeing too much of himself in her. While Marla is a seductive and negativist prospect for the Narrator, he embraces the novelty and excitement that comes with befriending Tyler. The Narrator is comfortable being personally connected to Tyler, but becomes jealous when Tyler becomes sexually involved with Marla. When the Narrator argues with Tyler about their friendship, Tyler tells him that being friends is secondary to pursuing the philosophy they have been exploring. When Tyler implies that Marla is a risk they should remove, the Narrator realizes he should have focused on her and begins to diverge from Tyler's path. The Narrator, an unreliable narrator, is not immediately aware that he is mentally projecting Tyler. He also mistakenly promotes the fight clubs as a way to feel powerful, though the Narrator's physical condition worsens while Tyler Durden's appearance improves. While Tyler desires "real experiences" of actual fights like the Narrator at first, he manifests a nihilistic attitude of rejecting and destroying institutions and value systems. His impulsive nature, representing the id, is seductive and liberating to the Narrator and the members of Project Mayhem. Tyler's initiatives and methods become dehumanizing; he orders around the members of Project Mayhem with a megaphone similar to camp directors at Chinese re-education camps. The Narrator pulls back from Tyler and arrives at a middle ground between his conflicting selves. Fight Club examines Generation X angst as "the middle children of history". Norton said it examines the value conflicts of Generation X as the first generation raised on television: this generation had "its value system largely dictated to it by advertising culture", and was told one could achieve "spiritual happiness through home furnishing". His character walks through his apartment while visual effects identify his many IKEA possessions. Fincher described the Narrator's immersion: "It was just the idea of living in this fraudulent idea of happiness." Pitt said, "Fight Club is a metaphor for the need to push through the walls we put around ourselves and just go for it, so for the first time we can experience the pain." Fight Club also parallels the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause; both probe the frustrations of the people in the system. The characters, having undergone societal emasculation, are reduced to "a generation of spectators". A culture of advertising defines society's "external signifiers of happiness", causing an unnecessary