preview

Gone Girl By Gillian Flynn Essay

Decent Essays

Southern Gothic literature often incorporates its elements separately without any direct relationship between two of them, namely the grotesque and violence. While many of the Southern Gothic culture and literature explores these elements separately, there are cases where they simultaneously occur. Gillian Flynn is able to effectively incorporate both aspects individually before performing a crossover of the two in her novel Gone Girl. With the use of other aspects (economic downfall and mental instability) used in the Southern Gothic genre, she hints the issue regarding the marriage of the novel’s antiheroes, Nick and Amy Dunne, as they lead to the sheer ugliness (whether the gore is present or not) of their situations.
Flynn breaks down the types of violence present throughout the novel: domestic, sexual and patriarchal (or male dominance). Like combining the grotesque and violence into a text, two of the subtopics of violence (patriarchal and domestic) happen at the same time, which Flynn clearly presents in Gone Girl. Prior to Amy’s disappearance, the factor that lead to domestic and patriarchal violence is the economic downfall in which Nick calls “The Missouri Grievance” (Flynn, 4) as he “Blame[s] the economy” (4) and lost his mother to cancer. As Amy transitioned from the “Cool Girl” (Flynn, 222) to the “standard girl,” (223) this also causes Nick to lose his perception of manhood based on Amy’s role as a wife. Furthermore, the marital conflict occurs without

Get Access