The ‘cool Wife’ Turned ‘nasty’ A Reading Of The Femme Fatale In Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl

Abstract

This article rewrites the Femme Fatale as the “trickster” and the “nasty woman” in the American novel Gone Girl (2012), by Gillian Flynn. Both concepts represent a threat not just to traditional gender roles but also to the contemporary depiction of women in fiction. The figure of Amy is central to this discussion of a subversive discourse that places her against traditional gendered masculine novels that depict males as intellectual, active yet females as Cool Girls. This article provides an innovative analysis of Amy that expands on the current debate; both in terms of women’s, gender and sexuality studies. It demonstrates the “trickster woman” in contemporary fiction- whose unethical perversion marks a shift in the contemporary literary scene. It argues that female “nastiness and trickery” have provided Amy with flexible strategies through which she can undermine taboo subjects and put herself as the prototype to the Ultra Nasty Femme Fatale.