Hungerstone

The novel’s opening line, “IT STARTS WITH BLOOD,” immediately grounds the narrative in Lenore’s physical and psychological experience of womanhood (1). Through the use of blood, Kat Dunn connects Lenore’s menstruation to the traumatic memory of her parents’ bloody deaths in a carriage accident. For Lenore, blood signifies failure, pain, and loss. Her reflection that “[t]o be a woman is a horror [she] can little comprehend” encapsulates her alienation from her own body (4), which she views as a traitorous “enemy” to be subdued with laudanum. This internal horror is mirrored by the external constraints of her childless marriage, which lessens her value in the eyes of her husband. The narrative quickly establishes Lenore as a character trapped by both biological and societal expectations, her life a constant effort to manage a body and a role that feel alien to her. This initial focus on her internal suffering sets the stage for a story where liberation must come from embracing the very bodily “horror” she fears.

While Lenore contends with domestic anxieties, the narrative quickly reveals a more sinister violence underpinning her privileged life. A journalist’s questions about declining safety at the Ajax Works and Lenore’s glimpse of a document mentioning “dangerous working conditions” signal that Henry’s wealth is built on exploitation (15). This context, rooted in the historical reality of the 19th-century Sheffield Outrages, frames Henry’s personal cruelty within the broader context of The Monstrous Nature of Capitalism. Thus, his ambition is part of a lethal system of corporate greed. The attack on the gardener by Henry’s hounds is a metaphor for Henry himself, a raw, violent force poorly disguised by the trappings of a gentleman. The kennel man astutely comments, “Money can buy a pack, but it can’t buy training” (40). This observation is a direct critique of Henry, whose new-money status makes him insecure and desperate to perform the role of a landed gentleman even as he retains the brutal tactics that built his fortune.  

Carmilla’s arrival injects a gothic, supernatural tension into the narrative that directly challenges this established order. Lenore’s dream of a beautiful woman biting her neck is a classic vampire trope that precedes her meeting the real Carmilla, blurring the line between psyche and reality. Carmilla’s appearance from a wrecked carriage parallels the central trauma of Lenore’s life, the accident that orphaned her. This mirroring foreshadows Carmilla’s role in forcing Lenore to confront her past. By naming the mysterious guest Carmilla Kernstein, Dunn explicitly signals her engagement with a tradition of using the female vampire to explore queer desire and critique patriarchal control. The physical layout of Nethershaw reinforces this dynamic: While Henry chooses a bedroom as far from Lenore as possible, Carmilla is placed in the room directly opposite hers, spatially representing the narrative’s central conflict between a distant, cold husband and an alluring, intimate stranger.

Carmilla’s influence immediately begins to awaken repressed appetites in the stifling environment of Nethershaw, introducing hunger as a motif of Desire as Self-Actualization. The strange incident of a maid being fired for ravenously devouring game pies is followed by the more disturbing scene of Molly eating strands of Carmilla’s hair. Carmilla’s casual interpretation that the maid “wanted to know what [she] tasted like” suggests the women’s acts are expressions of a deep, suppressed hunger (63). In contrast, Lenore’s deep shame after fantasizing about Carmilla’s body reveals a fear of her own appetites, which have been systematically denied in her passionless marriage. She attempts to control these emerging desires through the pastilles Henry gives her. She consumes the sugary sweets to “blunt [her] mind” (6), a form of self-medication to starve her true feelings. This frames the pastilles, which are later revealed to be poisoned, as a symbol of patriarchal control. These episodes illustrate how Carmilla’s presence catalyzes the release of primal wants and leads to Lenore’s own journey toward Desire as Self-Actualization.

The estate of Nethershaw itself becomes an emblem of Lenore’s internal state and potential for transformation. Initially, she sees the house as a “wreck,” a burden of “rot and decay” that she must manage as part of her wifely duties (64). The sagging ceilings, crumbling mortar, and oppressive dark paneling reflect her view of her own life and marriage as a dilapidated structure she is tasked with maintaining. However, Carmilla reframes the house’s decay as a source of power, seeing its “magnificence” in its wildness. She tells Lenore, “This place is wild. It is defiant and difficult and free. Do you not love it for that?” (65). This dialogue is a critical turning point, inviting Lenore to see potential for liberation and strength in what she previously saw only as a flaw. The house, with its “slopes and twists” and persistent leaks (29), becomes a metaphor for Lenore’s own internal landscape; although it is damaged and neglected, it also possesses a wild, untamable core that resists patriarchal order. 

This nascent self-actualization culminates in Lenore’s first significant act of defiance against her husband. At a tense dinner, she publicly contradicts Henry’s attempt to expel their guest, insisting that Carmilla will remain under her care. This moment is a critical shift in their power dynamic. For a decade, Lenore has acted as an “unerring general” in the campaign for Henry’s social advancement, her own needs secondary. In choosing to protect Carmilla, she prioritizes her own burgeoning connection over her husband’s authority. It is a quiet but revolutionary act within the confines of her marriage, a claiming of her own house and her own will. Henry’s ominous warning, “Do not make me regret this, Lenore” (59), emphasizes the danger of her rebellion. The sudden arrival of Cora at the very end of the section immediately complicates this newfound agency, introducing a figure from Lenore’s old life of social obligation just as she begins to explore a new, more authentic self.