52 pages • 1 hour read
Gillian FlynnGone Girl
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaSymbols & Motifs
Mississippi River/Hannibal
The Mississippi river runs through in the background of the novel. For example, Nick and Amy’s house lies directly on the Mississippi river. Hannibal, a city on the Mississippi, also figures prominently in the treasure hunt and in Nick’s childhood and teenage years. As the home of Mark Twain, author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Hannibal is a tourist attraction, and Nick worked there as Huck Finn as a teenager. Amy is also symbolically tied to Huck Finn when she fakes her own death, just as Huck does in Twain’s novel. Amy also threatens to send Nick “up the river,” a symbol for prison, for her murder. The river therefore symbolizes the inability to escape.
Amy’s Treasure Hunt
Amy’s anniversary treasure hunt symbolizes the reality of her marriage to Nick. On the surface, it appears to be a loving, romantic gesture that celebrates another year of marriage, just as Nick and Amy pretend that they have a happy marriage. Underneath, however, the treasure hunt symbolizes Amy’s rage that Nick doesn’t love her or “get” her enough.
Every year, Nick fails to solve the clues, which are typically based around details of the past year from Amy’s perspective: things Amy loved, places Amy visited. The treasure hunt summarizes Amy’s need for constant attention and approval. Furthermore, the overblown nature of these hunts, leading to an extravagant present for Nick, hints at her megalomania, because the clues are all about Amy’s year, not their year together. When Nick fails to solve the clues, Amy becomes angry and denigrates him: he’s an incompetent, unobservant, jerk, unworthy of her loving efforts.
On their fifth anniversary, Amy turns the treasure hunt into the ultimate mind-game; on the surface the clues and letters seem to say that she loves and adores Nick, but really, they tell him that she knew about his affair all along. The treasure hunt leads Nick on a search through all the places where he cheated on Amy with his mistress Andie, and it culminates in a chilling present: Punch and Judy puppets.
Punch and Judy Puppets
The Punch and Judy puppets echo Flynn’s notion of the danger inherent in marriage relationships. Bill and Maureen Dunne, for example, have a volatile and abusive relationship, while Nick and Amy have a similarly dangerous relationship. The story of Punch and Judy, wherein Punch murders both his wife, Judy, and their child, not only symbolizes the trap that Amy has set for Nick in the treasure hunt, but it also suggests that close, intimate relationships can bring out rage and violence in some people. Amy treats people like they are puppets, so her gift is symbolic in that manner as well. She would like for Nick to be her puppet, and at times he refers to himself as a puppet.
The Cuckoo Clock
The antique cuckoo clock given to Amy by her parents when she departs New York City for Carthage symbolically represents, to Amy, how much her parents value her. Broken and chirping at random, the clock doesn’t fit the décor of their new home in Carthage; it is as out of place in Carthage as Amy is. Additionally, the cuckoo clock represents Amy’s madness. As her parents hand her over to Nick, they hand him the problem of her madness. On an unconscious level, perhaps, her parents must be aware that Amy is not normal, as symbolized by their gift of a broken, schizophrenic cuckoo clock.
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By Gillian Flynn
