NORTH AMERICAN LITERATURE II SMEHAN ES SAHEB EL BYAD

INDIVIDUAL REVIEW

GONE GIRL BY GILLIAN FLYNN

Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel Gone Girl has become a popular sensation and has
sprung many debates about its main character Amy Dunne. The debates often revolve
around the depiction of Amy Dunne as a feminist anti-hero and the relatability of this
character from a female point of view. Amy Dunne is a character that perfectly embodies
the concept of female rage and anger, and Gillian Flynn’s masterful description of the
realities that many women live is what makes Dunne such a relatable character.

Gone Girl was released in a point in time when women’s movements all around
the world were growing and evolving. These feminist movements allowed women to
speak up about their experiences and, in relation to the novel under discussion, they also
gave place to “women expressing their anger and outrage at certain things.” (Perez,
‘Gillian Flynn’). By creating the character of Amy Dunne, Gillian Flynn subverted the
stereotypical gender roles in fiction and gave a place to a type of female character that
was not so common, the female anti-hero that expresses her anger. In an interview with
The Hollywood Reporter, Flynn stated that she did not write Gone Girl wanting to make
a statement, but she did want to explore the limits a female antihero could surpass (qtd.
in Perez, ‘Gillian Flynn’).

Gone Girl tells the story of Nick and Amy Dunne, a young, seemingly happy
couple whose marriage is slowing breaking down. At first, through Amy’s diaries we see
her trying to portray a perfect illusion but as we read forward, we can see the darkness
and anger hidden in both characters. When Amy goes missing, Nick is the main suspect
in the eyes of everybody, but the readers then learn that Amy was alive, and she was
hiding with the intention of framing Nick for her murder. As Flynn’s insightful and
descriptive storytelling continues, we see that the character of Amy Dunne is composed
of many layers and that it was her intelligence, strength, and skilful control over her
emotions that allowed her to win the game in the end. She plays with different tropes to
achieve her goals (domestic violence victim, pregnant woman, rape victim) and displays
a knowledge of society’s expectations that serve as a strategy for her to simply get out of
every distressful situation.

Amy Dunne’s relatability may not be something that Gillian Flynn had in mind
when writing this character, but it was perhaps the aspect that catapulted this story to what
NORTH AMERICAN LITERATURE II SMEHAN ES SAHEB EL BYAD
INDIVIDUAL REVIEW

it is today, as well as what drove me to love and appreciate this character so much. Flynn
recognizes Amy’s relatability: “there’s enough there that we actually do relate to a fair
amount of what she was saying. Would we go to the extent she does? No, we would not.
But she’s a relatable” (qtd. in Perez, ‘Gillian Flynn’). In my view, Gone Girl as a whole
is relatable because it is a straightforward description of typical situations, such as failed
marriages, unfaithful husbands, etc. On top of that, the character of Amy Dunne goes
further in depicting the struggles of women; not only does she represent the sadness and
frustration of a broken marriage, but also the loss of a woman’s sense of self. I find this
idea to be linked to the title, Gone Girl, which does not just refer to Amy’s physical body
being missing, it also refers to her identity, which had been gone for quite a long time.
Flynn writes: “He took and took from me until I no longer existed. That’s murder.” (Flynn
304).

Amy Dunne is an exaggerated version of society’s expectations for women.

Before meeting Nick, Amy was pressured by her parents to become the best version of
the woman they wished for. After meeting Nick, she changed entirely for him. Here is
where I must mention my favourite part of the novel, the monologue in which Amy
describes becoming the ‘cool girl’ for Nick. The ‘cool girl’ monologue is Amy’s most
memorable quote, in which she explains the double standards between men and women
and the will women have to put men’s desires over everything else. “Cool Girls are above
all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined,
loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t
mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because
so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl.” (Flynn 210). The thing with this
idea is that even though Amy spent years pretending to be this person that Nick wanted,
he is still an unemployed husband that takes advantage of his wife’s money and efforts to
keep the marriage afloat. Once Amy drops the ‘cool girl’ act, she becomes the villain in
the marriage, she is once again something that she does not want to be, a whiny housewife
that is constantly asking her husband to do something. Amy’s identity is constantly
overlooked by Nick’s desires and yet, Nick is still unsatisfied, as he cheats on her with a
20-year-old: his new ‘cool girl’. Amy is rightfully angry, and so are all the women that
can relate to her experience. This is where the relatability of Amy comes into place; Amy
represents female rage, a feeling that women are constantly expected to hide; after all,
“cool girl never gets angry at her man” (Flynn 210).
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INDIVIDUAL REVIEW

As mentioned before, the situations where Amy Dunne is a victim can be found
in many women’s life stories. The resentment Amy has for Nick is extreme, but it is
relatable. However, the solution given to Amy’s problem is rather exaggerated, or
uncommon. This over-emphasized representation of Amy helps the readers realize how
society forces women to endure these kinds of problems and how they are expected to
behave. Women are victims, there are no two-ways about it, they must endure the
everyday injustices and they must not complain about them. Female rage must not come
out. Amy Dunne did not accept that.

I, and other female readers, even if we do not condone all the bad things Amy
Dunne does, found ourselves praising her because we are aware that generally, women
simply do not act upon the female rage and anger that they live with. As a woman, I found
it liberating to see a female character, a wife, seeking revenge for being treated poorly. I
do not overlook the fact that Amy is a psychopath, she is a murderer, but the reason I root
for her excitingly is because many women can reflect on what Nick represents and easily
find it characterized in the male figures in our lives. This novel made me realize that
female rage is something we do not see in real life, or in literature and that no matter what
a man does, women simply cannot get angry.

In conclusion, Gone Girl serves as revenge fantasy that represents the daily
struggles that women endure within marriages and the anger and resentment that they
supress. I believe female rage should be regarded as an emotion to be expressed and dealt
with (Perez, ‘Gillian Flynn’) and not hidden, as it usually is. In fact, Amy Dunne is a
character that subverts society’s expectations for women, while using them in her favour
to get revenge. Many women, including myself, loved Gone Girl because Amy does, in
an exaggerated and slightly illegal way, what I think all women dream but never dare to
do. I would find it hard to believe if there was a woman in the world that does not find
some part of Gone Girl, even a small one, in some way relatable.
NORTH AMERICAN LITERATURE II SMEHAN ES SAHEB EL BYAD
INDIVIDUAL REVIEW

Works Cited

Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl. Crown Publishing Group, 2012.

Perez, Lexy. “Gillian Flynn Reflects on ‘Gone Girl’ Legacy and the Growing Appetite
for Anti-Heroines in Books.” The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Dec. 2019,
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/gillian-flynn-reflects-
gone-girl-legacy-rise-anti-heroines-1260003/ Accessed 7 December 2021.