Aspects of Crime in Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects

Abstract

This extended essay sheds light on three types of crime: Child Abuse, Sexual Harassment, and Murder in Gillian Flynn’s contemporary novel, Sharp Objects (2006). These three “major” crimes are actual social phenomena in our world; however, Flynn approaches them differently. While other writers associate these crimes mainly with male characters, Flynn takes a step forward to show how women can be of greater danger to each other than men are to women. In this work, we aim to show the “power” of women, and women's crime from the perspective of Gillian Flynn through Sharp Objects. In Sharp Objects, women are vicious, cruel and heartless yet they still hold the image of vulnerable beings for other men in Wind Gap who think a woman cannot kill or hurt. Flynn is considered a feminist writer as she defends discrimination against women in all her books from her debut novel Sharp Objects to her bestseller Gone Girl.