“Invented Self”
Karen Horney, a German psychoanalyst, released her “Theory of the Self” in 1950, with the publishing of her book Neurosis and Human Growth. In her book, Horney describes her theory as the ability for humans to view themselves in two separate lights, the “real self” and the “ideal self,” and how people can become confused as to which is their true identity. Gone Girl, a novel by Gillian Flynn concerning the disappearance of a young woman and the disintegration of a marriage, perfectly illustrates how Horney’s “Theory of the Self” could be the deep-rooted cause behind the eventual failing of a relationship.
The “real self” is less of a concrete collection of personal likes and dislikes that make up a personality, and more like a “set of ‘intrinsic potentialities’-- including temperament, talents, capacities and predispositions--that are part of our genetic makeup and need a favorable environment in which to develop.” In Gone Girl, Amy is portrayed to have discovered her “real self” for the first time when she witnessed Nick’s infidelity. The fact that she discovered this so late in life is due to her parents conditioning her to become the perfect child and fill the role of ‘Amazing Amy’, the main character of the children's book series they created based on her, while self-realization requires “‘an atmosphere of warmth’ that enables children to have and express their ‘own feelings and thoughts,’ the ‘good will’ of others to supply their ‘many needs,’ and ‘healthy friction with the wishes and will’ of those around them.” Amy’s final realization of who she truly is is what allowed her to see the “ideal selves” that everyone else created for themselves (Paris).
Even women with already well-defined “real selves” can unconsciously create an “ideal self” for the sake of others. For example, a woman who prefers to spend the majority of her time at her home may get lonely, and she can’t meet anyone by just sitting in her house. So, she goes out to a bar with some friends one night and meets someone who interests her. She decides to start going to that bar more often in order to increase the probability of seeing him again, giving him the impression that she goes out with her friends quite often. He becomes interested in her because he would prefer to be with a woman who wants to spend more time outside of the house. In this scenario, Horney would say that this young woman created what is called an “ideal self,” which is the “type of person we feel we should be,” while unknowingly hiding her “real self,” or “who and what we actually are” (“Karen Horney”).
Let’s say the woman in this scenario continues to see this man, thinking that relationships are all about compromise, and she can give up the introverted part of herself for the sake of someone she cares about. But then she begins to give up more, deciding to give up the logical part of herself that would be angry that he stood her up for a dinner date, and the artistic part of herself when he reveals that he finds going to the art institute for a date rather dull. Suddenly, this woman she has created is not the woman she truly is, she is “Cool Girl.” In Gone Girl, Flynn describes “Cool Girl” as a “hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bag while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot.” Through this concept of “Cool Girl,” Flynn is basically renaming Horney’s theory, but also goes on to give a plausible explanation for why women may consciously or unconsciously do this; “He helped me be Cool Girl--I couldn’t have been Cool Girl with anyone else. I wouldn’t have wanted to. I didn’t worry about anything that came next. Nothing had consequence, I was living in the moment, and I could feel myself getting shallower and dumber. But also happy.” Clearly, even if women may be giving up every essence of their being in order to impress a man, there is a partial reason, because these men allow these women to be happy in a way they have never experienced before, and they’re afraid he’ll slip away if they reveal that they don’t love to eat chemically processed foods or watch movies with sexist overtones (Flynn).
However, no matter how much these women may try to hide, their true selves will always slip. According to a survey in 2013, approximately 43% of couples divorced due to “basic incompatibility,” far surpassing the other listed reasons (“Leading Causes of Divorce”). I believe a major source of this incompatibility is the fact that both men and women put on a facade for one another, become “Cool Girl,” and act as their “ideal selves,” while courting, but end up getting to know each other for their “real selves” and not seeing them as the man/woman they fell in love with anymore. Taking a relationship to the next step is always about getting closer, and that can sometimes end up only pushing people apart. This is exactly what Nick believed to have happened to his own marriage, a simple problem of incompatibility that led to infidelity, when that was only the beginning of the dark secrets his marriage entailed.
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