Analysis of Amy and Nick's Use of Persuasion in 'Gone Girl'

Identification of characters in the film

Nick Dunne

Either a misunderstood person or psychotic murderer? Abused child or abused husband? Throughout the film, Nick Dunne unfolds to be many things. A former writer, he ends up owning a bar with his twin sister Margo after getting laid off from his job during the recession. Nick Dunne grew up in the town of Missouri and returns there to support his sister in helping care for their terminally ill mother, and mentally unstable father. Nick tends to say things impulsively at the wrong times which involves in him being perceived out of his favor during the investigation.

Nicks relationship is critical in shaping the character. Nick initially fell in love with Amy because she was “fun”. She was funny and made him laugh and along the way she laughed too. However, as time passed by, things changed. The laughter had stopped, she got moody all the time and she became distant. This is probably due to her being tired of keeping up the masquerade she was playing all along, the “Cool Girl”.

Amy Dunne

Funny, smart, and with great personality, that’s Amy Dunne. She is the inspiration for her parents’ popular book ‘Amazing Amy’. Being the real-life version of a beloved fictional character, it made standards high for Amy since she was a child. Always a perfectionist, Amy can’t help but chase perfectionism. As she said in the film, “I can’t fail to notice that whenever I screw something up, Amy does it right,”. Always trying to be ‘Amazing Amy’ she would pick up an array of skills such as learning French techniques, becoming fluent in Spanish, gardening, and knitting. She needed to be ‘Amazing Amy’ all the time.

With all that being said, there’s a huge problem with Amy which ends up consuming her marriage. According to her, Nick did not fall in love with me, he fell in love with a girl that didn’t exist. At the time and moment where she fell in love with Nick, she was portraying a cool girl that she knew Nick would be interested in, an alter ego known as “Cool Girl”. Amy describes her as a hot, beautiful woman with an intelligent mind, a great sense of humor, and doesn’t mind doing guy stuff like watching football, eating fast food and drinking beer. She did this in the name of winning Nick over.

The strategies and tactics of persuasion used by characters

Strategies and tactics of persuasion Amy uses to accomplish her goal

Amy Elliott Dunne who is one of the main characters in the movie “Gone Girl” has done many unbelievable strategies and tactics of persuasion to accomplish her goals in the film. Her goal in the film is to end the unhappy, gruesome marriage. She has played out the self-fabricated scenario to his husband, Nick who has suspected of being a murderer. She has been preparing everything very thoroughly to make his husband into a murderer who killed wife. She wanted to revenge Nick because he has twisted her happy marriage life by taking her time, money, heart and so on. Also, Amy wanted to have a baby to save the marriage, but Nick refused because he had wanted to end marriage life between Amy and him. Soon, Amy found that her husband Nick’s plan to end marriage life with her, she eagerly wanted to revenge him who was totally different from the person whom she knew.

Amy has used variety types of horrifying strategies to persuade people around her and worldwide to achieve her goals. To persuade and make them to her side, she has prepared the plans to revenge Nick thoroughly. Before Amy has carried out any actions to make Nick as a murderer, she had started the strategy of staying close with her neighborhood whom she never stayed close at all when she had had lived there at first. While Amy stayed close with her neighborhood, she made up false stories such as the difficult part of marriage that she has faced, the number of violence and many more. From here, we can see that Amy is persuading her neighborhood who can stand for her side and making her to believe and trust Amy.

Another strategy that Amy has used to persuade people is to invite her pregnant neighbor to her house and stole pregnant neighbor’s urine and receive a pregnancy diagnosis in advance using its urine. Actually, Amy was not pregnant at first place but to drive Nick to the wrong way, she had used her pregnant neighborhood friend to leave the false evidence of pregnancy in the house. From here, we can see that Amy is persuading and using her pregnant neighborhood as a part of her tools which needed to achieve and fulfil her goal.

Those two strategies that are mentioned above made the things are going well for Amy. It made Nick more suspicious as a murderer of Amy who has no idea of her relationship with the pregnant neighborhood when police have investigated about the case of missing Amy and found out Amy and her pregnant neighbor were close together.

Other strategy that Amy has used to persuade people to trust and believe her is to draw her own blood from her body and sprayed it all over the house area to leave the bloodstain as the evidence to deceive as Amy killed by Nick. Amy has put her blood everywhere in the house and cleaning it then repeating the same thing for a few times to make obvious that Nick killed Amy. From here, we can see that Amy is persuading the people to believe the scenario that Nick killed her with the obvious bloodstain around the house areas.

Lastly, Amy also has used Nick’s credit card to buy the products such as drone, robot dog, golf stick and many more to support evidence that Amy had lived such a tough life with Nick because he bought a lot of things even though he doesn’t have job and played game most of time at home. She also got a signature of Nick for increasing insurance form so that polices would suspect Nick as a murderer due to these two reasons that are mentioned above too.

Strategies and tactics of persuasion Nick uses to accomplish his goal

Nick Dunne who is another main character in the movie “Gone Girl” has done many strategies and tactics of persuasion to accomplish his goals in the film. His goal in the film is to expose his wife, Amy Elliott Dunne and make her to tell the truth. The reason why he wanted to expose and make her to tell the truth is because she has done self-fabricated scenario that she was killed by Nick and through that make him into a murderer who killed wife.

Nick has used variety types of strategies to persuade people around him to achieve his goal. His strategy to persuade to achieve his goal is to follow the traces of Amy with the clues that Amy had placed at specific places. Each clue was written with mysterious poets which directing specific places that Nick has been to before. Nick and Amy used to play this play known as ‘treasure hunt’ every anniversary to give anniversary gift to each other. From this, we can see that Nick is trying to expose her wife, Amy and make her to tell the truth about what she had done.

After Nick found out the last clue left by Amy and went to the place where 5th anniversary gift was placed at. Nick knew that his wife, Amy have targeted him as a murderer when he knew the meaning of 5th anniversary gift that left by her. Soon, Nick went to the lawyer who supported him on the broadcasting and had had some advice from him based on the problem that he was facing. With the advice of lawyer, his strategy to achieve his goal is to meet Amy’s ex-boyfriends who used to meet Amy and went to jail for sexual cases. After meeting her ex-boyfriends and listening closely to the incidents that what happened to them, Nick has discovered that it is her plot which everything planned by her. From that, he knew that Amy was still alive, and she has framed her ex-boyfriends for crimes that they have never committed at all such as record for rape, sexual assault, stalker and many more. Based on all this, Nick knew that his wife, Amy was a psycho and all her ex-boyfriends were her victims and she was acting as a victim all the time.

Actually, Nick wanted to confess to the public about cheating with his girl student first and tried to make the public his side. But then everything has gone when his girlfriend announced about cheating first. However, Nick came out to the TV talk show and went head-to-head to confront the bad public opinion on him about missing Amy. In this situation, he has used the strategy that appealed sincerely to Amy to forgive him and asked her to return to home with tears on the TV talk show. As public opinion gets better, now public likes Nick which they initially dislike him at first. From this, we can see that Nick is trying to make his wife, Amy to come out to the public and making her to tell the truth about everything that happened so far.

Identification of the characters' goals

The goal of Nick Dunne

For the first half of the film, it may have looked like Nick Dunne had perhaps murdered his wife the all loving Amy. She has disappeared under very mysterious circumstances, and Nick has shown to be lying to the police during the investigation. He is revealed to have a young mistress which he was having an affair with, it is non-other than his student Andie whom which he makes love with during the disappearance of Amy. It is then revealed that Nick isn’t really a good guy after all. Despite that, he is no murderer-instead he is actually the victim of his wife framing him for the murder. Yes, his wife is indeed psychotic and has planned everything in detail to frame him of murder.

Nick initially thinking that his wife is actually missing, makes it his goal to find her and get her home. Even though he may not want her back in the first place. He contacts the police which launches a huge investigation in order to find his missing wife Amy. They set up press conferences, news reports, and posters in hopes of finding her. However, during the search for Amy, it is revealed that Nick is having was and currently still is having an affair with his student Andie. This unveils the nature of Nick and how he was unhappy in his marriage with Amy. Nick’s twin sister finds out about the affair and has a breakdown. They contact Nick’s defense attorney Tanner Bolt about the situation being worried that what would happen if the public knew about the affair.

After discussion with his sister and Tanner, they ultimately suggest Nick confesses about the whole affair live on television in hopes of the public forgiving him and to show that he has nothing to hide. In a turn of events, Nick goes to his sister’s woodshed and finds things Amy bought to frame Nick of the murder. Now knowing the true nature of his missing wife, he makes it his goal to lure her out and exposing her. When Andie confesses to the public before Nick gets a chance to do so first, Nick hatches a plan to lure her out on live television by using words that are sentimental to her in hopes she would fall for it.

The goal of Amy Dunne

By looking at the evolution of her character, it makes it obvious that she has an obsession with controlling others. She doesn’t settle for getting what she wants, she wants control of everything. She controls Nick throughout the marriage but at a controlled pace to say the least. The thing which set up her goal to frame Nick of murder was the discovery of his affair with his student Andie. If she hadn’t found out about her affair, she wouldn’t have had the plan to frame him in the first place. It was the last straw for her after being dragged out of New York and into Missouri.

As she explains in the movie, simply divorcing him isn’t enough. She quote “Nick must be taught a lesson. He’s never been taught a lesson.” At that moment it was clear, her motive is to frame her husband for murder.

Knowing Amy, this plan wasn’t going to be lackluster. She spent a year. Putting the pieces together carefully, including saving up money, convincing other that she fears blood, stealing her neighbor’s pregnant urine, and writing in detail a diary of her life that dates back from before Nick and her got married. This intensity of her nature is shown to be more extreme as she is also contemplating suicide in order to get Nick the death sentence.

The scariest thing of her nature is that she’ll do anything in order to get what she wants. This includes blackmailing, committing murder, and getting people to submit to her as long as she sees Nick on death row for cheating on her.

Evaluation of the characters' ethics 

In my opinion, Amy Dunne was not ethical in this whole movie she lied and manipulated thousands of people and lied to her friends and family into believing that her husband was an abuser and also just using her for her money. Here are some examples of how she persuaded and manipulated people into believing her based on the what I have studied.

In the movie she lies, cheat and manipulate her husband. One of the first example of her unethical communication and behaviour is when Amy goes on to purchase many expensive electronics such as a plasma screen television, a robot dog and many more with credit card that she put under Nick’s (her husband) name to create a credit card debt, She also made her husband sign an insurance letter while he was distracted playing games to increase her life insurance to further make everyone believe that Nick actually killed her and that he planned and staged the whole crime scene and the scavenger hunt.

Besides that, she also lied to her neighbour into believing that she was pregnant, and that Nick has been psychically abusing her and that she fears her might murder her. She later goes on to invite her neighbour to her house and makes her drink a lot of juice so that she would go to the toilet where Amy has drained the toilet bowl so she could steal her urine to fake her pregnancy. All the lies that Amy said to manipulate the neighbour worked exactly how she wanted it to work and as planned, the neighbour came out when he was giving a speech about his missing wife and she told everyone that he physically abused her and that she was pregnant which at that time nobody knew that she was.

Lastly and arguably the person that got manipulated, lied and cheated the most was Desi Collings. Desi Collings was Amy’s ex-boyfriend who grew obsessed with her so, she used his emotions and sympathy against him and hide out at one of his houses where he promised to keep her safe. At this point Amy had lost all her money and her plan was going all wrong so she was desperate to find a way to get home and make it seem like she was kidnapped. She saw that his house had camera’s and used it to her advantage. She used her body language and her sex appeal to get him to have sex with her before he leaves to work then she drags herself to the camera and starts crying and acted like she got raped. Amy then used the same persuasion tactic to make him have sex with her but before that she had made a plan and kept a box cutter under the pillow. After she persuaded him, she brought him to the bed and made him take out his clothes. While they were having sex, she took the box cutter from under the bed and slit his throat and pretended to escape the house. Later when she got back home and was speaking to the police, the head investigator started to have some doubts about her story and started to ask more complicating questions, she then said she couldn’t talk anymore as she wasn’t feeling so well while the head investigator still tried to get something out of her, the head of the precinct stopped the head investigator and told Amy she could leave. Amy used sympathy and tricked the head of the precinct to stop the asking her questions.

At the end of the movie, Amy blackmails Nick to make sure that he doesn’t leave her for the younger girl and doesn’t get the divorce. Amy threatens him by saying if he files for a divorce, she is going to make sure the whole America hates him. She goes on to say how will people look at you if you divorced your wife after such a traumatic experience she has been through while also having his baby. In fear that Nick might not get a job and live a normal like with another girl, he stayed with Amy without a choice.

Amy Dunne was very unethical in the movie but Nick Dunne (her husband) has a bit of blame to take for her behaviour as well.

Nick Dunne and Amy started of a perfect couple but when Nick’s mother fell sick, they moved to Missouri and Nick did not even discuss it with Amy. He was very unethical, inconsiderate and selfish. Besides that, Nick cheated on Amy with a younger girl that he met. He lied to Amy saying he had a business meeting to attend and he had to leave for 3 days when he went out with the younger girl he was cheating on. Nick lied and cheated her into believing that he had a business meeting.

Nick also had a twin sister named Go. She supported him throughout the whole movie and had his back even when he was seen as being guilty. While the investigation was going on Nick stayed at Go’s house till the investigation was done. When Nick seemed guilty to everyone Go asked him to tell her the truth and said she wouldn’t say anything if you did something wrong, Nick say he didn’t and lied about his affair. Go later found out when Nick’s affair snaked to Go’s house and got really mad. Nick directly lied to Go even when she helped him so much and promised she wouldn’t say anything. That was very unethical and stupid of Nick to do.

Not only did Nick lie to his sister but he also lied to the head of the investigator of the investigation detective Rhonda. While searching for clues for Nick’s scavenger hunt, Nick lies to Detective Rhonda and tell her that he doesn’t know the second clue and had no idea where to search for but that night he went to the place where the third clue was. The third clue was at Nick’s fathers house where he was caught by Detective Rhonda and lied again, he told Detective Rhonda that he came to check on his father.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Amy and Nick effectively used persuasion but they used it for a very selfish and unethical reason. This movie has used persuasion very effectively to tell the story at the same time I get to learn and understand and relate it back to what I have learned.