Hungerstone

In the novel’s second section, Lenore’s inner conflict reveals the difficulty of reclaiming Desire as Self-Actualization after a lifetime of abnegation. The protagonist’s inability to choose a path on the moors reveals the depth of her self-suppression. The flashback to her miserable childhood with Aunt Daphne reveals that Lenore was systematically taught that her needs were an intolerable “burden” and that her survival depended on distancing herself from her desires. By asking Lenore to choose their route through the moors, Carmilla challenges the denial of self that underpins Lenore’s entire approach to life. The resulting panic and tears expose the void where Lenore’s will should be. This moment is a painful but necessary turning point in Lenore’s journey toward Desire as Self-Actualization; before she can embrace her appetites, she must first confront the fact that she does not know what they are. Carmilla forces Lenore to face the psychological damage inflicted by her upbringing, framing her eventual transformation as a difficult process of reclamation.

The horrific accident at the Ajax Works connects the violence of industrial capitalism to the psychological violence of Lenore’s marriage. Henry callously dismisses the incident by saying “there is no such thing as a life without risk” (130), revealing that his power is built on the casual acceptance of others’ suffering. The Ajax Works thus becomes a motif of The Monstrous Nature of Capitalism. The factory’s centerpiece, a Bessemer converter described as a “monstrous thing that looks like a steel egg on legs” spilling a “red tide of molten metal” (125), literalizes this grotesque, life-destroying force. Because the steelworks’ profits fund the purchase and renovation of Nethershaw, Dunn also uses Ajax Works to critique the exploitation that underpins the British landed gentry’s status. Lenore’s visit to the factory forces her to reckon with her own privilege and culpability in this system: “I have been happy to find security in his money, never thinking on whose backs such riches are made” (127). The subsequent accident marks an important moment for the protagonist’s moral awakening and her growing resistance against Henry’s corrupt control.

The novel’s use of gothic tropes creates ambiguity, blurring the lines between the supernatural and Lenore’s crumbling reality. The nighttime visitation from a shadowy presence that pins her to the bed and bites her neck is a classic gothic horror scenario. However, the narrative leaves the incident deliberately uncertain: Lenore suspects Carmilla, but the event could be a nightmare born of her mounting anxiety. This ambiguity mirrors Lenore’s own fragile state, as she struggles to determine whether her suspicions about Henry and Cora are real or “poison” planted by Carmilla. The setting of Nethershaw enhances this atmosphere; the isolated, dilapidated manor functions as an external manifestation of Lenore’s decaying marriage and psyche. Carmilla’s ability to appear “noiselessly” and the sight of a lone figure on the moor at night further destabilize Lenore’s sense of reality, suggesting that the true horror lies in the disintegration of the self rather than in an external “monster.”

Lenore’s encounter with the farm girl who tears a hen apart with her bare hands uses hunger as a motif of Desire as Self-Actualization. The girl’s simple, desperate confession, “I was so terribly hungry” (119), recasts her grotesque act as an expression of an overwhelming, undeniable need that polite society cannot contain. This scene provides a visceral image of the repressed appetites churning within Lenore herself, who is “famished” after witnessing the event. While Cora reacts with conventional horror, Carmilla looks on with “an expression of rapture” (120), positioning this raw, bloody consumption as an authentic state to be revered. This moment aligns with the author’s utilization of the gothic trope of vampiric hunger as a metaphor for unleashed female agency. 

In this section, gifts and other domestic objects function as instruments of control, showing The Intertwined Struggles of Class and Gender. Henry’s anniversary present of a black jet necklace is a cheap substitute for the diamonds Lenore had seen and a calculated reminder of his economic power over her. His subsequent offering of more arsenic pastilles reinforces this dynamic; the pastilles symbolize his insidious patriarchal control, a toxic substance disguised as a sweet comfort that allows Lenore to numb the pain he himself inflicts. Carmilla’s judgment that the pastilles are “disgusting” marks her as the only person who recognizes this cycle of abuse and attempts to break it. Even Cora’s well-meaning gift of an expensive fan makes Lenore feel inadequate and “girlish,” reinforcing the class and social pressures that police her identity as an aging, childless wife. These transactional objects reveal the hollowness of Lenore’s world, exposing a system where material goods are weaponized to assert dominance, enforce conformity, and maintain a patriarchal order built on female suppression.