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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Media Manipulation
The media is depicted as a double-edged sword in this novel. On one hand, the media disseminates vital information to the public, including soliciting the public to come forward and assist police investigations, but it also intrudes into the legal processes at work in the investigation of Amy’s disappearance, perhaps even preventing justice, as they twist stories to fit stereotypes and create more dramatic narratives.
Both television and print media figure largely in this novel. As a journalist who loses his job to the domination of the internet, Nick is twice a victim of large media forces. However, he manages to turn the tables on the media’s depiction of him by using internet videos and television to manipulate public opinion and woo his wife back to him, preventing a lengthy prison term or even the death penalty.
Amy too loses her job writing quizzes for magazines, because of print journalism’s move to the internet. However, she counts on the media to help her convict Nick of her murder, and she takes similar advantage of the media’s interest in her upon her return.
The novel explicates Flynn’s thought-provoking message that in the United States, the media’s appetite for excitement and entertainment trumps truth, solid knowledge, and information every time.
Good versus Evil
The battle between good and evil is a central theme of this novel, even as Flynn manipulates the reader’s sense of who the “good” and “bad” characters are throughout the novel. For example, during the first part of the novel, Nick appears to be the evil one—he is a cheating husband, whose guilty behavior suggests that he is hiding something about Amy’s disappearance. He acts like he has done something wrong and he even dreams about a bloody Amy crawling across the kitchen floor.
In Part Two, however, the tables are neatly turned. Amy reveals herself to be the evil architect of a devious scheme. She has planted enough evidence to send her cheating husband to jail for her murder; she intends to wreak havoc in revenge for his affair.
Flynn does not offer the comfort of a happy ending. Good does not triumph over evil. In fact, the good characters are not all that perfect, while the evil character, Amy, is truly evil. Though Nick pledges to sacrifice his life to protect his unborn son and be the father he never had, the novel ends with Amy unhappy about something that Nick has said to her and making an implicit threat to Nick’s life. Evil wins the day.
Relationship Personas
In this novel, both Nick and Amy represent themselves as the most lovable version of themselves to lure each other into a relationship. Finding those identities unsustainable over the long-term, both Nick and Amy abandon those personas, which results in chaos and disappointment in their relationship.
Significantly, in discussing the different expectations men and women have in relationships, Amy elaborates upon the myth of the Cool Girl. The Cool Girl is up for everything her man wants while having no needs or expectations herself. This seems to be the kind of woman Nick wants to be in a relationship with. Their marriage suffers from the expectation that Amy will remain the Cool Girl for their entire relationship
Nick classifies the problem in a similar way: they both pretended to be someone they weren’t, when they met, in order to be loved by the other person. Nick presented himself as a knowledgeable, funny, woman-loving man who adored Amy. When he found out she wasn’t who he thought she was he stopped trying to please her.
Both Amy and Nick’s identities are extremely fragile, as demonstrated by their fickle, immature emotional states, and they both demand that other people meet their needs or lose their love. For example, Amy admits to trying on different personalities to make people like and respond positively to her. This reveals the lack of a strong central identity or an understanding that her central identity—narcissistic and insatiably needy—isn’t attractive to people. Nick’s masculine identity crumbles at the first sign of criticism or unhappiness in his partner.
By the end of the novel, Nick seems to have matured to the point that he accepts some responsibility for his own actions and their consequences. His masculine identity is still fragile, but he intends to redeem himself through impending fatherhood. Amy’s personality, however, remains as fractured and self-serving as it is at the beginning of the novel.
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By Gillian Flynn
