Women Don't Belong

Both Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, and Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain depict stories which are male-dominated. Men are the primary characters and the primary focus, and all of these men live in an atmosphere made up mostly by men. It is for this reason that it is interesting to investigate the roles that these few featured women played.
Neither Palahniuk, nor Annie Proulx tend to do women any favors as far as the image that they create for them. The only women who play roles large enough to provide for discussion are the two wives in Brokeback Mountain, Lureen and Alma, and in Fight Club, Marla Singer. All three women struggled to find their roles in the life that they found themselves in, and one cannot help but assume that it is for this reason that they rarely appear to be happy. Both authors do a masterful job describing the unique ways in which the female characters shift around, attempting to find their respective roles, but it appears that none of them ever achieve this feat.
Now let us examine each individual woman and delve a little deeper into their lives. Lureen appears to be Jack’s afterthought wife who keeps the house running and even steps in to help out the family income. In some ways, she appears to be Jack’s little doll that fears conflict and runs from the suspected truth. Clearly this does not represent women in a positive way. Despite Proulx’s rather weak representation through Lureen, she makes up for it with her inclusion of Alma in the movie. My first impression was that Alma was a soft-spoken, loving, pushover of a women. Yet, Alma refuted all of these claims, displaying strength, boldness, and firmness in her dealings with her husband Ennis during and after the divorce. Alma’s character shows that women can be strong and bold. In Fight Club, Marla Singer debases the image of a woman by being displayed as a mere object to be desired and used. Marla is put up with purely because Tyler Durden keeps her around to have sex. Marla lives a confused, abused, and uncomfortable life.
These books send the signal that women are not meant to exist in an all-guy atmosphere. The reader comes away noting that women are weak and deserve to wander around seeking a role that cannot exist in a world solely for men.