Book Report
Gone Girl is a modern book written by American writer Gillian Flynn. The book was published in June 2012 by Crown Publishing Group. Gone Girl became one of Gillian Flynn’s best-selling books and soon hit the best seller list in New York Times. The book is a thrilling novel about a marriage gone terribly wrong which is filled with psychological suspense and raw intensity, with the principal suspense coming from the uncertainty about the major character, Nick, and whether he murdered his wife, Amy. In this book, Flynn tried to explore the psychology and dynamics of a lasting relationship. She admits to putting a little of herself in the personality of Nick Dunne. Flynn portrayed marriage as the ultimate mystery.
Gone Girl, which is set in Carthage town in Missouri talks about difficulties encountered in a marriage between Nick Dunne and Amy Dunne which is failing for several reasons. Nick was previously working as a journalist before losing his job as a result of downsizing. Due to a feeling of desperation, he relocates from New York City together with his wife Amy and moves to his place of origin, North Carthage in Missouri. After relocating, he opens a bar with the use of his wife’s last trust fund which he runs with the help of his twin sister Margo. The bar helps the three of them to acquire a better living, but the marriage of the Dunne turn out to be more dysfunctional. Amy did not like the idea of relocating from New York, and she hates staying at their rented McMansion which she believes is soulless.
Amy goes missing on the day of their fifth wedding anniversary. In the long run, Nick becomes the main suspect in her disappearance for a variety of reasons. The reasons were that he used her funds to start the bar business, improved her life insurance and did not show any emotions in front of cameras and in the news. At first, Nick appears to be the distressed husband, evidently not comfortable with the reality that the police are all over his house and monitoring any move he makes and concerned with Amy’s whereabouts. Flynn lets this story of a marriage gone completely wrong slowly come out through alternating accounts by both Amy and Nick. Flynn’s use of unreliable characters gives the reader the feeling of having to discover the mystery themselves (Flynn, 2012).
The book begins with Nick’s narration, and it demonstrates different ways there are to elude. It is quiet hard to know whether Nick is guilty or not. He states “I didn’t say this out loud, though; I often don’t say things out loud, even when I should. I contain and compartmentalize to an alarming degree: In my belly-basement are hundreds of bottles of rage, despair, fear, but you’d never guess from looking at me” (Flynn, 2012). He appears to have gruesome visions of his wife Amy, but makes himself sound too blameless to commit such crimes. For the first half of the book, Flynn writes it in first person by both Nick and Amy. Nick’s point of view is from the present and Amy’s is in the past through her lightly emotional diary. Both stories are quiet conflicting as both Nick and Amy address the reader. According to Amy’s account of her marriage, their marriage makes her appear more contented and easier to live with than Nick portrays. Nick’s story, alternatively, talks about Amy as exceedingly unfriendly and very stubborn. From the way Flynn puts it, Amy’s portrayal makes Nick appear a lot more violent than he puts it in his story. Amy seems to loathe the men who are solicitous of their wives and refers to them as dancing monkeys who carry out useless tasks and implement myriad sacrifices for their difficult wives. In her book, Flynn reveals the cunning malice that can blight marriages everyday; the small triumphs detained, the ethical high ground claimed and the emotional control plays that can harden and crumble love (Flynn, 2012).
In the subsequent half of the book, it is quite clear to the reader that both Amy and Nick are dishonest in their narrations and have not given all details. The diary Amy kept at the beginning of the book is a forged one, intended to incriminate Nick further to the police. On the other hand, Amy is rapidly running short of funds when she gets robbed by fellow visitors of a motel. Out of desperation, she asks for assistance from an old friend. He agrees to conceal her, but Amy in a little while felt trapped in his house. She kills him and goes back to her husband and tells him that she had been kidnapped. Nick is familiar with the fact that his wife is a killer but holds on to the marriage because she is expecting his child. The book concludes with Amy writing that she is just about to give birth to her son and that she has put in writing a record regarding her alleged abduction and detention (Flynn, 2012).
In Gone Girl, Flynn reveals several themes throughout the book, untrustworthiness, the deceitful media and the sadness that comes with the distressed economy. The characters deceive each other and the reader about relationships and disappearances. Amy even makes a forged diary to wrongly implicate her husband for her disappearance. Nick also lies that he does not known about the information on his computer when asked by the police. There are so many lies told by Nick and Amy throughout the book. Throughout her book, Flynn wanted to examine how individuals within a marriage deceive each other. In the book Gone Girl, Flynn portrays the main characters that are absolutely different and interchanges these point of views with unbelievable precision and ease to a complex marriage account and a complex crime which is deeply distressing but luminously carried out. At the beginning of the book, there is a very big twist on whom to believe and a lot of suspense on what is going to happen next (Flynn, 2012).
At first, Flynn ramps up the nervousness and holds the readers in suspense throughout the book making the readers want to ask what they know about the two characters, Amy and Nick, the way they live and all the secrets that each of them hide. All the characters are brought out by Flynn to be so unreliable where they tell so many lies to each other as well as to the readers. Flynn also uses the character of Nick to bring the complicated nature of the media presentation. Nick appears to be guilty as a result of media exposure before a trial takes place. Flynn appears to be so good on the penetration of the media into every feature of the missing individual investigation. The book looks into how such cases like those of Nick and Amy create a media agitation. Nick deals with this matter through his ironic internal comments, which are aimed at the police, the media, suspects and his wife, Amy. Flynn brings out the condition of the modern world to whether people actually know the people they love (Flynn, 2012).
Making use of her trademark satirical inscription and guaranteed psychological insight, Flynn conveys a quick, devilishly gloomy and a creative plotted thriller that confirms the psychological torture encountered in marriages. Flynn agrees that she was driven by her interest in exploring a marriage that has gone terribly wrong. The book shows the manipulation and dishonesty that married couples may impose on one another. Through the inner expression of both Nick and Amy, Flynn, portrays the war of the sexes as biased because with the use of physical pre-eminence proscribed, men normally feel outwitted by women. On the other hand, women express repression which makes the situation even more frustrating and confusing to men. As a result, both sides may contemplate of causing harm to each other and even psychological and emotional impotence like in the case of Nick and Amy. Flynn reveals most of the issues that can lead married couples to endure psychological distress. She tries to disclose economical and societal pressures endured by both Nick and Amy and the way those pressures greatly affected them mentally as well as their marriage. She also wanted to reveal to the reader how cruelties and untrustworthiness within a marriage can cause a lot of harm and psychological trauma to the people involved.
Reference
Flynn, G. (2012). Gone girl: A novel. New York: Crown.
