Sister Dear: Gone Girl Themes of Love, Loss & Forgiveness
Gone Girl opens
on the day of Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary, the very day wife
Amy goes missing. The story begins with a light and breezy journal entry from
Amy’s diary, in which she talks about “meeting a boy.” What follows is Nick’s
first person narrative, a darker, more realistic look at the couple.
The
reader soon learns that Nick and Amy have both lost their jobs and were forced
to head back to Nick’s hometown in Missouri to take care of his sick mother. Amy,
who grew up in a wealthy home, is openly bitter about the move and hates leaving
the glamour of New York behind. She is unable to forgive Nick for their
misfortune and carries that regret and resentment to their new home. It is then
when Nick begins to cheat on Amy with a much younger girl.
Amy’s
journal entries soon start to show a different side of Nick: one that is
increasingly abusive and frightening. In a plot twist in the second part of Gone Girl, however, the reader discovers
that Amy knew that Nick had been cheating on her. In an elaborate plan for revenge
she concocted the year earlier, Amy disappears, hoping to frame Nick for
“killing” her. It becomes clear that Amy is truly unhinged and that much of her
diary entries are complete fabrication.
All
of it leads to the showdown between the couple, with Nick attempting to win Amy
back. It is his goal, in the process, to clear his name and perhaps exact his
own revenge. With so much hate, angst, and strife, it is unlikely that Nick
will ever forget Amy’s actions, but as the story closes, and the couple is
still together, readers are left to wonder if Nick can ever truly forgive Amy
and raise their child together.
Like
Gone Girl, Sister Dear is very much about love, loss, betrayal, and forgiveness.
Similar to Amy Dunne in Gone Girl,
Emma Marshall grew up in a privileged household. Her parents aren’t wealthy,
but Emma’s father is a prominent veterinarian in Brunswick, Ga. Though she
doesn’t lose her job, like Amy, Emma does bounce around in life, attempting to
find her place between college and her career goals, all the while watching her
older sister, Allie, achieve everything she sets her mind to, including the
graceful handling of single motherhood.
Though
Emma is not as calculating as Amy, who spends a year plotting revenge against
Nick, Emma does live with the knowledge that she could have saved her sister
from spending a decade inside Arrendale State Prison. Emma tells her story
through Caroline, her niece and Allie’s daughter. She recreates reality for
Caroline, much like the “reality” created through Amy Dunne’s diary. Since
Caroline is too young to remember her mother for who she was before her arrest,
Emma weaves her own version of the story—convincing herself that keeping Allie
locked up is just penance for her sister’s part in taking away the man she
loves.
When
Allie finally discovers that she has been betrayed, she doesn’t hatch her own
plan, like Nick, to draw Emma back in and get revenge. Allie confronts her
sister and asks for a confessional. She focuses on rebuilding her relationship
with her daughter, her family, and her former fiancé Ben. Caroline, in turn, finds
truth and forgives her mother.
Gone Girl
and Sister Dear are full of
disturbing characters, driven by jealousy and revenge. Both novels illustrate
family dysfunction, the pain caused by keeping secrets, and the lasting loss
that results from exacting revenge. Though Amy Dunne and Emma Marshall want
desperately to right the “wrongs” they believe were done to them, neither woman
takes responsibility for the harm they have caused to others, and therefore,
neither wins anything in the end.
In
contrast, Allie chooses forgiveness, allowing her to go on with her life. This,
by no means, erases all that has been done to Allie, nor does it give back the
ten years of her life that were lost inside Arrendale State Prison. But by
forgiving Emma, Allie sets herself free and allows the past to exist—where it
belongs—in the past.
Do you have a favorite story
about love, loss, and forgiveness?
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