THE DISINGENUOUS HISTRIONIC PERSONALITY ...

THE DISINGENUOUS HISTRIONIC PERSONALITY DISORDER

AND THE MENTAL PROCESS OF AMY ELIOTT DUNNE IN

FLYNN’S GONE GIRL

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree Sarjana Sastra

in English Letter

By

BERNADETA KHARISMA PUTRI NINDITA

Student Number: 154214072

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS

UNIVERSITAS SANATA DHARMA

YOGYAKARTA

2019

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ii

THE DISINGENUOUS HISTRIONIC PERSONALITY DISORDER

AND THE MENTAL PROCESS OF AMY ELIOTT DUNNE IN

FLYNN‟S GONE GIRL

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree Sarjana Sastra

in English Letter

By

BERNADETA KHARISMA PUTRI NINDITA


DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS

UNIVERSITAS SANATA DHARMA

YOGYAKARTA

2019


A S*ry*no. Srsstrct Undergraduate Thesis

THE DISIF{GENUOfTS IIXSTRICINIC PERSO]YALITYDISORilER AN} THE MENTAL PROCESS OF AMY

EI,LIOTT DUNNE IN FLYNiT'S GOITS GTRL

81.

BERN'ASETA KHARISMA PUTRT NINB{TA

Stude*t Number: 154214072

Appr*ved by

i'uulrrc Sarrr,otu. 5 5. M 4- i'h.ii .iLrli; 12" ,ll] I *

-i\ Li "r' i >tjl

i-irs. t{irmarva-r Wijanarka, fu{.Hurx .

Ct-Advis*r

July 12" 2019

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A Sag*na Sastra Undergraduate Thesis

THE DISINGENUOUS HISTRTOI\IIC PERSO}{ALITYDISORDER AND THE MEF{TAL PROCESS OF AMY

ELLIOTT D{.]-NI{E II{ FLYN]Y'S GONTE GIRL

By

BERNADETA KIIARISMA PUTRI NINDITA


Dsfended before the Board of Exarniners

on July 22.2019

and Declared Acceptable

BOARD OF EXAM1NERS

I{AIVIE

Chairperscn : Pauhis Sarrvoto, S.S, M.A, Ph.D

Secretary : Drs. Hirmawan lVijanarka, M.Hum"

Memtrer 1 : Ni Luh Puhr Rosiandani, S.S, M.Hurn.

L4ember 2 : Palrlus Sarwoto, S.S, N4.A, Ph.D.

Member 3 : Drs. Hinnawan Wijanarka, M.Hum.

iv

SIGNATTIRE

/ .-,.'-'rl

ii

:,,l,a. l

June 31,2019of Lefters


STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

I certify that this undergraduate thesis contains no material which has been

previously submitted for the award of any other degree at any university, and

that,-to the best of my knowledge, this undergraduate thesis contains no material

previously written by any other person except where due reference is made in text

of the undergraduate thesis.

Bernadeta Kharisma Putri Nindita

Yogyakarta, July 12, 2019


LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASIKARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTIINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertandatangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Unversitas Sanata Dharma

Nama : Bernadeta K.harisma Putri Nindita

NomorMahasiswa :154214072

Demi pengembangan ilmu ppengetahuan,saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan

Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul

THE DISINGENUOUS HISTRIONIC PERSONALITYDISORDER AND THE MENTAL PROCESS OF'AMY

ELLIOTT DUNNE IN FLYNN'S GONE GIRL

beserta perangkat yang diperlukan. Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepadaPerpstakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hakk untuk menyimpan, mengalihkandalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuuk pangkalan data,

mendisribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempubikasikannya di internet rtau medialain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpaperllu meminta ijin kkepada saya maupunmemberika royalty kepada saya selamatetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagaiipenulis.

Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

Dibuat di Yogyakarta

Pada tanggal 12 Juli20l9

Yang menyatakan, "-k_-J I

"-_4 IltW(

vl

Bernadeta Kharisma Putri Nidita


vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Paulus Sarwoto, S.S., M.A., Ph.D.

for his guidance and his enlightenment. I also thank Drs, Hirmawan Wijanarka,

M.Hum and Ni Luh Putu Rosiandani, S.S, M.Hum for all their advice and

guidance. Moreover, I thank my brother, my father and my mother and my

another-father for every support, prayers, and affection.

I also thank my family in Bjong Ngopi for always provides me a safe shelter

whenever I lose my home for this whole four years of my college life, and also to

Cik Uwi who inspires me to learn about psychology.

I would give my profound gratitude towards my close friends; Ulli, Uncle

Ben, Vera, Ringga, my thesis‟ mates; Taji, and Hugo, and also many other

persons that I cannot mention. May God bless you with grace for patiently

accompanied and faced my instant mood swings, or depressive episode while I

was doing the process of writing. I also express gratitude to my personal

supervisor, Febby, for all the advices for my writing, and to all my beloved

Kopma Gengs; Inno, Ega, Garda, Magot, and the others who have got along with

me since the first day in campus. I thank you for all your patients, dedications and

inspirations, so that my writing is now complete. Finally, my greatest gratitude is

only for myself because I do not give up even if I had to face a lot of difficulties

and obstacles in the process on this writing.

Bernadeta Kharisma Putri Nindita


viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE ........................................................................................................ ii

APPROVAL PAGE ............................................................................................. iii

ACCEPTANCE PAGE ........................................................................................ iv

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY .................................................................... v

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH

UNTUK KEPENTIINGAN AKADEMIS ............................................................. vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................ vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................... viii

ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................... x

ABSTRAK ............................................................................................................ xi

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................ 1

A. Background of the Study .............................................................................. 1

B. Problem Formulation ................................................................................... 2

C. Objectives of the Study ................................................................................ 3

D. Definitions of Terms. ................................................................................... 3

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE .................................................... 5

A. Review of Related Studies ........................................................................... 5

B. Review of Related Theories ............................................................................ 9

1. Theory of Character and Characterization ................................................. 10

2. The Concept of Disingenuous Histrionic Personality Disorder ................ 12

3. Sigmund Freud‟s Theory of Psychoanalysis ............................................. 16

C. Theoretical Framework ................................................................................ 22

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY .................................................................. 23

A. Object of the Study ...................................................................................... 23

B. Approach of the Study ................................................................................. 24

C. Method of the Study ..................................................................................... 25

CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS ............................................................................... 27


ix

A. The Characteristic of Amy Elliott as a Person with Disingenuous

Histrionic Personality Disorder ................................................................. 27

1. Intelligent ................................................................................................ 29

2. Manipulative ........................................................................................... 33

3. Egocentric ............................................................................................... 38

4. Cruel ....................................................................................................... 42

B. The Mental Process of Amy Elliott in Manifesting Personality Disorder .... 44

1. Amy‟s Id ................................................................................................. 44

2. Amy‟s Ego .............................................................................................. 50

3. Amy‟s Superego ..................................................................................... 55

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION .......................................................................... 59

REFERENCES .................................................................................................... 61


x

ABSTRACT

BERNADETA KHARISMA PUTRI NINDITA. (2019). The Disingenuous

Histrionic Personality Disorder and Mental Process of Amy Elliot in Flynn’s

Gone Girl. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata

Dharma University.

Gone Girl is a thriller novel with a very unique plot twist in the middle of

the story. The beginning of the novel makes the reader automatically see the main

character, Amy Elliott Dunne, as a victim of a very bad husband who murders his

wife. Amy herself is the main subject that runs a scheme to accuse her husband as

her murderer. Therefore, a psychological theory on personality disorder, and

Freudian psychoanalysis are used to reveal her personality disorder, and the

mental process in manifesting the disorder.

There are two objectives of this study. The first objective is to analyze

how Amy‟s characteristics reveal disingenuous histrionic personality disorder.

This objective find the symptoms of disingenuous histrionic personality disorder

through the Amy‟s characteristics. The second objective is to observe the mental

process of her disorder through Freudian psychoanalysis in Amy Elliott Dunne.

The method of this study is library research. The main source of this study

is the original copy of Gone Girl novel. There are also several books of literary

theories, psychological theories, and also psychoanalytical theories which are

used as references. The theory of character and characterization, then the concept

of disingenuous histrionic personality disorder are used to answer the first

objective, then Freud‟s psychoanalytical theory is used to answer the second

objective.

There are two findings in this study. The first finding of this study shows

Amy Elliott Dunne‟s characteristics that are intelligent, manipulative, egocentric

and cruel reveal all the features of a person with disingenuous histrionic

personality disorder. Then, the second finding is how the mental process of Amy

Elliott Dunne leads her to manifest her disorder by observing her id which desires

revenge for her husband because of the treason that activates the death instinct,

her ego which always try to fulfill the demands of her id, and superego which is

corrupted by her id.

Keywords: Disingenuous Histrionic Personality Disorder, Mental Process, The

Id, The Ego, The Superego.


xi

ABSTRAK

BERNADETA KHARISMA PUTRI NINDITA. (2019). The Disingenuous

Histrionic Personality Disorder and Mental Process of Amy Elliot in Flynn’s

Gone Girl. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra,

Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Gone Girl adalah sebuah novel thriller dengan perubahan alur cerita yang

unik. Pada awal cerita, novel ini membuat pembacanya percaya bahwa si karakter

utama, Amy Elliott Dunne, merupakan korban dari suami jahat yang membunuh

istrinya. Di tengah cerita, ternyata Amy sendirilah yang menjadi subjek utama

yang menjalankan rencana jahat untuk mendakwa suaminya sebagai

pembunuhnya. Maka dari itu, teori psikologi mengenai gangguan kepribadian dan

teori psikoanalisis kepribadian menurut Sigmund Freud digunakan untuk

mengungkapkan gangguan kepribadian yang diderita Amy, dan proses mentalnya

dalam menunjukan gangguan kepribadiannya.

Ada dua tujuan dalam penelitian ini. Tujuan yang pertama adalah untuk

menganalisa karakteristik Amy yang mengungkapkan gangguan kepribadian

histrionik subtipe disingenuous atau tidak tulus. Di sini ditemukan beberapa

simptom atau gejala gangguan kepribadian histrionik subtipe disingenuous pada

karakteristik Amy. Tujuan yang kedua adalah untuk mengobservasi proses mental

dalam menunjukkan gangguan kepribadian Amy melalui pendekatan psikoanalisis

menurut Sigmund Freud.

Metodologi yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah studi kepustakaan.

Sumber utama pada penelitian ini adalah buku novel Gone Girl. Ada pula

beberapa buku mengenai teori literatur, teori psikologi, and juga teori

psikoanalisis yang digunakan sebagai referensi. Teori karakter dan karakterisasi

oleh M. J. Murphy dan konsep mengenai gangguan kepribadian histrionik subtipe

disingenuous oleh Theodore Millon digunakan untuk mengungkapkan gangguan

yang di derita Amy. Teori psikoanalisis kepribadian menurut Sigmund Freud

digunakan untuk mengobservasi proses mental Amy.

Ada dua hasil dalam penelitian ini. Hasil penelitian yang pertama adalah

karakteristik Amy Elliott Dunne yang menunjukan adanya tendensi gangguan

kepribadian histrionic subtipe disingenuous. Lalu hasil kedua adalah cara proses

mental Amy yang mengakibatkan munculnya tendensi gangguan kepribadian dari

observasi id, ego, dan superego menurut psikoanalisis kepribadian Sigmund

Freud.

Kata Kunci: Disingenuous Histrionic Personality Disorder, Mental Process, The

Id, The Ego, The Superego.


1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Literary work is one of media which is able to give us knowledge, images,

values, and also explorations in our life. Literary works such as novel, short

story, and also poem have their special ways to create the story, plot, the conflict

and also describe the character through the portrays of human experiences. In

some ways, it makes us able to reflect our experiences which are related to the

plots, conflicts, or the characters of the works. However, one of the most

influential elements in literary works that we can reflect on, is the character

itself.

Characters are those who undergo the story and also face the conflict. In A

Glossary of Literary Terms, a character is a “sketch in prose of distinctive type

of person” (Abrams & Harpham, 2009, p. 42). Characters are not only

undergoing the story and facing the conflict, but their characteristics may also

indicate personality disorders.

Amy Elliott Dunne in Flynn‟s Gone Girl shows her personality indicates a

psychopathy which presents an image of female villain. Her acts that represent a

psychopathic woman lead my research to be more specific on analyzing what

kind of disorder sticks in Amy. Many researchers have assumed Amy‟s

personality and conclude that she has several different personality disorders such

as anti-social personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and


2

borderline personality disorder and so on. My research has different perception

on analyzing the disorder through understanding her intention of doing her acts.

It is very fascinating to find out that attention becomes such an absolute

definition of ideal happiness to Amy. She decides to fulfill her happiness by

committing revenge to her husband to get what she desires, which is attention.

Once she gets her husband‟s attention, she comes back to him. Seeing her

intention to do her act for the sake of attention reminds me of a personality

disorder called histrionic personality disorder.

The fundamental aim of this thesis is to explore the relation between Amy

Elliot‟s histrionic personality disorder and her psychopathic acts through the

concept of the disingenuous histrionic personality disorder. To understand more

deeply about how she manifest such disorder, this research also analyses the

mental process of her disorder. Amy Elliot as the main character is the object of

this research to understand the disingenuous histrionic personality disorder by

employing an approach that is psychoanalytic approach.

B. Problem Formulation

Based on the background, the thesis aims to address the following problems:

1. How do the characteristics of Amy Elliott Dunne reveal the tendency of

the disingenuous histrionic personality disorder in Flynn‟s Gone Girl?

2. How does the mental process of Amy Elliot Dunne lead her to manifest the

disorder in Flynn‟s Gone Girl?


3

C. Objectives of the Study

The purpose of doing this research is to address the problems in the

problem formulation. This research has two main objectives in Flynn‟s Gone

Girl. The first is by observing the characteristics of Amy Elliot which reveal the

characteristic of histrionic personality disorder and its relation to the features of

psychopathy. The last but not least by analyzing the mental process of Amy

Elliot that leads her to manifest her personality disorder.

D. Definitions of Terms.

In order to avoid misinterpretation and misunderstanding, it is necessary to

provide the definitions of some important and recurring terms used in this study.

The first one is the disingenuous histrionic personality disorder. According to

Millon (2004, p. 300) the disingenuous histrionic is the combination of histrionic

personality trait and antisocial personality features. The current edition of the

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM-V-TR: American

Psychiatric Association [APA], 2012,) defines histrionic personality disorder

primarily as a pervasive pattern of excessive emotionally and attention seeking

that begin early adulthood and presents across situations (APA, 2012, p. 667),

while the antisocial personality disorder itself can be defined as a pervasive

pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of other that begins in

childhood, or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.

The second one is the mental process. The mental process is a term that is

used to describe psychological process in individual‟s mind. According to Hall


4

(1954, pp.22-35), the mental process itself is divided into three major systems of

personality that are the id, the ego and the superego in Freudian psychoanalysis.


5

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

A. Review of Related Studies

Since Gillian Flynn‟s Gone Girl is published in 2012, it soon makes the

New York Times Bestseller list. A film adaptation, starring Ben Affleck and

Rosamund Pike is also released two years after the book published. It shows

how Flynn‟s Gone Girl is very interesting, worth, and addictive for everyone to

read. Some criticisms toward Flynn‟s Gone Girl also come up not long after the

book released, and until now, the book itself is still very popular to be discussed

in many media. There are three criticisms toward Flynn‟s Gone Girl and two

other criticisms toward psychopathy and the mental process through Freudian

psychoanalysis that are related to the topic of this study that are used as a

comparison to this analysis.

The first analysis is written by Stephanie Orman. On her thesis, entitled

“What a Perfect Monster!” Gone Girl Destabilization of Feminine Archetypes

in Popular Media, she explains how Gone Girl offers an image of female villain

and her embodiments of monstrosity. The problem formulation starts with a

hypothesis of Flynn‟s heroine, Amy Elliott, in an archetypal portrayal of woman

as victim of a male monster before intentionally and violently overturning that

assumption. Using a psychoanalytic approach inspired by Barbara Creed‟s

notion of the „Monstrous Feminine‟, Orman mentions that Gone Girl‟s place

within lineage of genres, its self-aware manipulation of tropes, and its depiction

of gendered roles that are both constructed and malleable, destabilizes


6

archetypes of monstrous women and feminine victims (Orman, 2016, p.17). The

thesis intention itself is to highlight the topic on how men‟s attitude and

behavior can affect women‟s mental health. Orman notices that Amy Elliott

becomes a villain since she is betrayed by her husband.

The second analysis is written by Rajlakshmi Kanjilal on her article,

entitled In Search of the “Real Amy”: An Analysis of Gone Girl. She explains

about how gender stereotype could negatively affect women in society. In the

journal, (Kanjilal, 2016, pp. 101-104), she reflects what Amy does to her

husband is all because Amy needed to confront her thoughts and feeling for

being a victim. Amy thinks that she sacrifices anything for her husband, because

in gender role, that is what women should do to respect man, but she ends up

being betrayed. According to that reason, Amy starts to do her revenge in order

to teach her husband a lesson to not disrespect women. Kanjilal also adds that

Amy‟s act is kind of a source of inspiration to women, so then women should

not feel invisible and conform to gender stereotype.

The third analysis which is related to personality disorder is written by

Gilang Pertiwi on her article entitled Amy‟s Personality Disorder in Flynn’s

Gone Girl: A Psychological Approach. In the article, she identifies Amy as a

person with antisocial personality disorder. She explains how Amy‟s behaviors

related to antisocial personality disorder by matching her acts to the

characteristic of the disorder, according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of

Mental Disorder fourth edition (DSM-4TR) by American Psychiatric

Association (APA). There are seven characteristics of antisocial personality


7

disorder including failure to conform social norms, deceitfulness, impulsivity,

irritability, and aggressiveness, reckless disregard for safety of self and others,

consistent irresponsibility, and lack of remorse. In the analysis, Pertiwi finds six

out of seven characteristics of antisocial personality disorder which were shown

in Amy‟s behavior. She also finds the causes that drive Amy to her personality

disorder which are her husband and her parents (Pertiwi, 2016, pp. 72-73).

The fourth one is a criticism that is related to psychopathic behaviors.

The criticism is written by Caroline Logan, entitled La Femme Fatale: The

Female Psychopath in Fiction and Clinical Practice. It explains how a

psychopathic woman manifests the traits of their disorder. She analyzes three

famous female characters in fictions: Choderlos de Laclos‟ Les Liasons

Dangereuses; Cain‟s Mildred Pierce; and Jelinek‟s Die Klavierspielerin as her

research data to illustrate the presentation of psychopathic women, followed by

its causes and effects.

In the term of literature, a psychopathic woman is portrayed in bad

female character. The features which are related to the term psychopathy itself

are quite different with the psychopathy we have in common. It was because

what we had in literature was considered as only a relative observation relating

to the character, rather than a true scientific texts. Hence, the analysis toward

psychopathic women in literature will only show a disposition or tendency,

rather than a scientific analysis.

In her conclusion, using psychoanalytic approach, she mentions that a

number of points are raised by this exercise: that the harm psychopathic women


8

will do will be the most obvious in their intimate relationship; that psychopathic

women excel in manipulation of others and in the use of highly personal

aggression often of an emotion or relational kind to enforced their domination;

and that their hurtful acts are routine, often undetected, and their underlying

psychopathology rarely recognized (Logan, 2011, p. 125).

The fifth criticism that is used is related to the approach and the theories

that are used in this analysis. It is written by Dian Purnamasari on her

undergraduate thesis entitled A Psychoanalytical Study on Michael Swango’s

Psychopath in James Stewart’s Blind Eye. On the thesis, she analyzes how the

characteristics of Michael Swango are described as a psychopath. She also

analyzed the causes with Freud‟s psychoanalytic approach regarding to is, ego

and superego of the main character.

The theories that are used including the characterizations, relation

between literature and psychology, concept of psychopath and also theory of

psychanalysis helps her to answer her problem formulation. Firstly, she finds out

that the character which she analyzes truly has the tendencies of a psychopath.

There are six characteristics of psychopath that are antisocial, egoistic, irritable,

dominant, hypocritical and cruel which are found in Michael Swango‟s

characteristics. Then secondly, she finds out the causes that drive Swango to his

tendency of a psychopath through Freud‟s theory of psychoanalysis and it shows

how Swango becomes a psychopath due his incapability to make the balance

between his id and superego (Purnamasari, 2015, p.50).


9

From the five criticism above, they have different foci in analysis.

Related to Flynn‟s Gone Girl, the first one is focusing on how Flynn‟s Gone

Girl main character, Amy Elliott, represents both monster and victim of female

archetype. The second is focusing on how gender stereotypes can affect women

mental health in Flynn‟s Gone Girl. The third is focusing on Amy‟s personality

disorder that is antisocial personality disorder according to American Psychiatric

Association. Related to other criticism, the first is focusing on how psychopathic

women characters in three fictions manifest their traits. Then the last one is

focusing on the term of a psychopath and the causes. But related to the topic, all

the five criticism share the same analysis on psychological and psychoanalytic

approaches.

On the other hand, this study has a different focus from the five

criticisms above. This study explains about how the characteristics of Amy

Elliott Dunne reveal the tendency of histrionic personality disorder in relation to

psychopathy and how her mental process leads her to manifest such disorder in

which have not been explained in the five criticisms above. As the result, those

five criticisms show the relevant topic to the study in the aspect personality

disorder, psychopathy, and also Freudian psychoanalysis that is showed in

Flynn‟s Gone Girl.

B. Review of Related Theories

There are three theories which are used in this undergraduate thesis to help

me answer the problem formulation.


10

1. Theory of Character and Characterization

To analyze how a characterization of a character is described, the

researcher must learn how the character undergoes the story. Abrams and

Harpham‟s A Glossary of Literary Terms (2006, p. 20) explains how a reader

know the character‟s desire and feeling through the dialogue and attitude or

action from the characters. Character in literary works has contribution to

express, describe and show their influence or role toward the story that make the

reader can draw a conclusion regarding the characterization of a character. To

understand more deeply about the character‟s description, the researcher will use

Murphy‟s Understanding Unseen as the basic preference. Murphy explains nine

detailed techniques of characterization used by the author to describe the

character of a story. The following list are the nine techniques of

characterization according to Murphy (1972, pp. 161-173):

i. Personal Description

An author uses this method particularly to give descriptions of face,

body, and other physical appearances.

ii. Character as seen by another

The author can also describe a character through the eyes and opinion

of others.

iii. Speech

The author gives the reader some clues to a person‟s character in a book

through what the person says.


11

iv. Past life

By letting the reader learn about a character‟s past life, an author can

give the clue to events that have helped to shape a person‟s character.

v. Conversation of others

The author can also give the reader some clues to a person‟s character

through the conversation of other people and the things they say about

its character.

vi. Reactions

The author can give the reader a clue to a person‟s character by letting

them know how the person react to various situation and events.

vii. Direct comment

The author can also describe or comment on a person‟s character

directly.

viii. Thought

The author can give the reader direct knowledge or what a person is

thinking about.

ix. Mannerism

An author can describe a person‟s ways of behaving and habits which

may also tell the reader something about the character.


12

2. The Concept of Disingenuous Histrionic Personality Disorder

After knowing how the characteristic is described, the concept of

disingenuous histrionic personality disorder helps to explain how the character

has tendencies of having a personality disorder related to the main reason of how

the character undergoes the story. To begin, it is important to know what the

histrionic personality is. At some point, the tendency must be well-known in the

group or society or else, we use to see them directly nearby. For example, we

may encounter a person who is excessively wearing clothes or accessories to

draw attention in the public. This person may also act dramatically to impress

people by her or his act. Both of those conditions may become the indications of

histrionic personality.

The histrionic personality itself is not considered as a threat to society

rather than serial killers who try to murder anyone they want, but in some cases,

a histrionic person may sustain their personality to be extreme as we know as a

disorder. It can be shown in how the personality develops in a person, in which

she or he is satisfied for what they are, or else they crave for something bigger.

A histrionic person often gets depressed if she or he does not become the center

of attention, therefore, someone with histrionic personality may develop toward

pathology rather than normality if they do not get what they want.

Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is familiar to clinicians who attend

to personality pathology and to literature devotees who ponder the nature

of superficially dramatic, manipulative, and insatiably attention seeking

characters such as Blanche DuBois in Tennessee William‟s play A

Streetcar Named Desire (Blagov et al, 2007, p. 2013).


13

When someone is diagnosed as with histrionic personality disorder, they

may become dangerous to society, especially to the persons who are close to

them or the persons they are intended to get the attention from. It happens

because when the person who is diagnosed with the disorder does not get what

they want, or they demand something bigger, they will start find out the way to

get it. They may start acting dramatically upon something that is not really

happening, and even manipulating their relatives to instantly draw attention or

being loved by the others.

In general, the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of

Mental Disorder (DSM-V-TR: American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013)

defines that histrionic personality disorder primarily as a pervasive pattern of

excessive emotionally and attention seeking that begin early adulthood and

presents across situations. The person will be diagnosed with the disorder if they

meet five or more criteria of histrionic personality disorder. The first is being

uncomfortable in which he or she is not the center of attention. The second is

their interaction with other is often characterized by inappropriate sexually

seductive or provocative behaviors. The third is displaying rapidly shifting and

shallow expression of emotion, consistently uses physical appearance to draw

attention to self. The fourth is having style of speech that is excessively

impressionistic and lacking of detail. The fifth is showing self-dramatization,

theatricality, and exaggerate expression of emotion. The sixth is suggestible or

easily influence by others or circumstances, and lastly considers relationship to

be more intimate than they actually are (APA, 2013, p. 667). However, in some


14

cases, a person with histrionic personality disorder may show some patterns or

behaviors that are associated to another personality disorder.

Millon, Grossman, Meagher and Rammath (2004, p. 297) stated that

combinations with secondary patterns lead to coloration of the primary pattern,

though occasionally subtypes appear merely as a combination of the major trait.

There are six subtypes in histrionic personality disorder that are the appeasing

histrionic, the vivacious histrionic, the tempestuous histrionic, the disingenuous

histrionic, the theatrical histrionic and the last is the infantile histrionic. Each of

the subtypes has the combination between histrionic personality disorders with

six different features of other personality disorder. The appeasing histrionic is

associated with dependent compulsive personality features. The vivacious

histrionic is associated with narcissistic personality features. The tempestuous

histrionic is associated with negativistic features. The theatrical is variant of the

pure pattern of histrionic personality disorder. The infantile histrionic is

associated with borderline personality feature, and the disingenuous histrionic is

associated with antisocial personality features.

The concept of the disingenuous histrionic personality disorder is used in

this analysis because Amy Elliott Dunne shows the traits that are associated with

the combination of histrionic personality disorder and anti-social personality

disorder.

The essential feature of Antisocial Personality Disorder is a pervasive

pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in

childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood. This pattern

has also been referred to as psychopathy, sociopathy or dissocial

personality (APA, 2013, p. 659).


15

The combination of histrionic and antisocial features make the

disingenuous subtype more manipulative than the basic histrionic pattern and for

ends other than simple attention or approval. A basic histrionic person may

manipulates or fakes her relatives in order to gain attention, affection or even

sympathy, while a disingenuous histrionic person may extremely manipulates

her relative in order to achieve their goal such like revenge or destroy someone‟s

image in public. Their histrionic traits serve simply as convenient method of

making contact and opening doors but overlay and temporarily conceal

characteristic fundamental of antisocial, including a willingness to violate social

conventions, break promises, and shatter loyalties, behave irresponsibly, and

sometimes erupt with anger and physical confrontation. The individuals that

synergize the histrionic is more adaptive social skills, charm, and ability to read

the motives and desire of other with a rather calculated malevolence. They are

more egocentric, more willingly insincere, and probably more conscious of their

manipulations than the basic histrionic pattern. They often seem to enjoy conflict,

gaining a degree of gratifications or amusement from excitement and tension

thereby produced (Millon et al, 2004, p. 300).

The disingenuous histrionic also shows twelve features that as the pattern

of the combination of the major and secondary traits according to Millon. The

first trait is underhanded or acting in secret or in a dishonest way in which they

intend to deceive or trick someone. The second is double-dealing or doing the

act of tricking someone by hiding the real intention in which they intend to give

people disadvantage behind their back. The third is scheming or doing such an


16

ingenious way to out maneuver to address their goal in secret or in underhanded

plans. The fourth is contriving or able to create situation in clever way or by the

use of skill and artifice. The fifth is plotting or creating plans to achieve their

own purpose in illegal and underhanded way. The sixth is crafty or clever and

skillful in achieving their goals by indirect or deceitful methods. The seventh is

false-hearted or deceitful and unfaithful. The eighth egocentric or only

concerning about themselves without regarding the others. The ninth is insincere

or being fake to others. The tenth is deceitful or giving the others the impression

that they can trust, but in fact the individuals only conceal or hide the truth. The

eleventh calculating or acting in scheming and ruthlessly determined way. The

last one is guileful or doing a dishonest act in a clever way to deceive people.

3. Sigmund Freud’s Theory of Psychoanalysis

After the characterizations of the character evidently reveals the tendencies

of disingenuous histrionic personality disorder, the first problem formulation is

answered. So then, to answer the second problem formulation, a psychoanalytic

approach is used to see the character‟s mental process to see how the character

manifest such personality. The mental process itself consist of what Freud calls

by three major system of a personality that integrate and develop in a person to

proceed a personality. The following is Freud‟s major system according to

Calvin Hall (Hall, 1954, pp.22-35)

i. The Id

The sole function of the id is to provide for immediate discharge of

quantities of excitation (energy or tension) that released in the organism by


17

internal or external stimulation. This function of the id fulfill the primordial or

initial principle of life which Freud called the pleasure principle. In other word,

human desires that influence both emotional and physical needs are driven by

pleasure principle. The aim of the id is to rid person of tension, or to reduce the

amount of the tension level.

The id is developing due to the need or desire that meet tension and later

leads into frustration. The development that take place the id is a result of

frustration called the primary process. The primary process itself can be defined

as the process which produce a memory image of an object that is needed to

reduce tension. The id cannot tolerate tension. It wants immediate gratification,

so then it is demanding, impulsive, irrational, asocial, selfish and pleasure-loving.

The id is not governed by laws of reason and logic, and it does not possess

values, ethics, or morality. It is driven by one consideration only that is to obtain

satisfaction. There are only two possible issues for any id process, either it will

get discharged in action or wish-fulfillment, or it succumbs to the influence of

the ego. Freud acknowledged that the id was obscure and inaccessible part of

personality. However, we can see the id in action whenever a person does

something impulsive such as throw rock through the window, or trip someone

up to commit rape.

ii. The Ego

In a well-adjusted person the ego is the executive of the personality, it is

controlling and governing the id and the superego and maintaining commerce

with the external world in the interest of the total personality and its far-flung


18

needs. Instead of the pleasure principle, the ego is governed by the reality

principle. Reality means that which exists. The aim of the reality principle is to

postpone the discharge of energy until the actual object that will satisfy the need

has been discovered or produced.

The reality principle is served by a process which Freud called by the

secondary process. The secondary process consist of discovering or producing

reality by means of a plan of action that has been developed through thought and

reason. The inauguration of reality principle, the functioning of the secondary

process, and the more significant role that the external world comes to play in

the life of a person, stimulate the growth and elaboration of the psychological

processes of perception, memory, thinking, and action.

In the ego, the defense mechanism also occurs. The defense mechanisms

itself are normal and universally used, but if it is carried to an extreme, they lead

to compulsive, repetitive and neurotic behaviour. According to Feist & Feist, the

principal defense mechanism identified by Freud include repression, reaction

formation, displacement, fixation, regression, projection and introjection. The

following lists are the brief explanation of defense mechanisms principal by

Freud in Feist & Feist‟s Theory of Personality:

i. Repression

Repression is the most basic mechanism, because it is involved in each of

others. Whenever the ego is threatened by undesirable id impulses, it

protect itself by repressing those impulses.

ii. Reaction Formation


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Reaction formation is one of ways in which a repressed impulse may

become conscious is through adopting a disguise that is directly opposite

its original form. This reactive behavior can be identified by its

exaggerated character and by it obsessive and compulsive form.

iii. Displacement

In displacement, people can redirect their unacceptable urges onto variety

of people or object so that the original impulse is disguised or concealed.

iv. Fixation

Fixation is when the prospect of taking the next step of psychologically

growing up becomes too anxiety provoking, then the ego may resort to

strategy of remaining at the present, more comfortable psychological stage.

v. Regression

Regression is when the libido has passed a developmental stage, it may,

during times of stress and anxiety, revert back to earlier stage. A common

way for adult to react to anxiety-producing situations is to revert to earlier,

safer, more secure patterns of behaviour and to invest their libido onto

more primitive and familiar object.

vi. Projection

Projection is when an internal impulse provokes too much anxiety, the ego

may reduce that anxiety by attributing the unwanted impulse to an external

object, usually another person.

vii. Introjection


20

Introjection is a defense mechanism whereby people incorporate positive

qualities of another person into their ego (Feist & Feist, 2009. pp. 35-37).

iii. The Superego

The superego is the moral or judicial branch of personality. It represents

the ideal rather than real, and it strives for perfection rather than for reality or

pleasure. The superego develops out the ego as a consequence of the child‟s

assimilation of his parents‟ standard regarding what is good and what is bad. By

assimilating the moral authority of his parents, the child replaces his authority

with his own authority.

The superego is made up of two subsystem that are the ego-ideal and the

conscience. The ego-ideal corresponds to the child‟s conception of what parents

consider to be morally good through experience with reward due to the parents‟

standard. While in the other hand, the conscience correspond to the child‟s

conception of what parents consider to be morally bad through the experience

with punishment.

The superego is the representative in the personality of the traditional

values and ideals of society as they are handed down from parents to children.

Primarily, it serves the purpose of controlling and regulating those impulses

whose uncontrolled expression would endanger the stability of society. These

impulses are sex and aggression. The disobedient, rebellious, or sexually

curious child is regarded as being bad and immoral. The adult who is generally

destructive and antisocial is considered to be wicked person.


21

Furthermore, all of the three system in personality are operated by a form

of energy, called psychic energy. Psychic energy performs psychological works

such as thinking, perceiving and remembering. However, all of the energy for

performing the work of personality is obtained from the instinct, or the drive.

An instinct has a source, an aim, an object, and an impetus. The principal

sources of instinctual energy are bodily needs or impulses. The aim of an instinct

is the removal or the elimination of the source of that instinct. The object is the

purpose of the source. Then lastly, the impetus is the strength or force which is

determined by amount of energy that it possesses (Hall, 1954, pp.37-39).

Hall added that Freud recognized two great groups of instinct, the first is

life instinct and the second is death instinct. Life instinct concerns about the

basic need for health, safety, and sustenance and through sexual instinct or libido

to preserve life. While on the other hand, the death instinct concerns about its

aim to return the constancy of inorganic matter. Death instinct leads a person to

self-destruction such as aggression, mastery, dominance, exploitation, and

competition to reduce tension (Hall, 1954, pp. 57-60).

In an adult‟s psychological work, it can be summarized that the far-flung

activities of the person are motivated by the energy of the life and death instinct.

Anything that a person does is either a direct expression of an instinct, or it is

motivated by the combination of the instincts. It can represent a compromise

between driving (cathexis), and resisting (anti-cathexis) forces that is influenced

by the superego. It can also grow out of an ego defense (Hall, 1954, p.102).


22

Hence, when a person does something, it depends on the complicated networks

of interaction among id, ego, and superego.

C. Theoretical Framework

In this undergraduate thesis, there are three theories used to answer the

problem formulation. First, the theory of characterization by M.J. Murphy is

used to find the evidences of Amy Elliott Dunne‟s characteristics. Second, the

concept of disingenuous histrionic personality disorder by Theodore Millon is

used to answer the first problem formulation which is how the characteristics of

Amy Elliott reveal the tendencies of disingenuous histrionic personality

disorder. Third, the theory of Freudian psychoanalysis is used to answer the

second problem formulation that is analyzing her mental process that leads Amy

Elliott Dunne to her personality disorder tendency.


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CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

This chapter consists of three parts that are object of the study, approach of

the study and method of the study. All of the three parts function as the

methodology. The object of the study is the first part of this chapter. It consists

the explanation of the object as the focus of this study. The second part is the

approach of the study that consists of the reviews of the approach that is used in

this study. The last part is the method of the study that consists of explanation on

how the process of the study is done.

A. Object of the Study

Gone Girl is a novel that is written by Gillian Flynn in 2012. The novel is

firstly published by The Crown Publishing Group in United State. Categorized

as thriller, this novel made The New York Times Best Seller list, or the list of

best-selling book in United States in 2012. Two years after the novel is

published, a film adaptation that is directed by David Fincher, starring Ben

Affleck and Rosamund Pike is released.

Gone Girl is divided into two first-person narrators that are Amy Elliott

Dunne‟s perspective and Nick Dunne‟s perspective. In the novel, Amy Elliott

Dunne gives her perspective on both her true self and her altered-ego. Amy‟s

alter ego perspective in the novel is shown in the diary that she writes as her plan

to accuse her husband, Nick Dunne, on her murder. The diary tells the story of

how Amy and Nick met at the first time, the way their relationship came into

marriage, and how the marriage was broken. In the diary, Amy writes it as if she


24

was the victim of her husband‟s attitude, knowing that people notice her as a

good woman.

Amy knows that her husband has been cheating on her for over a year.

Rather than ask for a divorce, Amy plans to do insane revenge by framing her

husband as her murderer. She is a very brilliant person. She plans a very detailed

scheme which consists of her idea to get herself missing, and she leaves some

evidence that lead the police to accuse her husband as her murderer. Although

her scheme is pretty successful, she meets trouble on her nine days gone. She is

robbed by her neighbor when she lives in a cabin to hide from society. She ends

up calling for her ex‟s help, and she cannot leave his house for over a month.

Eventually, she murders her ex and gets back to her husband.

Amy Elliott Dunne is brilliant, but in spite of her cleverness she is purely

insane to think of such a detailed scheme. Hence, Amy Elliott Dunne is the

object of this study to analyze what kind of personality disorder she has and the

cause that leads her to her acts.

B. Approach of the Study

This study uses Freudian psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic approach is a

form of literary criticism which uses some of the techniques of psychoanalysis in

the interpretation of literature (Barry, 2002, p. 96). According to Barry, this

criticism uses the method of making the client or subject talk freely. Then the

problems of the character are brought into the conscious mind. Specifically, the

theory provides a way to think through issues of choice and the individual‟s


25

responsibility, to know the true feeling, unspoken desire and even the nature of

reality (Bressler, 1999, p. 147). It tends to portray the individual as a rational

conscious actor who can understand the basis for his or her action (Sarup, 1989,

p. 7).

On the other hand, literature is the disclosure of phenomenon witnessed by

the individuals through their experiences, and feeling through the form of

language. It provides many ways of individual‟s perspective toward the event

through the characters in literary works. So then, the psychoanalytic theory helps

to enable us to analyze the inner psyche of the character. Hence, Freudian

psychoanalysis is applied in this study to identify how the id, ego and superego

of Amy Elliott Dunne work in Flynn‟s Gone Girl.

C. Method of the Study

This study uses library research method to gather the data. The sources are

divided into primary and secondary sources. The primary source of this study is

Flynn‟s Gone Girl. The secondary sources of this study are the books of

literature and journal articles of literature in relation to the primary source.

There are two steps that were taken in this study. The first step was

reading the primary source that is the original copy of Flynn‟s Gone Girl. While

reading the primary source, taking notes about the characteristic of Amy Elliott

as the object of this study was also done. After reading the primary source and

finding the characteristic of Amy, I began to consult the story and also the

characteristics of Amy to a psychologist to learn about the theories that I decide

to use. After the consultation, I tried to find the sources such as books and


26

journal that related to personality disorder then read the sources in order to find

out the disorder that fits to Amy‟s characteristic. Through the close reading

method, and the consultation with the psychologist I finally decides to use the

concept of disingenuous personality disorder by Theodore Millon. Then, I

started to consult the approach of this study to my advisor to observe the mental

process of Amy in manifesting the disorder though Freudian psychoanalytic, and

started to read and understand how the mental process works through Calvin

Hall‟s A Primer Freudian Psychology.

The second step was analyzing the characteristics of the Amy Elliott

Dunne that was related to disingenuous histrionic personality disorder. In this

step, I tried to gather all the evidences from the primary source to conclude four

characteristics that reveal the features of disingenuous histrionic personality

disorder. Then I stared analyzing the mental process of the character through

Freudian psychoanalysis, and drawing the conclusion.


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CHAPTER IV

ANALYSIS

This chapter focuses on discussing the characteristics' analysis of Amy

Elliott Dunne which purposely reveals the tendency of disingenuous histrionic

personality disorder and how she manifests such disorder through her mental

process. Based on the problem formulation in the previous chapter, the

discussion in this chapter is divided into two subchapters. The first subchapter

attempts to present how the characteristics of Amy Elliott Dunne reveal the

tendency of disingenuous histrionic personality disorder. This subchapter is

supported by the theory of character and characterization, and the concept of

disingenuous histrionic personality disorder including its twelve features that are

underhanded, double-dealing, scheming, contriving, plotting, crafty, false-

hearted, egocentric, insincere, deceitful, calculating, and guileful. The second

subchapter is the analysis on the mental process that leads Amy Elliott Dunne to

her psychopathic acts in relation to her personality disorder. This subchapter is

supported by Freudian psychoanalysis theory and by Otto Kernberg‟s theory of

normal personality.

A. The Characteristic of Amy Elliott as a Person with Disingenuous

Histrionic Personality Disorder

According to M.J. Murphy, a writer describes the character through the

outward appearance by the way they dress, walk, look, gesture, and so on

(Murphy, 1972, p. 161). In Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn describes the main

character of the story, Amy Elliott Dunne, is portrayed as a beautiful, funny,


28

brilliant, and inspiring girl. She is born and grows up in New York, and she is

famous as the Amazing Amy. The Amazing Amy is a series of psychological

books which is written by Amy‟s parents about a girl who always does the right

thing. All of her life, Amy tries to be the person that her parents wish her to be.

In which to be like the Amazing Amy, to be perfect for the society.

When Amy turns thirty-one, she decides to marry Nick Dunne. Amy is just

having a good life with her husband until they both lose their jobs. They end up

moving to Missouri, Nick‟s hometown. Everything changes since they move,

including Amy‟s behavior. Nick notices her behavioral changes, and he feels

uncomfortable with that. He ends up cheating with a young girl in a college

where he works. Then, Amy finds out that Nick is cheating on her. Nick‟s

treason, later, becomes a climacteric for her personality.

After the treason, Amy plans on giving Nick a lesson for betraying her. She

plans on accusing him as her murderer. The way she plots the scheme on her

husband shows some tendencies of her characteristic that are related to histrionic

personality disorder. Her acts could be categorized as psychopathic. It is

mentioned before on the previous chapter that the histrionic personality disorder

in relation to psychopathy is defined as the disingenuous histrionic personality

disorder.

Millon, Grossman, Meagher and Rammath (2004,p.297) stated that

disingenuous histrionic is more manipulative than a basic histrionic pattern, and

the aim is not only about attention, but also a hidden intention that is creating


29

conflict. The disingenuous histrionic tends to enjoy conflict by breaking the

rules, behaving irresponsibly, erupting with anger, or even doing a physical

confrontation. The following lists are the characteristics of Amy Elliott Dunne

which are shown the tendencies of disingenuous histrionic personality disorder.

1. Intelligent

In Gone Girl, Amy is described as an intelligent woman. It is mentioned

before that the disingenuous histrionic person might have a brilliant thought

because she has antisocial features. Amy is very detailed and passionate, that

she will patiently plan and learn how to do something. It is showed in Nick‟s

perspective on how she is very detailed and passionate on something she

desires.

When we moved in together, she‟d made an intense study of French

cooking, displaying hyper-quick knife skills and an inspired boeuf

bourguignon. For her thirty-fourth birthday, we flew to Barcelona, and she

stunned me by rolling off trills of conversational Spanish, learned in

months of secret lessons. My wife had a brilliant, popping brain, a greedy

curiosity (Flynn, 2012, p. 50)

Even after she finds out that Nick is cheating, she does not impulsively

commit revenge. She is able to make a scenario of her own death, and leaving

some evidences to convince the police that it is Nick who had murdered her.

She has planned her revenge for over a year, since the day she finds out that

Nick is cheating. She starts to read books, and learning how to accuse Nick for

her murderer. She is even being insincere. She knows Nick lies to her all over a

year, but she does not show her anger to him. She needs to focus on her

scheme.


30

She makes a checklist, and it is functioned as her plan in order to have a

perfect execution, the way she wants. Firstly, she manages to collect enough

money to maintain all her plans. The way she collects the money is so clever.

She spends a year to finally collect $10.200 in cash.

I have $10.200 in cash. If I‟d clear out $10.200 in a month, that would

have been noticed. But I collected cash forwards from credit cards I took

out in Nick‟s name ... and I siphoned off another $4.400 from our bank

account over her month: withdrawals of $200 or $300, nothing to attract

attention. I stole from Nick, from his pocket, a $20 here, a $10 there, a

slow deliberate stockpile – it‟s like that budgeting plan where you put the

money you‟d spend on your morning Starbucks into a jar, and at the end of

the year you have $1.500 (Flynn, 2012, p. 276).

With the money, she plans on buying a car and renting a place to hide, so

that she can leave the house and begins her scenario. She is a detailed and

passionate woman that manages everything very well. She buys a car five

months before she leaves the house, and she has searched a cabin that would be

safe for her to hide.

But I do smile, because this car shows just how smart I am: purchased for

twelve hundred dollars cash from a Craigslist posting. Five months ago, so

the memory wouldn‟t be fresh in anyone‟s mind. A 1992 Ford Festiva, the

tiniest, the most forgettable car in the world. I meet the seller at night, in

the parking lot of WalMart in Jonesboro, Arkansas. I took the train own

with a bundle of cash n my purse -eight hours each way, while Nick was

on a boy‟s trip. . . So that‟s just an example. Of patience, planning and

ingenuity. I am pleased with myself; I have three hours more until I reach

the thick of Missouri Ozarks and my destination, a small archipelago of

cabins in the wood that accept cash for weekly rentals and has cable TV, a

must (Flynn, 2012, pp. 264-265).

Secondly, she also changes her look during her disappearance. After she

leaves the house, she changes her appearance in a public rest room, so that

people will not notice her. She cuts her hair and dyes it. She also wear glasses

and clothes that she never wears before.


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In the Afternoon sunlight and the sauna heat, I remove from my purse a

pair of metal scissors and bunny-brown hair dye. I shear off large chunks

of my hair. All blond goes into a plastic bag ... I put on a pair of outdated

wire-rim glasses and look in the review mirror and smile again. Nick and I

would never have married if I looked like this when we met. All this could

have been avoided if I were less pretty. Item 34: Change look. Check

(Flynn, 2012, pp. 265- 266).

After she gets new style, she also gets her skin tanned and gains her

weight. She makes a total change on her physical appearance.

I‟m tan, which I‟ve never been before I - at least not a dark, proud, deep

tan. A tanned skin is a damage skin, and no one likes a wrinkled girl: I

spent my life stick with SPF. But I let myself darken a bit before my

disappearance, and now, five days in, I‟m on my way to brown ... I gained

twelve pounds in the month before my disappearance - carefully hidden in

my roomy sundresses, not that my inattentive husband would notice – and

already another two pounds since (Flynn, 2012,p. 280).

Thirdly, she creates a fake diary that she writes for over a year. The diary

is made in order to lead the police to blame Nick on her disappearance. In the

diary, it is told how Amy gets bullied and harmed by the husband. She also

mentions that she is scared of Nick because he seems willing to kill her. The

diary later makes people hated her husband, because she knows that her

disappearance will be outrageous in public.

One hundred and fifty two entries total, and I don‟t think I ever lose her

voice. I wrote her very carefully, Diary Amy. She is designed to appeal to

the cops, to appeal to the public should portions be released. They have to

read this diary like it‟s a sort of Gothic tragedy. A wonderful, good-

hearted woman – whole life ahead of her, everything going for her,

whatever else they say about women who die – chooses the wrong mate

and pays the ultimate price. They have to like me. Her (Flynn, 2012, p.

267).

She plans her revenge not only with collecting money and writing a diary.

She also leaves a strong evidence that will shock the police if they find it out.

Before she leaves the house, she cuts herself to leave blood all over the kitchen

to ensure that there is a murder. As she is very detail, she learns how to cut her


32

arm to produce so much blood without killing herself. She also manages to set

the kitchen as if it is a big fight. She leaves the blood poorly wiped, as the

husband will do. So then, when the police come over and finds it out, they will

instantly accuse Nick as the suspect.

Item 22: Cut my self has been on the list a long time. Now it‟s real, and

my arm hurts. A lot. It takes a very special discipline to slice oneself past

the paper-cut layer, down to the muscle. You want a lot of blood, but not

so much that you pass out, get discovered hour later in a kiddie pool of red

with a lot explaining to do. I held a box of cutter to my wrist first, but

looking at the crisscross of veins, I felt like a bomb technician in an action

movie: Snip the wrong line and you die. I ended up cutting into the inside

of my upper arm, gnawing on a rag so I wouldn‟t scream. One, long deep

good one. I sat cross-legged on my kitchen floor for ten minutes, letting

the blood drizzle steadily until I‟d made a nice thick puddle. Then I

cleaned it up poorly as Nick would have done after he bashed my head in.

I want the house to tell a story of conflict between true and false (Flynn,

2012, pp. 247-248)

All the details that she has planned might not be done by an ordinary

person. By the cause of her doing that is the treason of her husband, she could

just have asked for divorce. It seems to be bizarre for a person to do such plan

only to commit revenge. Amy‟s intelligence in planning her revenge can be

defined as a scheming in which contriving and plotting are also included in the

trait. She is also crafty and calculating on doing anything in her plan. In

disingenuous histrionic personality, the act of scheming, contriving, plotting,

crafty and calculating are traits that is done by the disordered person. It shows

how Amy has tendency of being a person with disingenuous histrionic

personality disorder.


33

2. Manipulative

The second characteristic of Amy in Flynn‟s Gone Girl is manipulative.

As it is told before in the first characteristic that she is an intelligent woman.

Her intelligence provides her to manipulate people around her to get whatever

she wants. To support her plan, she needs to manipulate everyone to believe

that her husband has murdered her. It is mentioned before how she leaves

evidence such like her blood that is left poorly cleaned, and the diary. People

may instantly think that there must be an accident that happens in the house.

Then the police start to investigate her disappearance through the evidence that

she leaves. Not only that she leaves blood and the diary, she also leaves some

clues.

The clues that she has left is an annual treasure hunt that she uses to leave

for Nick to celebrate their wedding anniversary. The first clue leads the police

to Nick‟s father‟s house where the police finds her fake diary. The second clue

leads the police to Nick‟s office where they find some women panties that are

not belong to Amy. The third clue leads them to Hannibal where they find

Amy‟s purse. And the last one leads them to Nick‟s sister‟s place where they

find some expensive stuffs that are hidden. She leaves the clues as it leads the

police to some more evidences of the truth that Nick is her murderer.

Each clue was hidden in a spot where I‟d cheated on Amy. She‟d used to

the treasure hunt to take me on a tour of my infidelities. I had a shimmer of

nausea as I pictured Amy trailing oblivious me in the car – to my dad‟s, to

Go‟s, to goddamn Hannibal – watching me fuck with this sweet young girl,

my wife lips twisting I disgust and triumph.

Because she knew she‟d punish me good. Now at our final stop, Amy was

ready for me to know how clever she was. Because the woodshed was

paced with about every gizmo and gadget that I swore to Boney and Gilpin


34

I didn‟t know anything about. The insanely expensive golf clubs were here,

the watches and game consoles, the designer clothes, they were all sitting

here, in wait, on my sister‟s property. Where it looked like I‟d stored them

until my wife was dead and I could have a little fun (Flynn, 2012, pp. 255-

256).

Amy knows that her disappearance will be noticed by the public. As told

before that she is famous for Amazing Amy book series, her disappearance

spreads to the public very quickly. Ellen Abbott, a television show that shows

crime-news is also showing her case. Since, she wants to destroy Nick, the

television show gets her very excited because she can see how Nick is terribly

judged by the public. She enjoys the conflict that she has made.

Ellen Abbott is part of my plan too. The biggest cable crime news in the

country. I adore Ellen Abbott, I love how protective she gets about all the

missing women in her show, and hoe rabid-dog vicious she is once she

seizes on a suspect, usually the husband. She is America‟s voice of female

righteousness. Which is why I like her to take on my story. The public

must turn against Nick. It‟s as much a part of his punishment as prison, for

darling Nick – who spend so much time worrying about people liking him

– to know he is universally hated (Flynn, 2012, pp. 274-275)

She wants the public to turn against her Nick, instead of giving support to

find her. She needs people hate Nick, and shows them how bad Nick is. She

wants people to have sympathy about her sad story, and she wants people to

love her. She does her revenge not only to destroy Nick, but also to get

people‟s attention.

So I began to think a different story, a better story that would destroy Nick

for doing this to me, a story that would restore my perfection. It would

make me a hero, flawless, and adored (Flynn, 20112, p. 263).

In order to worsen her disappearance into more dramatic, she manipulates

her pregnancy. Her neighbor, Noelle, is her subject of victim to support her

plan. A disingenuous histrionic has a very adaptive social skills and charm that


35

provides her to easily manipulate people around her. She pretends to be

Noelle‟s friend for over a year. She knows that Noelle is pregnant, so she steals

her urine to have a medical record on her pregnancy. She also tells Noelle how

her husband treats her badly, so that Noelle at an interview on Amy‟s

disappearance, says that Nick might kill her.

I knew I needed a pliant friend for my plan, someone I could load up with

awful stories about Nick, someone who would become overly attached to

me, someone who‟d be easy to manipulate, who wouldn‟t think too hard

about anything I said because she felt privileged to hear it. Noelle was the

obvious choice, and when she told me she was pregnant again - triplets

weren‟t enough, apparently- I realized I could be pregnant too.

A search online: how to drain your toilet for repair.

Noelle invited for lemonade. Lots of lemonade.

Noelle peeing in my drained, unflushable toilet, each of us so terribly

embarrassed!

Me, a small glass jar, the pee in my toilet going into the glass jar.

Me, a well-laid history of needle/blood phobia.

Me, a glass of jar of pee hidden in my purse, a doctor‟s appointment (oh, I

can‟t do a blood test, I have a total phobia of needles . . . urine test, that‟ll

do fine, thank you).

Me, a pregnancy on my medical record.

Me, running to Noelle with the good news (pp. 290-291).

Amy‟s manipulation does not stop on Noelle. Not long after her

disappearance, she gets a bad luck at the cabin she lived in. Her money is

stolen by her neighbors, and she gets nothing left. So then, she make a call to

her ex-boyfriend, Desi. Amy know that Desi will help her because he loves a

troubled woman. When she meet Desi in a bar, she tell him that Nick will kill

her if she goes back. She even dramatizes her story to get Desi‟s attention.

He studies me.‟ You look very . . . different,‟ he says, ‟So, full in the face,

especially. And your poor hair is-‟ He catches himself. „Amy, I just never

thought I could be so grateful for anything. Tell me what happened.‟

I tell Gothic tale of possessiveness and rage, of Midwest steak-and-potato

brutality, barefoot pregnancy, animalistic dominance. Of rape and pills and

liquor and fists. Pointed cowboy boots in the ribs, fear, and betrayal,


36

parental apathy, isolation, and Nick‟s final telling words: „You can never

leave me. I will kill you. I will find you no matter what. You are mine.‟

How I hate to disappear for my own safety and the safety of my unborn

child, and how I needed Desi‟s help. My savior. My story would satisfy

Desi‟s craving for ruined woman (Flynn, 2012, 362).

Desi helps Amy, and he takes her to his mansion for her safety. A day later,

Amy watches her husband‟s interview on television show. In the interview, she

finds that her husband feel guilty and wants her to come back to him. Then she

thinks of getting home to her husband.

Few days has passed, Amy feel uncomfortable with Desi‟s presence at the

mansion. She plans on get away from Desi‟s to come back home. She begins to

manipulate Desi. She asks Desi to have sex with her, because she knows that

Desi wants it. She puts sleeping pills on his afternoon drink after they had sex,

and she kills him with a knife. Then, she finally runs away.

When she gets home, the police craves on her story. She manipulated the

story as if she has nothing to do with her husband‟s case. She reverses the story,

she tells everyone that Desi kidnaps her on her anniversary. She explains that

Desi rapes her every day since the day she is kidnapped. She even has some

evidence to prove what she says.

I still have Desi‟s semen inside me from the last time he raped me, so the

medical examination goes fine. My rope-wreathed wrists, my damaged

vagina, my bruises – the body I present them is text book. An older male

doctor with humid breath ad thick finger performs the pelvic exam –

scraping and wheezing in time – while detective Rhonda Boney holds my

hand (Flynn, 2012, p. 417).

It is told before that Amy is intelligence, she already plans a detailed

scheme. Her husband asks how she does the whole thing. Amy told him

everything, but she carefully tells him so then he cannot record any confession


37

of hers. The police cannot even prove that she manipulates the story. Amy even

leave other evidence that prove all she had says.

„It takes time, Go. I have to get her to trust me again. If she] starts telling

me things casually, when we‟re not both stark naked-‟

Boney rubbed her eyes and addressed Go : „Do I even want to ask?‟

„They always have their talks naked in the shower with water running,‟ Go

said. „Can‟t you bug the shower somewhere?‟

„She whispered in my ear, on top of the shower running,‟ I said.

„She does study,‟ Boney said. „She really does. I went over that car she

drove back, Desi‟s Jag. I had „em check the trunk, where she swore Desi

had stowed her when she kidnapped her. I figured there‟d be nothing there

– we‟d catch her in a lie. She rolled around in the trunk, Nick. Her scent

was detected by our dogs. And we found three long blond hairs. Long

blond hairs. Hers before she cut it. How she did that -‟

„Foresight. I‟m sure she had a bag of them so if she needed to leave them

somewhere to damn me, she could (Flynn, 2012, pp. 449-450).

It can be concluded that what is explained above can be defined as

manipulation. Amy is cleverly manipulative to every plan that she does. She

does her plan not only in a clever way, but also in a very dramatic and

provocative way. She does it all to get attention from ones she wants. For

example, her disappearance leads people to love her, and they start accusing

Nick for her murderer. She also manipulates her pregnancy, then kills Desi in

order to get back to Nick and reverses the story, after she finds how her

husband feel guilty for betraying her.

Being dramatic and provocative are indications of a person with histrionic

personality disorder. Furthermore, her manipulation is categorized as an

underhanded or deceitful method to get what she wants. In disingenuous

histrionic personality, the act in underhanded and deceitful ways is a trait that

is done by the disordered person. It shows more on how Amy has tendencies of

being a person with disingenuous histrionic personality disorder.


38

3. Egocentric

The third characteristic of Amy in Flynn‟s Gone Girl is egocentric. Amy is

born as an only child, she is spoiled by her parents because she is the one who

makes it to the world. Amy‟s mother miscarries seven babies before Amy is

born, so when Amy remains alive, her parents love her so much.

I grew up feeling special, proud. I was the girl who battled oblivion and

won. The chances was about 1 percent, but I did it. I ruined my mother‟s

womb in the process- my own prenatal Sherman‟s March. Marybeth would

never have another baby. As a child, I got vibrant pleasure out of this: just

me, just me, only me Flynn, 2012, 249).

As mentioned before, Amy‟s parents write a book series entitled Amazing

Amy. The book series not only influences Amy to be a girl who is perfect, but it

leads her to be the person she is not intended to be. She mentions how she is

confused about being happy. Her parents never teach her how, then she finally

learns how to be happy herself.

Until Nick, I‟d never really felt like a person, because I was always a

product. Amazing Amy has to be brilliant, creative, kind, thoughtful, witty,

and happy. We just want you to be happy. Rand and Marybeth said that all

the time, but they never explained how. So many lessons and opportunities

and advantages, and they never taught me how to be happy (Flynn, 2012,

252).

At this point, it is clear how she does not know how to be happy, and

become an egocentric person because she will do anything that she thinks will

make herself happy, and later she finds out that winning was a way to find

happiness. So then, if there is thing that makes her feel losing the game, she

will do things that she thinks will make her win, that is revenge. It is just like

what she does to her husband.


39

Her egocentrism about being a winner is showed when she is still in high

school. She sets her friend up on a scheme that she makes. Amy feels that she

is no longer flawless because her friend, Hillary, wins some things over her.

Amy‟s revenge begins soon after she finds out that Hillary gets a call from the

guy that she meet on the fall dance. Then, she finds out that Hillary gets a

better midterm grade than her, and when she finds out that Hillary gets an

invitation on a Thanksgiving dinner from their friend. She feels bothered

because Hillary get them all, instead of her. It makes her feel like she loses the

game. As her revenge, she sets Hillary up.

Back then, Hillary is known as Amy‟s stalker from high school. Nick

firstly thinks that perhaps Hillary kidnaps Amy, but after all the clues that he

finds, he knows something is not right. Nick figures out how the real story

happens after he phones Hillary.

„Then she starts distancing herself. She gets cold. And I think – I think she

doesn‟t like me anymore. Girls at school start looking at me funny. I‟m

shut out of the cool circle. Fine. But then one day I‟m called into

principal‟s office. Amy has had a terrible accident – twisted ankle,

fractured arm, cracked ribs. Amy has fallen down this long set of stairs,

and she said it was me who pushes her. Hold on. Go back downstairs now.

Go. Down. Stairs. Gooo downstairs. Sorry, I‟m back. Never had kids.‟

„So Amy said you pushed her?‟

„Yeah, because I was craaazy. I was with her, I wanted to be Suzy, and

then being Suzy wasn‟t enough – I had to be Amy. And she had this

evidence that she‟d had me create over the past months. Her parents,

obviously had seen me lurking around the house. I theoretically accosted

her mom.my hair dyed blond and the clothes I‟d bought that matched

Amy‟s – clothes I bought while shopping with her, but I couldn‟t prove

that (Flynn, 2012, pp. 325-326).

Amy uses her intelligence to manipulate everyone to give take a revenge

over Hillary. She does not even hesitate to hurt herself to get attention from the


40

public, then her plan can be done perfectly. After Hillary‟s case, Nick finds out

that Amy once again commits a revenge on her ex, Tommy. It is simply

because Tommy feels like he does not match to Amy. They has been dating for

few month, before finally Tommy tries to not contact Amy for good. He begins

to see another girl. When Amy finds out about it, she is mad. Once again, she

feels bothered for losing the game. Then, she came up with another revenge to

restore her pride. She sets Tommy in her trap that caused Tommy gets jailed

for raping Amy.

„Amy comes over my place one night – I‟d been seeing other girl like one

month – and Amy comes over, and she‟s all back like she used to be. She‟s

got some bootleg DVD of a comic I like, an underground performance in

Durham, and she‟s got a sack of burgers, and we watch DVD, and she‟s

got her leg flopped over mine, and then she‟s nestling into me and . . .

sorry. She‟s your wife. My main point is: The girl knew how to work me.

And we ended up. . .‟

„You had sex.‟

„Consensual sex, yes. And she leaves and everything is fine. Kiss goodbye

at door, and whole shebang.‟

„Then what?‟

„The next thing I know, two cops are at my door, and they‟ve done a rape

kit on Amy, and she has “wound consistent with forcible rape.” And she

has ligature marks on her wrist, and when they search my apartment, there

on the headboard of my bed are two ties - like, neckties – tucked down

near the mattress, and the ties are, quote, “ consistent with the ligature

marks.”‟ (Flynn, 2012, pp. 311-312)

Both examples of egocentrism shows how she is lacking consideration for

others. She does not care about the consequences that her victim might face.

All she know is she needs to win and be happy. Her egocentrism does not only

show by her lacking of consideration. It is also showed by the way she is

irresponsible for all the things that she has done to others.


41

Another example of Amy being egocentric is in her irresponsibility on

murdering Desi. After she watches Nick on television saying that he regrets his

betrayal and wants Amy to come back, she plans on running away from Desi.

Amy feels that she is trapped in Desi‟s mansion because Desi leaves no cash

for her and she is annoyed by Desi‟s presence. So then, she manages to

recreate a new story, that will proved her as innocent and she can go back to

Nick safety. She plans on reversing the story of her disappearance. She

recreates the story as if Desi has kidnapped her, and rapped her since the day

she is gone. She sets Desi up and murders him, then she runs away to Nick and

tell the police that she murders Desi to save herself.

Police have been dispatched to Desi‟s home, where they‟ll find him naked

and drained, a stunned look on his face, a few strands of my hair in his

clutches, the bed soaked in blood. The knife I used on him, and on my

bonds, will be nearby on the floor where I dropped it, dazed, and walked

barefoot, carrying nothing out the house but his keys – to the car, to the

gate – and climbed, still slick with his blood, into his vintage jaguar and

returned like some long-lost faithful pet, straight back home to my

husband. I‟d been reduced to an animal state; I didn‟t think of anything but

getting back to Nick (Flynn, 2012, 417).

Lacking consideration for others and behaving irresponsibly that Amy

does were parts of egocentrism. She does it only to get her own benefits

without thinking about the others. In disingenuous histrionic personality

disorder, egocentrism is a feature that might be done by the disordered. It is

clear how Amy‟s acts reveal another tendency as person with disingenuous

histrionic personality disorder.


42

4. Cruel

The fourth characteristic of Amy in Flynn‟s Gone Girl is cruel. As

mentioned before that she is intelligent, manipulative, and egocentric, those

traits leaded her to be a cruel person who tended to cause suffer or pain to

others. All the things that she does, including her scheme, manipulation,

irresponsibility and others, showed how she has no conscience, not even for

her own sake. She enjoys the conflict that she made over Nick. She is so happy

that Nick is hated by the public.

And finally! There I am! My debut!

I know from the second Ellen shows up, glowering like Elvis, that this

going to be good. A few gorgeous photos of me, a still shot of Nick with

his insane love me! Grin from the first press conference. News: There has

been a fruitless multisite search for „the beautiful young woman with

everything going for her.‟ News: Nick fucked himself already. Taking

candid photos with a townie during search for me. This is clearly hooked

Ellen, because she is pissed. There he is, Nick sweetie-pie mode, the I am

the beloved of all women mode, his face pressed against the strange

woman‟s, as if they‟re happy-hour buddies. What an idiot. I love it (Flynn,

2012, 275).

Another feature of antisocial trait in disingenuous personality disorder is

also shown in this case, that is willing to break social convention. It is shown

on the way Amy murdered Desi to get back to her husband. She is even willing

harm herself if she needed to. It shows in her conversation with Nick the night

she has returned and she tells him how she murdered Desi.

„I took a wine bottle, and I abused myself with it every day, so the inside

of my vagina looked . . . right. Right for a rape victim. Then today I let

him have sex with me so I had his semen, and then I slipped some sleeping

pills into his martini.‟

„He let you keep sleeping pills?‟

She sighed: I wasn‟t keeping up.

„Right, you were friends.‟

„Then I – ‟ She pantomimed slicing his jugular.


43

„That easy, huh?‟

„You just have to decide to do it and then do it,‟ she said. „Discipline.

Follow through. Like anything. You never understood that. (Flynn, 2012, p.

435)‟

She does not only show no conscience, she also causes suffering to ones

she intends to. Not long after her returned, Nick asks for divorce because he is

afraid of Amy for she is a murderer, but Amy refuses it. Then, Nick decides to

write about the true story of Amy‟s revenge to destroy Amy at the public. Amy

know about Nick‟s plan and she is insecure about it. So then, she makes herself

pregnant, so Nick will not have any choice but take care of her and the baby.

Amy intends to use her pregnancy to get back her security, and to have a

perfect family with Nick.

It shows Amy‟s cruelty of creating a great suffer for Nick and the baby.

Nick will live his life full of apprehension of his wife. With her pregnancy, she

knows she can control Nick and get a life she wants.

I could fight for custody, but I already knew I‟d lose. Amy would relish

the battle – God knew that she already had lined up. By the time she was

done, I wouldn‟t even be an every-other-weekend dad; I would interact

with my child in strange room with guardian nearby sipping coffee,

watching me. Or maybe not even that. I could suddenly see the accusation

– of molestation or abuse – and I would never see my baby, and II would

know that my child was tucked away far from me, Mother whispering,

whispering lies into that tiny pink ear.

„It‟s a boy, by the way,‟ she said.

I was a prisoner after all. Amy had me forever, or as long as she wanted,

because I needed to save my son, to try to unhook, unlatch, debarb, undo

everything that Amy did. I would literally lay down my life for my child,

and do it happily. I would raise my son to be a good man.

I deleted my story (Flynn, 2012, pp. 459-460).


44

B. The Mental Process of Amy Elliott in Manifesting Personality Disorder

Amy Elliott Dunne is diagnosed as a person with disingenuous histrionic

disorder tendencies, but how she manifest the personality is significant to be

discussed. To begin, it is important to analyze how Amy‟s personality is

constructed. Hall (1954, p. 22) stated that a total personality consists of three

major systems that are the id, the ego, and the superego. In a mentally healthy

person these three systems form a unified and harmonious organization. By

working together cooperatively they enable the individual to carry on efficient

and satisfying transactions with the environment. The purpose of these

transactions are the fulfillment of human‟s basic needs and desires, but if one of

these three systems considers as dominant, the person is said to be maladjusted.

If the maladjustment of the person becomes such a habitual, it will lead the

person to manifest maladaptive pattern of behavior or the personality disorder.

1. Amy’s Id

The id works immediately for the bodily needs, desires, or stimuli both

from internal or external matter. It is just like when a person feels hungry, and

she imagines food to reduce the tension of hunger. The energy of the id is also

used for the instinctual gratification by means of reflex action and wish-

fulfillment. The instinctual energy for the gratification comes from two drives

or instincts that lay in the id.

The first one is called by the life instinct or libido, and the second one is

called by the death instinct or aggression. Life instinct is the representatives of

all bodily needs whose satisfaction is necessary for survival, while death


45

instinct is the representatives of the destructiveness and aggression and it is

usually triggered by a traumatic event. Traumatic event is the situation that

leads someone to be stressful because they do not have the ability to cope with

that. Everyone has a different kind of trauma, it depends on their each ability to

cope with, some might have traumatic events in abuse, bullying, violence,

embarrassment, betrayal or even rejection. In Amy‟s case, the type of traumatic

event that she cannot cope with is rejection.

Amy never feels rejection since she was a child. She is the only child who

always be spoiled by her parents. In her childhood, her parents never forbid her

to do anything. Instead, they only tried to make her do good things, without

giving her any prohibition.

I would clamber onto my mother‟s lap, or thrust a crayoned drawing in her

face, or remember a permission slip that needed prompt attention. My

father would try to distract me, try to take me to a movie or bribe me with

sweets. No matter the ruse, it didn‟t work. I would not give my mother

those few minutes (Flynn, 2012, p. 250).

Amy‟s parents spoils her by being permissive to Amy. When Amy tries to

get attention from her mother while she needs time for herself, her father does

not forbid her. He distracts her to make her will leave her mother alone. Even

though her father has tried to distract her, Amy does not stop to get what she

wants. As she never feels rejected, she cannot deal with rejection.

Not only she is spoiled by the permissive parenting, Amy is spoiled for

being one and only which means all the affection and attention of her parents is

only dedicated to her. That is why Amy always desires for affection and


46

attention from her husband because she thinks she has to be treated the way her

parents treat her.

I grew up feeling special, proud. I was the girl who battled oblivion and

won. The chance was about 1 percent, but I did it. I ruined my mother‟s

womb in the process- my own prenatal Sherman‟s March. Marybeth would

never have another baby. As a child, I got vibrant pleasure out of this: just

me, just me, only me (Flynn, 2012, 249).

She also believes that she is the Amazing Amy. She has to be loved

because the Amazing Amy is adored by everyone in the story. Amazing Amy

has a perfect life that Amy wants, and she keeps on trying to imitate Amazing

Amy. When she marries Nick, she thinks that they will be as perfect as

Amazing Amy‟s marriage. She believes that Nick accepts her for who she is

because she thinks that everyone will do the same. So then, when she realizes

that Nick cheats on her because he cannot accept her, she feels rejected.

I hated Nick for being surprised when I became me. I hate him for not

knowing it had to end for truly believing he had married this creature, this

figment of the imagination of a million masturbatory men, semen fingered

and self-satisfied (Flynn, 2012, p. 253).

Nick‟s treason is considered as a traumatic event for Amy because she

feels rejection from her husband. Amy is disappointed on how Nick cannot

accept her for who she is. Nick rather chooses another option that is having an

affair with a younger girl that he thinks is better than Amy. The treason is also

a sign of losing affection and attention for Amy. The treason later leads her to

feel hatred because Nick destroys her perfection, and she loses the affection

and the attention that she always desires.

Nick is cheating, I thought dumbly, and before I could make myself say

anything, they were going up to her apartment. I waited for an hour, sitting


47

on the doorstep, then got cold – blue fingernails, chattering teeth – and

went home. He never even knew I knew.

Amy notices when Nick firstly cheats on her. She is about to visit Nick‟s

bar when she finds out. She even follows her husband and the mistress to know

where they are going. They go to the mistress‟ apartment, and Amy decides to

wait at the doorstep. The activation of the death instinct by hatred leads

someone to have a death wish. In this case, Amy wishes to kill herself by

waiting for her husband until she is nearly dead by the cold. On the evidence, it

is stated that her fingernails turn into blue. Blue fingernails is caused by a low

level or lack of oxygen circulating in blood especially at a cold temperature. If

she waited for another hour, she could die for hypothermia, but then she

decides to go home.

The activation of the death instinct by the hatred does not only lead a

person to have a death wish. Kernberg (2004, p. 33) says that hatred is a

complex structured derivative of the emotion of the rage that expresses a wish

to destroy a bad object, to make it suffer, or to control it. When her death wish

is not fulfilled, she desires to destroy the bad object. So then, she begins to

think of committing an act of revenge toward her husband.

So I began to think of a different story, a better story that would destroy

Nick for doing this to me. A story that would restore my perfection. It

would make me the hero, flawless, and adored (Flynn, 2012, 263).

The image of revenge that shows up inside Amy‟s mind is called by the

object cathexis. The object cathexis is the investment of energy in the image of

an object, or the expenditure of energy in discharge action upon an object that

will satisfy the instinct. When Amy faces the traumatic event, she feels hatred


48

which activates the death instinct. The activation of the death instinct which is

caused by hatred leads Amy to desire to control the object, make it suffer, or to

destroy the object. In other words, Amy‟s image of revenge is a reflex of an

instinctual gratification to satisfy the death instinct.

The image of revenge itself is a sort of instantaneous thought. An instinct

is said to have an aim that is removing bodily needs or desires. Hall (1954, p.

38) stated that the aim of instinct is characterized by being conservative,

regressive, and repetitive. It means that an instinct has tendency to always

repeat over the cycle of the gratification. The image of revenge toward her

husband instantly shows up in her mind because Amy‟s instinct already has a

cycle to satisfy itself.

In the story, when Amy is fifteen years old, she makes a scheme for

Hillary, after she knows that Hillary gets things than she does not. Hillary gets

call from a guy that she wishes to get, then Hillary gets an invitation from a

friend to a Thanksgiving dinner, then lastly Hillary gets a better score on a

midterm test than her. In this case, Amy feels rejection from the others while

Hillary gets what Amy wants. In Hilary‟s point of view, Amy is too

intimidating around people, so then people hesitate to be friend with her. Amy

realizes the way people reject her means that she is no longer the perfect

Amazing Amy, and she fails to impress them like how Amazing Amy does in

the book.

„Then she starts distancing herself. She gets cold. And I think – I think she

doesn‟t like me anymore. Girls at school start looking at me funny. I‟m

shut out of the cool circle. Fine. But then one day I‟m called into

principal‟s office. Amy has had a terrible accident – twisted ankle,


49

fractured arm, cracked ribs. Amy has fallen down this long set of stairs,

and she said it was me who pushes her (Flynn, 2012, p. 235).

The rejection and the feeling of imperfection that she feels leads her to feel

hatred toward Hillary. Then the hatred activates the death instinct that later

leads her to the desire to control, make suffer or destroy Hillary. That is why

she makes a scheme for Hillary. As a result, Hillary loses all her friends and

gets expelled from school. Amy does not only make a scheme as revenge for

Hillary, she also makes another scheme to her ex-boyfriend, Tommy.

„The next thing I know, two cops are at my door, and they‟ve done a rape

kit on Amy, and she has “wound consistent with forcible rape.” And she has

ligature marks on her wrist, and when they search my apartment, there on the

headboard of my bed are two ties - like, neckties – tucked down near the

mattress, and the ties are, quote, “consistent with the ligature marks (Flynn,

2012, p. 312).”‟

She makes a scheme for Tommy because he leaves Amy for another girl.

Once again, Amy feels rejection from the other. Then the rejection leads to the

activation of death instinct which makes her desire to commit revenge. Both of

the revenge to Hillary and Tommy is a kind of cycle of the instinctual

gratification. When she is fifteen she finds out that the scheme which she

makes for Hillary successfully satisfy her instinct. So then, when she faces

another traumatic event, she will repeat the cycle to satisfy the instinct. That is

why, the image of revenge to Nick shows up instantly because of her instinct

already has the cycle to satisfy itself.

Hence, every time Amy faces a traumatic event, it leads to hatred. Since

hatred is a great emotion of a person, it can lead to the activation of the death

instinct. Afterward, the activation of the death instinct leads Amy to the


50

destructiveness which is showed by her death wish, then it is replaced by the

instantaneous image of revenge because the death wish is not fulfilled. The

image of revenge can instantly show in Amy‟s mind, because it is already a

cycle of gratification of Amy‟s id. The image of revenge also shows

immediately to satisfy the instinct and it is called by primary process in a

mental process. The primary process provides a memory of an image that is

used to reduce the tension or frustration from the treason, then it becomes an

object-cathexis of the id.

2. Amy’s Ego

The ego is the only part of the personality that directly faces with the

reality. That is why the way someone acts is decided in the ego. Ego has to

manage how to fulfill the desire or even reduce the tension of the id, and also

deal with the resisting force from the superego. Ego, which contains a reality

principle, has the power to deal with the outside world of the personality.

As mentioned before in the previous discussion, Amy has characteristics

as intelligent, manipulative, egocentric, and cruel. Those characteristic come

from the interaction of the id, ego, and superego which later become such

habitual for her to deal with the reality.

If the id fails the ego on reducing the tension by the primary process, the

ego will be in charge to continue to the secondary process. The secondary

process consists of discovering or producing reality by means of a plan of

action that has been developed through thought and reason. In this process, a


51

person puts a plan of an action into effect in order to see whether it works or

not, or it is called by reality testing.

The secondary process accomplishes what the primary process is unable to

do. In this case a person needs the growth and elaboration of the psychological

process of perception, memory, thinking, and action. Those psychological

process later enable a person to behave more intelligently and more efficiently

and to master the impulses and the environment in the interest of the greater

satisfaction and pleasure.

The image of revenge in Amy‟s primary process does not fully eliminate

her desire. So then, she starts on planning her revenge. This is where a

cognitive capacity plays its role. In the previous discussion, it is mentioned

how Amy is intelligent. She plans her revenge for over a year, and she does it

perfectly. Amy has brilliant brain, by means that her cognitive capacity is

excellent.

The primary process that only serve the image of revenge, finally has been

transformed into a real plan. In this process, an ego-cathexis shows up. The

ego-cathexis maintains the identification with the object of the external world

to distinguish it from the instinctual object cathexis of the id. The identification

itself occurs when a person learns from books, television shows, internet, or the

others to see how the reality works.

I‟ve always thought I could commit the perfect murderer. People who get

caught get caught because they don‟t have patience; they refuse to plan

(Flynn, 2012, 264).


52

Amy learns how to plan a perfect scheme for her husband. Her cognitive

capacity provides her to manage her scenario for over a year. She remembers

all her plans, and makes sure that it will works in reality. Amy‟s ego works as

the desire is not yet fulfilled by the primary process of the id. So then, her ego

tries to make a realization by maintaining the secondary process or planning

the revenge.

Amy‟s ego is also discipline, detailed, and focus. She is the type of a

person who will do anything to please herself because she cannot cope with

tensions.

Item 22: Cut my self has been on the list a long time. Now it‟s real, and

my arm hurts. A lot. It takes a very special discipline to slice oneself past

the paper-cut layer, down to the muscle. You want a lot of blood, but not

so much that you pass out, get discovered hour later in a kiddie pool of red

with a lot explaining to do. I held a box of cutter to my wrist first, but

looking at the crisscross of veins, I felt like a bomb technician in an action

movie: Snip the wrong line and you die (Flynn, 2012, 248).

She patiently learns for over a year to correctly do a self-mutilation. This

example shows how her ego works as craving and doing in a discipline,

detailed and focus way. She will not hesitate to physically hurt herself or to

hurt the others in order to finish her mission. Even when she plans to murder

Desi, she does not do it impulsively after she faces tension from him. She

manages to make a scheme for Desi, so she can tell the public about the fake

story on how Desi kidnaps and rapes her. So then, the public will find her as

innocence.

Her ego works not only to fulfill her desire, but it can also grow into a self-

defense mechanism. The defense mechanism is a way that ego does to master


53

or alleviate anxiety by adopting realistic problem-solving methods. As

mentioned before, Amy always desire affection and attention. So, if she loses

what she desires, or she faces a traumatic event, she faces a tension, and the

tension later become her anxiety. Then the anxiety leads Amy to do a self-

defense mechanism.

One example of her defense mechanism is the repression. The repression

works by restraining the object-cathexis by an anti-cathexis. The pain that

leads to self-destructiveness is repressed by the revenge plan as a displacement

that permits the repressed cathexis to find some kind of more or less satisfying

fulfillment. In this case, the object cathexis of the death instinct is displaced,

from an aggression to herself to the aggression for her husband. Her ego

realizes that punishing her husband for the treason is more satisfying rather

than suicide.

Hall (1954, p. 60) stated that ego serves the life instinct by transforming

the death instinct into a form that serve the end of life. It means that after her

death wish is not fulfilled, the ego turns the death wish into an aggressive

action against the enemy or the bad object that causes the tension. That is why

after she finds out about the treason, she unconsciously wishes to kill herself

by waiting in a cold temperature, but then her ego tries to protect her by

serving the life instinct. After she decides to go home, she begins to think

about how to control, make suffer or to destroy her husband. The revenge to

her husband represents how the death instinct, that is self-destructive, turns into


54

the life instinct as a survival, not only to reduce the tension, but also to get

back what she desires, that is affection and attention.

The way she manipulates her disappearance is another example of her

defense mechanism. It is called by displacement. Her disappearance tends to be

her way to repress her anxiety that is losing what she always desire, that are

affection and attention. She commits the revenge on her husband, not only to

destroy him, but also get back her desires. The desire of affection and attention

from her husband is replaced to the public‟s affection and attention to displace

what she loses before.

Her ego makes an objective realization by planning the disappearance as a

way to draw people‟s sympathy, so she gets attention and affection from a

public as a victim. Everyone will be on her side supporting her, and her

husband will get punishment from the public. It is clearly shown when she

meets Greta in a cabin where she hides. Amy is so upset to hear Greta‟s

response on the television show that shows about Amy‟s disappearance.

„She‟s definitely one of those,‟ Greta said. ‟Rich bitch putting on air.‟

Greta leaves to go to the bathroom, and I tiptoe into her kitchen, go into

her fridge, and spit in her milk, her orange juice, and a container of potato

salad, then tiptoe back to the bed (Flynn, 2012, 298-299).

The way Amy splits to Greta‟s beverage and food shows her anger toward

Greta for mistaking the image of Amy on the television because she leaves all

evidence to make everyone supports and loves her, not to mock her. Her anger

toward Greta can be said as repression of her hatred toward herself, but in this

case, her ego manages to change the object of the cathexis, from herself to


55

Greta. The repression tends to protect Amy for being rejected and disregard, so

then her ego refuses to let herself hate herself for what she has done.

Amy‟s ego practically provides the id to always get what it desires. Firstly,

her ego continues the impulse of the id that is processing the primary process

to the secondary process, from a subjective image of revenge to the revenge

plan. The process is also intended to get her desires that is affection and

attention. She knows that she loses Nick‟s affection and attention, so she plans

on getting it from the public and leads the public to turns against Nick.

Secondly, she grows a defense mechanism to also protect her from the anxiety

of being rejected and disregard because of what she has done, when she faces

her anxiety, her ego represses it and turns it into hatred toward the other.

3. Amy’s Superego

The identification of fear of punishment and desire of approval from the

parents is the result in the formation of the superego. The fear of punishment

that comes from prohibition called by the conscience, while the desire of

approval that comes from reward called by the ego ideal. The prohibition of the

conscience later will be the inhibition or anti-cathexis which blocks the

discharge of instinctual energy either directly in impulsive behavior, and wish-

fulfillment, or indirectly by the way of ego mechanism (Hall, 1954, p. 46).

In this case, Amy can be considered as a person that is lack of conscience.

It is mentioned before that Amy has been adored by her perfection. She is the

Amazing Amy, the girl who never does wrong.


56

They get to be perfect without even trying, without even facing one

moment of existence, while I am stuck here on earth, and every day I must

try, and every day is a chance to be less than perfect (Flynn, 2012, 250).

Amy is influenced by the fictional character, made by her parents. She

always tries to maintain herself as perfect as Amazing Amy. She loves to be

adored, and she loves to be accepted by becoming perfection for the public.

She is never been rejected or punished because she knows how to act as a good

person. The dominance of her ego-ideal leads her to always pretend as a good

person, she is afraid of being rejected or disregard because she needs preserve

her pride. A pride a form of secondary narcissism which leads Amy to always

do what is virtuous.

Later, she tries to change her personality because she is tired to always

pretend to be perfect, and her change in her personality leads her husband to

cheat on her. As discussed before, the feeling hatred toward her husband show

up because she feels rejection and disregard. It is how her superego punishes

her for changing the personality by making her feel rejected and disregarded,

because her superego is affected by her pride.

A person whose pride is too high may lead the person to be too moralistic,

and it can be manipulated or corrupted by the id. A moralistic person can gain

satisfaction for the id by attacking a person who is considered as immoral.

When Amy feels the rejection and the disregard through her husband‟s treason,

Amy commits on doing a revenge in which she considers as a lesson for Nick.

The revenge itself is a result of the superego that is corrupted by the id.

So I may have gone a bit mad. I do know that framing your husband for

your murderer is beyond the pale of what an average woman might do. But


57

it‟s very necessary. Nick must be taught a lesson. He‟s never been taught a

lesson. He glides through life with that charming-Nicky grin, his beloved-

child entitlement, his fibs and shirking, his shortcomings, and his

selfishness, and no one calls him on anything. I think this experience will

make him a better person. Or at least a sorrier one (Flynn, 2012, p. 264).

The superego of a moralistic person can also become very aggressive

against her ego when she feels unworthy and wicked, and it can lead into self-

harm or suicide as the aggressive impulse of the id. The revenge that she does

is categorized as unethical because she tries to frame her husband for her

murderer. That is why when she has done all her plan, she keeps on thinking to

commit suicide as a punishment from the superego for doing bad things.

Another example of her superego is being corrupted by the id is the way

she manipulates her disappearance and her story. She perfectly makes a

scheme for the case, so then the public believe that she is innocent. She knows

if she does not plan it well, she will be the pariah of the public for what she has

done. As she desires affection, her superego will also try to resist her

impulsiveness by making her anxious of the public‟s rejection.

It can be concluded Amy‟s superego is not strong enough to be balanced to

her id. That is why her superego can still be manipulated or corrupted by the id.

The immature superego may lead someone to gain a personality disorder,

because she cannot maintain the balance of object-cathexis and anti-cathexis.

Amy represses her superego while she is doing what she thinks is right,

because of her realistic thinking and her self-justification.


59

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Amy Elliott Dunne‟s characteristics reveal all features of

disingenuous histrionic personality disorder. The first is her intelligence that is

categorized as act of scheming, plotting, contriving, crafty and calculating. The

second is her manipulation that is categorized as act of being underhanded,

false-hearted, double-dealing, insincere, and deceitful. Then the third is her

egocentrism is categorized as act of being egocentric and guileful. Furthermore,

her cruelty clearly exposes how she enjoys the conflict she has made, how she is

not guilty for causing others to suffer, and she is willing to violate the social

convention. Hence, her characteristics show her tendency in disingenuous

histrionic personality disorder.

Related to Amy‟s personality disorder, there is a mental process which can

explain how she manifests the disorder. Amy‟s personality is constructed by the

id, the ego, and the superego. Amy‟s id always desires affection and attention.

When she finds out about her husband‟s treason, she feels rejected and

disregarded. It leads her to feel hatred that activates the death instinct. The death

instinct drives her to create an image of revenge to her husband to reduce the

tension and also to satisfy the instinct.

Since Amy‟s ego is the only part that directly faces the reality, the way she

acts is decided here. Amy‟s image of revenge continues to become a real plan on

a revenge for her husband. She is an intelligent, and manipulative person, so


60

then she is able to create a scheme for her husband not only to destroy him, but

also to get back the acceptance and the attention that she needs. The revenge

plan is also a repression of a death wish from the death instinct. Amy displaces

the aggression for herself, to the aggression to her husband as a survival from

the life instinct.

Amy‟s superego supposes to be the resisting force for the cathexis from the

id, but it turns out being manipulated and corrupted by the id. Amy‟s superego

grows without rejection that leads her to be lack of conscience. Indeed, her ego-

ideal is dominance. The ego-ideal dominancy makes her to be a moralistic

person, and it is manipulated by the id. The revenge image and plan that has

been released by the id and the ego is not prohibited by the superego because she

thinks that she has to punish her husband for cheating on her.


61

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