How we cite our quotes: Chapter.Paragraph
Quote #4
It's a very difficult era in which to be a person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters.
And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don't have genuine souls.
It had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I'm not a real person and neither is anyone else.
I would have done anything to feel real again.
We hate to break it to you, Nick, but you actually aren't a real person—you're a character in a book called Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, there's a real sadness to Nick's view of his reality; that life has so drastically changed in his family, career, and marriage that he can no longer feel alive.
Nick's commentary on humanity's "play-acting" though, is also an apt description of the Internet-ridden world that drove him out of magazine writing. Facebook, online dating websites, fake social networking accounts—all of them allow us to make ourselves into whoever we want to be.
Quote #5
Sometimes I feel like Nick has decided on a version of me that doesn't exist. Since we've moved here, I've done girls' nights out and charity walks, I've cooked casseroles for his dad and helped sell tickets for raffles. I tapped the last of my money to give to Nick and Go so they could buy the bar they've always wanted […] I don't know what to do. I'm trying. (16.14)
We'd just like to say here that Shmoop has nothing against casseroles, charity walks, raffles, and girls' nights—they're just not Amy's cup of tea, especially since being forced into a role she doesn't want to play is something she's far too used to. After spending her whole life trying to live up to her fictional alter ego, Amy's now forced to do all kinds of things that just don't interest her, all for the sake of fitting Nick's expectations of what she should be now that they're on his turf.
Quote #6
I wanted to feel like a shiny-cool winner, so I didn't tell my students about my demise. I told them we had a family illness that required my attention here, which was true, yes, I told myself, entirely true, and very heroic. (19.39)
Here goes Nick again, reinventing his circumstances because reality is too painful to deal with. He tells his students that he's moved out to Missouri exclusively to help with a family illness, while managing not to say anything about the status of his job. Not only does this make him feel like a hero, but it also gives him the added bonus of having his classroom of female co-eds look upon him as a hero. Enter Andie. You know the rest.