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ABSTRACT: This article analyzes the film Fight Club (1999, directed by David Fincher, based on the novel by Chuk Palahniuk) via a Grofian frame. Grof's (1975) cartography of the human unconscious consists of four levels or areas: the abstract and aesthetic, the psychodynamic-biographical, the perinatal, and the transpersonal. The focus of this article is the perinatal level which holds memories of womb-life and birth, and which is in itself divided by Grof into four experiential matrices (Basic Perinatal Matrices I-IV) each relating to a specific stage of clinical delivery. Grofian psychocriticism has been used as an approach for understanding the psychological aspects of everyday events and situations, as well as creative ideas and works of art. In a similar fashion, this article uses Grof's four perinatal matrices to analyze the plot-line, actions, and events in the film Fight Club.
INTRODUCTION
In this paper, we analyze the movie Fight Club with the framework of the Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPM I-IV) theorized by Stanislav Grof (1975). Specifically, we demonstrate how the experiences of the hero in the film correspond to the characteristics of each perinatal matrix. This article is not an analysis of the hero, the author, or the director, but of the plot-line, actions, and events.
In the late 1960's, Grof was one of the founders of the then new movement of transpersonal psychology, served on the editorial board of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, was the first President of the International Transpersonal Association, and even coined the concept of ''transpersonal'' as embraced by the modern transpersonal movement (Grof, 2005a, p. 140).
We first present a brief summary of Stanislav Grof's overall cartography of the human unconscious, with more specific emphasis on his perinatal level. Next, we analyze Fight Club with the BPM framework.
Stanislav Grof's (1975) cartography of the human unconscious consists of four levels or areas, each with its own type of content. From the shallowest to the deepest they are:
* abstract and aesthetic-the ''psychedelic'' sights, sounds, and related ideas.
* psychodynamic-biographical-holds the memories and fantasies from birth till the present. These memories are clusters which share the same emotions and/or physical feelings.
* perinatal-which is the focus of this analysis of Fight Club, holds memories of womb-life and birth.
*...