Self-Destruction In Gone Girl

Rick Riordan says, “No one can hate you more than someone who used to love you.” Despite the popular idea of a “love-hate relationship,” it is impossible to possess both of these feelings at the same time towards one person. Love and hate are both two very strong feelings that have the ability to make one do unusual things. In extreme scenarios, an individual may feel the need to destroy him or herself if not their significant other in order to attain happiness. Gone Girl’s persistent focus on self-destruction throughout the novel indicates that strong feelings along with discipline can cause people to destroy themselves in diverse ways in order to create their ideal image of themselves as well as their life.
Amy harms herself on multiple occasions to frame her husband, Nick, and this is significant because it demonstrates the extremities in which people are willing to go to make their lives ideal. On page 219, Amy says, “Item 22: Cut myself. But Amy is afraid of blood, the diary readers will say. (The diary, yes! We’ll get to my brilliant diary.) No, I’m not, not a bit, but for the past year I’ve been saying I am” (Flynn). Despite all of the attention that Amy receives from the public, she harms …show more content…
Some examples present throughout the text represent the most extreme cases of the population while others are more relatable to a larger group of people. Flynn also gives insight as to why self-destruction occurs. The desire for perfection quickly leads to self-destruction because some people are willing to do any and everything to achieve the impossible idea of perfection. All in all, Flynn utilizes Gone Girl to provide a larger insight on self-destruction and its causes to demonstrate that some people are willing to go to extremes to destroy and recreate themselves for various