Amy Dunne's Cool Girl Monologue

Amy Dunne: Cool Girl

Amy Dunne plays the role of the loving housewife to her husband for years until she finds out he is cheating on her with a student. After Amy's disappearance, her husband, Nick Dunne, becomes the prime suspect in her disappearance, but we soon learn that Amy herself has staged the entire thing in order to get revenge on her husband. While she is "missing", Amy gives a monologue which essentially explains why she does everything until this point and how being a "cool girl" was the role she gave herself instead of the typical fashion of the "cool girl" being a victim. Amy's monologue relates to our society as a large because Amy talks about the "cool girl" and how they are hot and understanding. She discusses the cool girl and how men actually think girls like this exist, when in fact they are playing a role just to please their partner. In a society that values Instagram likes and appearances above all else, men have also come to expect girls on social media and in real life to be cool girls. Amy says that cool girls are above all hot. Cool girls are whatever men want them to be and that echoes through to the stereotypes and generalizations of women.

Amy defies all stereotypes of what a woman is supposed to be, in that she plays the role of an obedient, eager, helpless, housewife when she is so much more than she lets on. Amy's false diary narrates her as a loving housewife who despite Nick's distance and abuse, has always done her part. At first glance, the reader feels sad about Amy and the things she has gone through but once the reader discovers that she has written her own story, everything changes. Amy transforms from being a regular housewife to being a master schemer that will do anything and everything to get back at her husband for cheating on her. Her monologue serves as an explanation for her actions to this point because Amy basically states that she was willing to play the part of the cool girl for Nick. She says that she and Nick were happy pretending to be the couple that they were because they were both playing roles. Amy plots against Nick because even though she acts like a cool girl and does everything for him, he still cheats on her.