Bound Volume Number
3
Degree Type
Honors Capstone Project
Date of Submission
Spring 5-1-2015
Capstone Advisor
Prof. Chris Forster
Honors Reader
Prof. Dana Olwan
Capstone Major
English
Capstone College
Arts and Science
Audio/Visual Component
no
Keywords
contemporary novel, narrative convention, true-crime, domestic violence, representations of women, gender
Capstone Prize Winner
no
Won Capstone Funding
no
Honors Categories
Social Sciences
Subject Categories
American Literature | Literature in English, North America | Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Abstract
Stories about abducted women and murdered wives are sadly common on cable and network news programs, from Nancy Grace to Dateline. These at the center of Emma Donaghue’s Room (2010) and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012). These contemporary novels manipulate the narrative conventions of popular true-crime stories to expose the
In the each chapter, I examine the interesting narrative perspectives of Room and Gone Girl to understand the ways that these novels deconstruct mass media narratives of violence to reveal ideas about gender. In Room, Donaghue dislocates the narration by narrating the novel not from the perspective of the abducted captive, but her five-year-old son, Jack. Unaware that he and his mother are captives of her abductor, Jack’s narration is often confusing, forcing readers to experience the captivity narrative anew. Where Donaghue imposes an ignorance of narrative conventions through Jack, Flynn narrates Nick and Amy Dunne, the couple at the heart of Gone Girl, as masters. In keeping with the narrative expectations that when a wife goes missing, you assume her husband did it, all eyes turn to Nick after Amy’s disappearance. But in Flynn’s novel, both characters are hyper-aware of this fact. The stark contrast between ignorance of conventions and mastery of them in Room and Gone Girl reveals the constructedness of the true-crime narratives.
I close by turning to this year’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt in a brief coda. In this sitcom, about a woman who readjusts to life after fifteen years of captivity in a bunker, comedy becomes a device to emphasize resilience after violence.
Finally, this project seeks to contextualize Room, Gone Girl, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt within the current mass media climate so as to reveal the ways that such fictional narratives contested the conventions of true-crime accounts of violence against women.
Recommended Citation
Jeffers, Meredith, "Exposing Narrative Ideologies of Victimhood in Emma Donaghue’s Room and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl" (2015). Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All. 835.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/835
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Included in
American Literature Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons
