UNDERSTANDING THY SELF

GONE GIRL: A CHARACTER ANALYSIS PAPER

Leader:
RODRIGUEZ, Jannie Belle P.

Members:
DAÑAS, Ma. Michelle D.
PALMA, Precious Faith D.
PERA, Rachelle Ann O.
REYES, Ena Bianca M.
SANTIAGO, Caela Marie M.
SANTIAGO, Maria Camila Isabel D.
SANTOS, Charles Mikhael G.
TOH, Alyssa Marie L.
VELASCO, Edene Johanna G.

1I-PH

Course Instructor:
Ms. Debbie Marie Bais
SUMMARY:

The film Gone Girl, directed by David Fincher, revolves around the story of
husband and wife, Nick and Amy Dunne. The story begins on the day of their wedding
anniversary, where Amy Dunne suddenly disappears, leaving some clues, resembling a
“treasure hunt”, which is a yearly tradition for their wedding anniversary. Nick, as he is
concerned of his wife’s whereabouts, follows these clues and becomes more suspicious
of his wife as he unlocks her secrets along the way. Little did he know that this "treasure
hunt" will be the start of losing his peace, for every clue leads to something that appears
to be connected to him. Amy and Nick seemed like a happy or your perfect couple with a
strong bond. However, with this "treasure hunt" clues, everything points out to Nick
himself killing his own wife and thus becoming the main suspect. He tried his best to clear
his name but this was not possible for he was hiding secrets of his own, which complicated
the situation. The story turns the other way around upon the revelation that Amy had
everything planned out, from faking her own murder and having Nick framed for it. She
was increasingly frustrated with her husband and wanted to watch him suffer and be
locked behind bars for her “murder”. Her prior plans changed along the way and she
reached out to her wealthy ex-boyfriend Desi Collins, who turned out to be obsessive and
over-controlling. She escaped from Collins and had created a story behind her so-called
abduction. As she rekindled with Nick, forty days after her disappearance, her innocence
was questioned by him for her story was vague and seemed senseless. Due to a
relationship built on lies and another stack of lies, their relationship had nowhere to go
and drifted away. Nick had no choice but to turn a blind eye on their complex relationship
as they were expecting a child and decided to stay for good.

CHARACTER PROFILE:

Amy Dunne is seen as an ideal wife and an ideal daughter. She was a well-known
author and together with her parents, have successfully published a series of children’s
books entitled Amazing Amy narrating her real life or a true story. But behind the ideal
woman that she is, lurks a person of pure evil and deceit. In reality, her upbringing was
not an ideal one, as standards and expectations were put on her since the publication of
Amazing Amy. She needed to behave prim, proper and perfectly in front of people which
resulted in her desperate ways of manipulating her environment.

When Nick entered her life, she was again put into a situation where she needed
to put up pretenses because Nick is known as the cool guy and she needed to be the
perfect fit for him by being someone she is not. But as their relationship progresses, the
real Amy was slowly unveiling her true self as an insecure, unsocial and heartless person
who digs for the limelight. She is a sociopath and her being intelligent makes her
dangerous. She brilliantly manipulated her way into faking her death leading the people
around her into believing that her husband, Nick, was the primary suspect. She
brainwashed almost everyone into believing her death and even made fake identities into
someone she is not. She is a psychopath as she never took the feelings of her loved ones
into consideration when making a decision and she even heartlessly murdered innocent
people and ruined the lives of those close to her. With her creations of her own universe
where she is always the agonist, Amy has a really volatile nature but she doesn’t really
know what she wants. All she knows is that she needs to live up to being “Amazing Amy”.
Her disappearance was highly sensationalized and she used this to gain empathy from
the people forcing all the attention on her. Amy is conditioned to be appealing to the public
and as the movie concluded, she was seen as a perfect daughter, perfect wife and as
Amazing Amy. But in reality, Amy Dunne is a fake, heartless, selfish psychopath who only
finds satisfaction in using and manipulating the people around her. And as the author that
she is, she was able to create her own version of reality and make the people around her
characters she can control.

CONCEPT OF SELF:

In the Psychology perspective, Amy can be described based on Sigmund Freud’s

Structure of the Self. Nick hasn't been giving much attention to his wife which pushed
Amy to fake her disappearance for her to feel Nick's presence again. When Amy knew
Nick was cheating on her, her ID or biological self was awakened since her husband was
not into her anymore and was asking for love and sexual needs from another woman.
She was angered to see their relationship burning down to ashes which led to her framing
Nick for her murder. But, in the process of Nick's search for Amy, he found a way to
acquire the sympathy of people by admitting his mistakes and this also affected Amy to
liking him again.

She then realized that she likes Nick's company and she was willing to be Nick's cool
wife again, but in one of their fights they both concluded that their marriage was full of
them manipulating and controlling each other. Since Amy was pregnant, Amy and Nick
decided to stay in the marriage for the child. Amy's superego or social self will stay
branded as the Amazing Amy because the society pictured their marriage as perfect thus
their family should also be seen as impeccable, and Amy will do anything for this. Amy's
ego or psychological self was shown in her last fight with Nick, wherein she forces Nick
to stay in their marriage even though their relationship was suffering because all they did
was control and resent each other. Amy thinks that it is the meaning of marriage and she
is willing to compromise again and again for Nick's happiness. According to Freud, there’s
a need to balance the three aforementioned structures of the self but in the case of Amy,
she has an overly dominant id which led to her becoming an impulsive and uncontrollable
person. Despite Amy’s ego of compromising, it was still shown on the later part of the
movie how Amy wants power and that Nick’s disgust for her will not be forgotten.

Amy’s Real and Ideal self has also been evident, from posing to the public as a
perfect couple, setting up a grand scheme, gaining the hearts of the media, and
manipulating her relationship with her husband. As stated by Carl Rogers’ Self Concept,
a difference may occur between a person’s ideal viewpoint of himself/herself from his/her
actual self. In the case of Amy, her ideal self was to be the “Amazing Amy”, just like the
children’s book her parents have published. She ideally thinks of herself as a perfect wife,
a perfect daughter and a cool girl. However, as the story progresses, we get to uncover
the true nature of who Amy really is. Amy’s real self can be described as manipulative,
controlling, and a psychopath. These were evident on times she pursued her plan against
Nick. One is when she befriended her pregnant neighbor to spread fake abuse of her
husband, writing a bogus diary with fabricated entries of Nick’s abuse towards her, and
seducing, killing, and framing Desi Collings, claiming that she was kidnapped and raped.
In the end, with the media’s eyes and ears focused on the couple’s relationship, Nick is
trapped with her psychopathic and homicidal wife. Amy’s real and ideal self have
manifested Incongruence on what she perceives of herself. To put it simply, what Amy
thinks of herself ideally is the exact opposite of what she really is. Her, being a
psychopathic and manipulative real self is way far from her ideal “Amazing Amy.”

References:

https://lucidleopard.wordpress.com/2014/12/24/being-amazing-amy-a-character-
analysis-of-amy-dunne-from-gone-girl/

https://www.verywellmind.com/the-id-ego-and-superego-2795951