Gillian Flynn 's thriller Gone Girl follows the descent into depravity of Nick and Amy Dunne as their marriage, and lives they once knew, deteriorate. Psychopath Amy, the privileged New York daughter of popular children 's storytellers, frames herself as missing after enduring an unfaithful relationship with Nick and being dragged out to Missouri after the death of his ailing mother. Unbeknownst to him, Amy has had a long track record of destroying the lives of those who she feels betray her. Nick is soon portrayed as “public enemy number one” in the public eye, as Amy leaves a trail of increasingly twisted clues to find her- until Nick falls completely in Amy 's control. In the novel, various motifs are used to explore themes such as love,
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Before her psychotic breakdown, Amy consistently presents herself to Nick as the "Cool Girl", the picture of perfection many men expect from their wives- impossibly beautiful, completely subservient and able to relate to her husband in entirety (p222). Amy, meanwhile has created an idealized "white picket fence" image of their future life together and dates him mostly to fulfill this image (p11). Flynn suggests in their interactions that the basis of a large amount of relationships has entirely to do with fantasy, rather than true love for the individual, which is destined for failure. Since their interactions are viewed through rose-tinted glasses of what they want to see in their partner, rather than the significant other’s actual personality, their perceptions of each other are ingenuine, and they are deceiving themselves by idealising their marriage to such an extent. Elif Bautman in his 2014 review of Gone Girl for The New Yorker, “Marriage is an abduction” claims that the book does not have a far-reaching social critique, but he seems to miss the broader message of the novel. The book does not simply entertain; it displays the sharp contrast between who we think we see in love and the man or woman who actually …show more content…
Nick and Amy lie to themselves in their fantastical views of the relationship, which prevents them from forming a genuine connection to each other. Nick’s falling for Amy proves to be his greatest mistake, as it is impossible to truly know the mind of another. Finally, by allowing lies to happen in the first place, their marriage became a lie in itself, and they grow to have nothing left of each other but lies and tricks. While the events of the book are extreme and fictionalised, they represent the dangers of dishonesty, a key factor in America’s staggering divorce rate. Rather than doling advice, Flynn offers the reader a harrowing example of everything that could go wrong if a person disregards the importance of honesty in
Before her psychotic breakdown, Amy consistently presents herself to Nick as the "Cool Girl", the picture of perfection many men expect from their wives- impossibly beautiful, completely subservient and able to relate to her husband in entirety (p222). Amy, meanwhile has created an idealized "white picket fence" image of their future life together and dates him mostly to fulfill this image (p11). Flynn suggests in their interactions that the basis of a large amount of relationships has entirely to do with fantasy, rather than true love for the individual, which is destined for failure. Since their interactions are viewed through rose-tinted glasses of what they want to see in their partner, rather than the significant other’s actual personality, their perceptions of each other are ingenuine, and they are deceiving themselves by idealising their marriage to such an extent. Elif Bautman in his 2014 review of Gone Girl for The New Yorker, “Marriage is an abduction” claims that the book does not have a far-reaching social critique, but he seems to miss the broader message of the novel. The book does not simply entertain; it displays the sharp contrast between who we think we see in love and the man or woman who actually …show more content…
Nick and Amy lie to themselves in their fantastical views of the relationship, which prevents them from forming a genuine connection to each other. Nick’s falling for Amy proves to be his greatest mistake, as it is impossible to truly know the mind of another. Finally, by allowing lies to happen in the first place, their marriage became a lie in itself, and they grow to have nothing left of each other but lies and tricks. While the events of the book are extreme and fictionalised, they represent the dangers of dishonesty, a key factor in America’s staggering divorce rate. Rather than doling advice, Flynn offers the reader a harrowing example of everything that could go wrong if a person disregards the importance of honesty in