Gone Girl

Amy is the sociopathic woman married to Nick Dunne, whose disappearance sparks an intense search and series of investigations. She is the second narrator of the novel. Amy Elliott Dunne has everything: beauty, wealth, celebrity, charm, and intelligence. However, her gorgeous appearance and societal position obscure the darker side of her personality.

Amy concocts a plan to get revenge on her husband for his affair with a much younger woman. Age 38 when she disappears, Amy’s ruthless plan appears to be flawless as it unfolds. She seems to have thought of everything. There is no doubt that Nick will go to prison for murdering her.

Amy exhibits many characteristics of a classic sociopath: she disregards the rules and laws of society, she is highly narcissistic and self-aggrandizing, she ignores the feelings of others, and is willing to physically hurt or kill to get her own way. In staging her disappearance, she is not only taking revenge on Nick; she is also punishing her parents. Her parents let her down by taking her trust fund away and allowing her to be taken away from New York City to the boredom and cultural wasteland of Missouri. 

She ruthlessly manipulates everyone around her to get what she wants or to punish others for their wrongdoing toward her. She kills Desi Collings and frames him for her kidnapping when she realizes that she would rather go back to her now-penitent husband. Though several people other than Nick see through her lovely façade to the monster underneath, including Detective Rhonda Boney, Nick’s lawyer, and Go, no one is able to stop her. 

Nick’s twin sister, Go, runs The Bar in Carthage with her brother. She is his best friend and confidant, and is not a fan of Amy. Smart, funny, and loyal, she supports and helps Nick throughout the novel. Nick and Go are a true team and they are extremely close.

Scarred by her childhood as the unwanted daughter of a misogynist father, Go sees men in a cynical light. Though she loves her brother unconditionally, his secret affair with a younger woman, and his other lies, damage their relationship. Go always sees who and what her brother is more clearly than any other character in the novel. She supports him, but she also calls him on his issues. She tells him the truth and what he needs to hear to keep his moral compass.

Though Go is pretty, intelligent, and funny—she is the real-life Cool Girl as Amy describes it in this novel—Nick says that she will probably never marry. She knows too much about what men are really like, particularly after life with her father and Nick.

Nick’s close relationship with Go demonstrates that he cannot be his father; his respect and love for his sister mean that he loves and respects women. Their close-knit relationship is a significant clue in the first part of the novel that Nick isn’t the kind of man who could have abused or killed his wife.

Throughout the novel, the Elliotts seem to speak and act as one person. They are depicted throughout the novel as clinging to and touching each other constantly. Their physical closeness mirrors their emotional and psychological connection. Co-authors of the Amazing Amy series of children’s book and psychologists, Rand and Marybeth are Amy’s parents.

Together they create Amy—a shockingly selfish, if brilliant personality. Rand and Marybeth’s self-absorbed love affair leaves Amy standing on the outside of their charmed relationship: isolated, jealous, and lonely. They also shower her with attention and privilege: she attends the best boarding schools and camps to develop her talents and abilities. In addition, the constant pressure to live up to the fictional “Amazing Amy” that her parents create leaves Amy with nowhere to turn. She must be perfect, as she competes with her parents’ fictional daughter for their attention.

Rand and Marybeth never see the monster in Amy; she manages to perpetrate several alarming and dangerous deceptions, beginning when she is a teenager, and they never catch on. Amy is perfect to them. Though they are psychologists, they never see the sociopath under their noses.

Mo, Nick and Go’s mother, loves Nick unconditionally. Her cancer diagnosis precipitates Nick and Amy’s move back to Carthage from New York City. A gentle, humorous, and understanding woman, Mo forgives all of Nick’s flaws, including the fact that he cannot bear to accompany her to her chemotherapy treatments because he hates hospitals. Mo forgives Nick his self-centered behavior, just as she endured her husband’s verbal abuse for so many years before divorcing him when Nick and Go were 14 years old. She is a model of womanly forbearance, living and dying quietly without ever complaining.

Bill Dunne, a woman-hating Alzheimer’s victim, frightened his family into submission until Mo got the courage to divorce him. Both of her children remain scarred by Bill’s harsh, verbally abusive behavior. Though the chief victim of his abuse was Mo, Nick and Go are left with serious personality and relationship issues as a result of their childhood experiences. Nick curries favor with everyone and constantly needs to be loved. Go keeps people at arm’s length with her wit and humor, going through many relationships, but never getting married.

Bill wanders from the nursing home several times during the novel; he always shows up when Nick needs to be reminded of the kind of man he does not want to be. Throughout the novel, Nick’s greatest fear is that he will become his father.