Distortion of Reality in Gone Girl

Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, as a postmodern novel, depicts a society in which reality is very instable and difficult to grasp, thus while reading the novel, the feeling of indeterminacy prevails. To gain a better understanding of this novel, a postmodern approach has been chosen. Jean Baudrillard who is one of the major postmodern thinkers, focuses on the nature of reality and its meaning. Baudrillard’s concepts of simulation and hyper-reality refer to a particular image which do not necessarily embody the reality and thus it is indistinguishable from real. In distortion of reality, Baudrillard contends media plays a substantial role. Consequently, the ideas of the media theorist, Marshal McLuhan is added to propose a comprehensive picture as to how and why reality is being constantly distorted in the media-saturated world of Gone Girl. According to McLuhan, Television has changed our normal perception and our understanding of the world. McLuhan holds that Television culture is a culture of simultaneity, discontinuity and all-at-one ness. The results show that under the pressure of media and pop culture Amy, the main character of Gone Girl, has lost her real self and turned into hyper-real version of herself. Similarly, Nick is changed from a hot character to a cool figure to meet the expectations of media at the expense of his real self. Moreover, throughout Gone Girl, reality is continuously being replaced by simulation without the possibility of separating the two

Keywords:

Agency , Budrillard , Gone Girl , Hyper-real , Media Studies , McLuhan , Postmodernism , Simulation