Hobbes never bears a grudge against Calvin nor wishes any ill upon him. Hobbes, remembering the depth of their past friendship, does not hate Calvin but rather hates the society that made Calvin put him away. Hobbes, residing in Calvin’s mind, sees and experiences all that Calvin does—and truly despises all of it. He witnesses a bright, superbly imaginative kid (with a genius-level vocabulary) reduced to nothing more than another nameless cog. Fighting off the tears wept for his conventionalized pal, Hobbes resolves to set Calvin free, paying special attention when Calvin idly looks up homemade-napalm recipes on the Internet.
Flash forward to the timeframe depicted in Fight Club. Calvin/Jack has reached an all-time low. He has done everything society has told him to do but is completely void of happiness. Hobbes, newly adjusted as "Tyler Durden" (after all, grown-up Calvin would no longer accept a jungle animal walking, talking, and eating canned tuna), re-enters Calvin/Jack’s life, determined to show Calvin everything he’s done wrong, whether he likes it or not.
Tyler to Jack: "I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I’m smart, capable, and most importantly, I’m free in all the ways you wish you could be." (Metaphilm)
"If we see a God outside of ourselves, he tears us loose from the self, since the God is more powerful than we are. Our self falls into privation. But if the God moves into the self, he snatches us from what is outside us. We arrive at singleness in ourselves." (Carl Jung)
John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes |
(The tiger's animal energy cuts diagonally ♂ through the hand of predestination--sapiens dominabitur astris.)
“That is the demise of the Gods, man puts them in his pocket. That is the end of the story of the Gods. Nothing remains of the Gods other than an egg. And I possess this egg. Perhaps I can eradicate this last one and with this finally exterminate the race of Gods . . . The primordial creator of the world, the blind creative libido, becomes transformed in man through individuation & out of this process, which is like pregnancy, arises a divine child, a reborn God, no more (longer) dispersed into the millions of creatures, but being one & this individual, and at the same time all individuals, the same in you as in me.” (Carl Jung, The Red Book)
"The Sausage King of Chicago?" |
(The "character X is a projection of character Y's imagination" theories are what happens when Sync invades the wild--utter madness results when the same principle is applied to reality. All are archetypes playing out in order to help achieve Individuation.)
Ferris Bueller, the person, is just a figment of Cameron's imagination, like Tyler Durden, and Sloane is the girl Cameron secretly loves.
One day while he's lying sick in bed, Cameron lets "Ferris" steal his father's car and take the day off, and as Cameron wanders around the city, all of his interactions with Ferris and Sloane, and all the impossible hijinks, are all just played out in his head. This is part of the reason why the "three" characters can see so much of Chicago in less than one day -- Cameron is alone, just imagining it all.
It isn't until he destroys the front of the car in a fugue state does he finally get a grip and decide to confront his father, after which he imagines a final, impossible escape for Ferris and a storybook happy ending for Sloane ("He's gonna marry me!"), the girl that Cameron knows he can never have. . . .
In indirect support of the Fight Club theory, Cameron succeeded Ferris -- REPLACED him -- in the Broadway production of The Producers. (Metafilter)
Cameron: As long as I've known him, everything works for him. There's nothing he can't handle. I can't handle anything. School, parents, the future. Ferris can do anything. I don't know what I'm going to do.
Sloane: College.
Cameron: Yeah, but to do what?
Sloane: What are you interested in?
Cameron: Nothing.
Sloane: Me neither.
Cameron (shouting to Ferris): You're crazy!
Sloane: What do you think Ferris is going to do?
Cameron: He's going to be a fry cook on Venus.
Cameron "Frye" calls Ferris a "fry cook"--Ferris will subject him to an alchemical trial by fire. Tyler Durden, meanwhile, sells soap--purification.
Cameron: My father will see what I did. I can’t hide this. He’ll come home and he’ll have to deal with me. I don’t care I really don’t. I’m just tired of being afraid.
Ferris: It’s my fault. I’ll take the heat for it. When he comes home, we’ll tell him that I did it. He hates me anyway.
Cameron: No, I’ll take it. I’ll take it.
Ferris: No, you don’t want this much heat.
Cameron: If I didn’t want it, I wouldn’t have let you take the car.
Ferris: I made you take that car.
Cameron: I could have stopped you.
(All you've got to do) |