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Narrator

The narrator, a corporate secretion stunningly played by Edward Norton, first compulsively attends meetings of AIDS patients and victims of testicular cancer. At one point he cries in the huge feminine bosom of Bob, a former body-builder and abuser of steroids (consummately rendered by Meat Loaf), who has recently lost his testicles. But in part because of the disruptive presence of a phallic woman (Helena Bonham Carter), the cathartic embraces quickly become beatings. There can be no Fight Club if male-male desire leads to gay sex. At the same time, the film suggests that only by blowing his brains out, or at least half of them, can a man have a satisfying heterosexual relationship. And given nuclear-family, two-career monogamy, maybe that's not too far from the truth.
Ref. https://www.popmatters.com/film/fight-club.html

Narrator

The Edward Norton character remained nameless throughout the movie, and initially was a very depressed person who hated his life and was on the brink of suicide. His bouts of insomnia and pent up frustrations leads him to nightly support groups for people who are terminally ill. He eventually forms a local 'Fight Club' where other frustrated individuals use physical aggression to release their tensions.
At the end of the movie, he realizes he has created a second personality who is the embodiement of what he hates most in life, but secretly wishes he was. What traits of the Edward Norton character did you find most interesting? Do you think he was able to release his demons at the end of the movie and lead a 'normal' life thereafter?

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I think he was a good example of how people can be so easily led astray. Instead of looking for strength within, they look for strength in others. Then one day they realize that the people they thought were 'so strong' were in fact 'so weak'.

Narrator

Having now watched the movie a second time I can elaborate more on the Narrator. First of all, it is scary to think that there are people like this that exist in the real world, they are simple, ordinary, but at the same time 'a walking time-bomb'. The Narrator in fact gives us a chance to see how some of these extremist think. Notice that the Narrator was not picked on, unless there is an aspect of this film missing, such as when he was young and maybe abused, but cannot remember? So there is no real answer to 'why' he became this way other than what I mentioned in the Tyler thread (routine, depression, overdrawn credit, etc.).