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55. Nick Dunne, The Night of the Return (1)
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Gone Girl, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Secrets and Lies
Marriage
Misogyny
Writing, Storytelling, and Narrative
Summary
Analysis
Amy stands at the foot of the stairs after listening into Nick’s phone call, desperate to ignore his hatred of her and “make him be the man [she] married” once again. Nick is furious, and asks Amy why she’d even want to be with him, knowing how average he is—and how much he hates her. Nick tells Amy he doesn’t want to be married to her—he wants to be with a “normal” person. Amy is furious. She warns Nick that he’ll never again be some “boring-ass middle American.” Nick calls Amy a “psycho bitch.” Amy tells Nick that he’d be nothing without her, and that she’s the one who made him into the best man he’s ever been. Searching for a weak spot, she tells Nick that without her, he’d be just like his father, Bill.
As Nick and Amy hurl insults and let out their pain, anger, and frustration, Amy reveals some potent truths. She calls Nick’s bluff—though he claims to be shocked and horrified by her actions, she’s well aware that she has the upper hand. She may be stabbing in the dark, but she hits on something salient when she claims that without her around to keep him on his toes, Nick will backslide into the worst possible version of himself and realize his worst nightmare—becoming his father.
Themes
Amy threatens Nick with violence and retribution if he ever tries to divorce her—and tells him that even if he were able to be with someone else, he’d be bored stiff. As Amy continues riling Nick up, he grabs her by the arm and then the neck. He sobs and shakes as Amy tells him she’s the “bitch who makes [him] a man.”
Nick wants to fight against the things Amy’s telling him—he doesn’t want them to be true, and he doesn’t want to spend his life yoked to a monster. As Nick seizes his wife’s neck, though, they both realize she’s at last made him into the dark-willed monster she cast him as all along.
Themes
