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already uses Desi as the bad guy. The quotation below shows how Amy tells Nick to forget everything.
‘Nick, I think you’ve gotten some bad information,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t surprise me, all the rumors that are going about. But we need to forget all
that. If we are to go forward. And we will go forward. All of America wants us to go forward. It’s the story the world needs right now. Us. Desi’s
the bad guy. No one wants two bad guys. They want to like you, Nick. The only way you can be loved again is to stay with me. It’s the only way.’
Flynn, 2012: 433 The line ‘The only way you can be loved again is to stay with me..’ spoken by
Amy above shows that she has no remorse of what she did to Nick. She does not even think of the possibility that Nick might want to leave her as soon as possible. Amy
forces Nick to stay with her so they could stay as happy couple again. The fact that Amy lacks of remorse is also strengthened by Nick’s comment.
Nick who knows Amy’s characteristics tell his lawyer that Amy does the treasure hunt so he knows that Amy knows his fidelity. It can be seen in the quotation below.
‘Because she’s done it perfectly. She always needed that validation, the praise, all the time. She wants me to know I’m being fucked. She can’t resist.
It wouldn’t be fun for her otherwise.’ Flynn, 2012: 256-257
Lacking of remorse is one of the criteria of people with antisocial personality disorder. They are callous so that they do not have any empathy or feeling of regret
when they disadvantaged other people. From some points above, it can be concluded that Amy is indicated with antisocial personality disorder because some of her actions
i.e. smiling when thinking about her framing, threatening Nick to make his life awful, and also telling Nick to forget everything instead of apologizing.
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B. The Cause of Amy’s Personality Disorder
According to American Psychiatric Association www.apa.org: 2004, personality disorder does not happen without cause. The causes of personality
disorder are genetics, childhood trauma, verbal abuse, high reactivity, and peers American Psychiatric Association, 2004: par. 2. In the research, the researcher
found that Amy’s personality disorder is caused by her peers. According to Beck in Huff: 20004, par. 26 peers can be parents, caregivers, friends, teachers, or other
people who communicate with the person. In this case, the peers who affect Amy’s personality development are her parents and her husband. It will be further explained
in some points below. My parents have always worried that I’d take Amy too personally – they
always tell me not to read too much into her. And yet I can’t fail to notice that whenever I screw something up, Amy does it right: When I finally quit violin
at age twelve, Amy was revealed as a prodigy in the next book. ‘Sheesh, violin can be hard work, but hard work is the only way to get better’ When I
blew off the junior tennis championship at age sixteen to do a beach weekend with friends, Amy recommitted to the game. ‘Sheesh, I know it’s fun to
spend time with friends, but I’d be letting myself and everyone else down if I didn’t show up for the tournament.’
Flynn, 2012: 30 From the quotation above, it can be seen how Amy is actually pressured by
her parents. Her parents create a novel character named Amy who always does her best in everything. Meanwhile, in the real life, the real Amy screws up everything.
Unconsciously, it causes her to strive for perfection so she can be Amy. In order to achieve that, Amy does not hesitate to do any kind of thing so she can be perfect.
This kind of pressure she gets from her parents is also strengthened with the fact that
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she is the only child who was born from her mother after seven pregnancies. The fact that Amy is pressured by her own parents can be seen in the quotation below.
I’ve always been better than the Hopes, I was the one who made it. But I’ve always been jealous too, always – seven dead dancing princesses. They get to
be perfect without even trying, here on earth, and every day I must try, and every day is a chance to be less than perfect.
Flynn, 2012: 250 The quotation above shows Amy’s jealousy towards the seven dead Hopes. It
is because the Hopes do not need to try to be perfect. Meanwhile, Amy has to fulfill her parents’ wishes and be a good girl just like Amazing Amy. It is getting worse with
the fact that she felt like a ‘product’ for her parents. It can be seen from the line below.
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 all the time, but they never explained how.
Flynn. 2012: 252 In the quotation above, Amy feels that she has to be as brilliant, creative,
thoughtful witty, and happy as Amazing Amy. Even though her parents say that Amy does not have to be like Amazing Amy, it still pressures her inevitably. Amy’s striving
to be perfect continues into her adulthood when she meets Nick. Nick is a kind of person whom she loves. In front of Nick, Amy acts as Cool Amy because she knows
that Nick likes that kind of girl. However, acting as a cool girl makes her tired so she wants to stop. It can be seen from the quotation below.
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But then it had to stop, because it wasn’t real, it wasn’t me.. It wasn’t me, Nick I thought you knew. I thought it was a bit of a game. I thought we had a
wink-wink, don’t ask, don’t tell thing going. I tried so hard to be easy. But it was unsustainable. It turned out he couldn’t sustain his side either: the witty
banter, the clever games, the romance, and the wooing. It all started collapsing on itself. I hated Nick for being surprised when I became me.
Flynn, 2012: 253
Nick’s behaviors after Amy showing her true self does not satisfy her. It triggers her to do the framing. Moreover, Nick’s infidelity strengthens Amy’s will to
frame him. Nick, the one whom she loves and believes, cheats on her because she shows her true self. It makes Amy feels betrayed and defeated. Amy witnesses the
scene by herself which makes her irritated immediately. I got there just in time to see him leaving with her. I was in the goddamn
parking lot, twenty feet behind him, and he didn’t even register me, I was a ghost. He didn’t have his hands on her, not yet, but I knew. I could tell
because he was so aware of her. I followed them, and suddenly, e pressed her up against a tree – in the middle of town – and kissed her. Nick is cheating.
Flynn, 2012: 262 In the quotation above, Amy uses curse ‘goddamn’ which shows her anger.
Witnessing her own husband cheating right in front of her eyes makes her angry, of course. Here, her peer is obviously the trigger that makes her show her antisocial
personality disorder side. During her high school years, her boyfriend, Tommy O’ Hara also betrays her. The result of this betrayal is he is being framed for rape accuse.
It can be seen in the quotation below. ‘So, I start making excuses not to hang out so much. I don’t call it off,
because I’m an idiot, and she’s gorgeous. I’m hoping it might turn around. But you know, I’m making excuses fairly regularly: I’m stuck at work, I’m on
deadline, I have a friend in town, my monkey is sick, whatever. And I started seeing this other girl, kinda sorta seeing her, very casual, no big deal. Or so I
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think. But Amy finds out – how, I still don’t know, for all I know, she was staking out my apartment. But …shit …’
Flynn, 2012: 311 The quotation above is based on telephone conversation between Tommy O’
Hara and Nick. It can be indicated in the quotation above that Amy found out Tommy O’ Hara seeing other girls than her. It triggers Amy’s anger so she framed Tommy O’
Hara for raping her. That is why peers become the only reason that causes Amy’s antisocial personality disorder.
Amy also cannot accept the fact that her friend, Hillary Handy, is more popular than her. Handy is invited by their friend a dinner and called by a boy from
other schools while Amy is not. Besides, Handy also knows that the real Amy is not that perfect. It causes Amy to be upset so she wants to punish Handy. It can be clearly
seen through Handy’s statement below. ‘I feel like Amy wanted people to believe she really was perfect. And as we
got to be friends, I got to know her. And she wasn’t perfect. You know? She was brilliant and charming and all that, but she was also controlling and OCD
and a drama queen and a bit of a liar. Which was fine by me. It just wasn’t fine by her. She got rid of me because I knew she wasn’t perfect. It made me
wonder about you.’
Flynn, 2012: 326
Even after her missing, Amy’s parents do not seem to understand that they pressure Amy. They even accept an offer from the publisher to write another series of
Amazing Amy Flynn, 2012: 447. Because her parents keep exploiting her through the character in the book, it is impossible for Amy to be her own self.
