The Performance of Marriage and Manipulations Within: A Dramaturgical Analysis of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the performative aspects of gender roles and the complex relationships they engender through the medium of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012). The paper employs Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis from The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and, through it, studies the protagonists Nick and Amy Dunne, with a deep focus on how these characters construct and deconstruct their roles by performing and eventually subverting them. The dramaturgical approach compares social interactions as a form of self-performance, and by examining the performances of these characters in their marriage, this paper illustrates how marriage itself becomes a stage where boundaries between authenticity and performance are constantly blurred, redefined, and reconstructed through their frontstage and backstage behaviours. Role performance and impression management are also studied. The analysis highlights the performative aspects of both personal and socially constructed identities, demonstrating how Gone Girl serves as a nuanced commentary on performative societal roles and relationships.