Roles of women in Brokeback Mountain and Fight Club

In both Brokeback Mountain and Fight Club, women are objectified and used. The number of strong, independent women in the novels, zero, is indicative of the audience that the books are trying to reach.

In Brokeback Mountain Laureen and Alma take a backseat to the intense relationship between Jack and Ennis. The wives are used to maintain an outward appearance of normalcy for the men, and have relatively little to do with the storyline. Their lack of involvement in the storyline is most likely to not detract from the powerful connection between Jack and Ennis, and the message that is conveyed therein. The fact that so little can be said regarding the characters of Laureen and Alma speaks of how they, and women in general, are portrayed in the novel.

More obviously in Fight Club, the male targets, males wishing to rebel against society, are able to see parallels in their relationships with women. Those that objectify women, see Tyler Durden’s interaction with Marla Singer, and find a common bond that links them to the storyline. Tyler uses Marla and his coincidental relationship with her as a source of personal pleasure, an action to which many men can relate. Marla’s character is a little more developed than those of Laureen and Alma however. Marla also functions as a go-between for Tyler and the narrator, and as a source of conflict and dissension.

All of the women in both of the novels are objectified in some way. The use of women in such a negative manner portrays the men in the novel negatively as well, which fits the purpose of Fight Club, but degrades the message in Brokeback Mountain.