I’ve be rereading a lot of Gillian Flynn lately, as well as rewatched the two good adaptations of her work (the Gone Girl movie and the Sharp Objects mini serires). I think her body of work as an author are some of the best meditations on the way the social constructs of gender shape and damage people’s relationship to society and themselves as a whole. I kind of forgot that some of her books are close to, if not over a decade old at this point— since I’m deeply impressed with how ahead of it’s time her work is when it comes to the topic power under patriarchy. Though some minor to moderate details may not have aged as well as others, she was kind of ahead of the conversation here on the ways people both are to blame and blameless, both perpetrators and victims of gender-based systemic oppression. Her focus is primary on cisgender women of course in relation to this authority— but she shows a lot of restraint in unfairly painting cis men as individuals as personally responsible for this. She’s correctly identified (for the most part) that though it’s obvious the ways boys and men tend to, let’s say— sit in more socially honorable positions when perpetuating patriarchy, that’s not the whole of it. Both men and women are equally responsible, equally victimized, and equally capable at gaming the system when they’re good at playing the role of these synthetic gender absolutes to their advantage— even when they hate they have to. Though all of her books more or less cover this same topic through different framing, somehow in what I personally consider her strongest work, this seems to be totally lost on people.
Consider it like this: in chess, playing white gives you an advantage because you get the first move. Chess players are often required to switch colours because of this in tournaments. You still have a good chance to win a game as black, white just gets that slight edge to pull ahead. That slight advantage would be magnified more significantly if one player was consistently allowed to play white. Men are those players, always playing white. Women are stuck playing black. However, the real power and authority here, regardless and forever, is the game and it’s rules itself. You are garenteed to win 0 matches if you won’t comply with the rules of chess, if you get caught cheating at least— and patriarchy forces you to play chess whether you want to or not, and will make you pay for being bad at it. She’s genuinely one of the greatest feminist novelists of our time.
The whole point of a lot of Flynn’s work is basically exploring the ways people interact with this social order. Every single one of her characters’ narratives can be summarized by their failure or success at playing the game of gender to some extent, or exploiting it. The twist of *all* of her works relies on you failing to consider the ways in which people can find ways to take advantage of this game. As murder mysteries, her work ends up arguably being predictable. If you read her work knowing this is the topic she’s exploring, you can guess the culprit based on who’s winning or losing this game— Gone Girl possibly being the one exception because of the way certain characters lampshade their position for at least a portion of the narrative, though. I’d argue that that’s kind of besides the point, however. Even if you can predict the answer with that meta knowledge of Flynn’s subject matter, it’s still extremely fascinating and illuminating to see the way her characters navigate the conflict. You understand why they can’t see the answer— as you, also a human being farmiliar with these systems, know the ways you’ve been tricked too.
All of Flynn’s antagonists are the ones that succeeded the most at playing patriarchy— and they did so playing as black. Amy Dunne is the most likable one out of the bunch, with the most sympathetic motivation, but that’s still what she did. Insisting she’s somehow morally correct or defensible in a way the others aren’t *is (even unintentionally) expressing indirect support of patriarchy.* Amy has profoundly destructive, anti-social behaviors to which she feels absolutely no remorse for the harm she’s cause, with plans to continue doing more by the novel’s end. At the sane time, more than any other protagonist in her work, Flynn does an excellent job deconstructing the ways in which Amy’s behavior is a direct product of her circumstances. She makes you truly understand why, from Amy’s perspective, this is the only option she has in operating in the environment she’s found herself in. I don’t blame anyone for feeling they’d feel tempted or wish they could respond in kind if they were in her position. I equally take issue with anyone who characterizes Amy as some sort of distilled evil with no emotionally resonate judtification for her actions. Maybe if you even are in her position. It’s not easy to write antagonists with this much compassion, and it’s truely a highlight in Flynn’s body of work. It’s worth noting that though Flynn’s two previous books are outstanding in many ways aswell (Sharp Objects and Dark Places), Gone Girl exels in presenting the antagonists humanity much better than in her previous installments. One of the reasons why I feel the Sharp Object’s mini series is actually an improvement over it’s source material is the much more compassionate, nuanced portrayal of it’s secret murderer— which significantly elevates the material. I do get *why* people identify with Amy Dunne— in some respects I think that’s the point. It’s a call for examination as to the outcomes of that “female rage,” as Flynn puts it.
Nick Dunne is on surface level a much easier character to be dismissive of by design. Flynn pulls no punches in the ways Amy exels at playing the gender game despite her disadvantageous position, Nick gets to be remarkably mediocre. Because of this, the moment he’s put in a bad position to fullfill his social obligation as a man, he not only fails but is completely willing to utterly tap out. There’s a case to be made at his utter lack of awareness of how this impacts those around him, his naive emotional simplicity. However, in the same regard I feel the narrative is trying to question the idea if he should have really been expected to uphold this position in the first place when he has such a disinterest in it. Amy’s frustration with Nick is much more so rooted in the fact that she’s put in all the effort to memorize all the master strategies of chess despite hating every second of it, and Nick only understand the game enough to meander his pieces around the board in a vague whim on what looks about right. He’s been allowed to coast off the privilege for a bit, but there was never an indication he had any interest in playing seriously. The conclusion you come to shouldn’t be that he should have been subjected to learning like Amy did. Her making him personally responsible for that is completely unjustified. As horrible as it is for her, that she staked so much on the false assumption he was a more worthy match than he really was can’t be solely placed on his shoulders.
Nick blunders through being entirely unequipped to live up to the social expectations placed upon him because of his gender, but on a core level he has a lot of objectively positive traits. Some of the narrative’s most biting commentary is in the way he’s actively punished for being to oblivious to realize he’s going to pay for those positive traits. He’s a much more naturally earnest person than Amy. Trusting and open in a way that lets him wander like a labrador into a situation he’s uneqipped to handle when trying to fullfill his obligations to his family and his wife. Because of the finacheal difficulties and life stressors outside of either party’s control, he doesn’t realize the strings attached to Amy’s support are strangling him until it’s way too late. The ways he attempts to not deal with it can rightly be called cowardly and shameful— but really, no person and certainly no relationship should be subjected to the bullshit quid-pro-quo Amy felt entitled to expect from him because he’s her husband. The social order has constructed a scenario where both parties are forced eventually to submit to a toxic, miserable arrangement that not just harms them both— but is going to be the environment a child innocent in all of this is going to be brought into.
The entire story is a nightmare with no winners, just some parties that lose worse than others. Amy Dunne’s situation is not one to be admired, it’s to be feared.
by ThisDudeisNotWell