Mr. Pounds’s use of a craniometer to measure Winifred’s skull satirizes the flimsy justifications that underpin social hierarchy, driving The Absurdity of Class Superiority as a theme. When Mr. Pounds excitedly concludes their skulls are identical and they are therefore “better suited” (80) to each other, Feito underscores the irony that Mr. Pounds cannot discern Winifred’s true nature and intentions, nor realize any substantial connection between their characters. This failure emphasizes the scam of phrenology, effectively mocking the pseudo-sciences of eugenics, which were originally developed to legitimize the idea that people of color and the poor were naturally inferior to the white race during this time. Though the racial aspects of this critique are absent from the dynamic between Mr. Pounds and Winifred, Mr. Pounds’s attempts to flatter Winifred over her skull shape inadvertently suggests that they are one and the same, despite their class differences. This underscores the idea that whatever violence Winifred commits as an antihero merely reflects the sanitized violence performed by her “betters,” such as Mr. and Mrs. Pounds. 

The casual brutality of the Pounds household provides the necessary context for Winifred’s own escalating acts of violence, illustrating The Normalization of Systemic Violence. The unjust conviction and exile of the 16-year-old housemaid to Van Diemen’s Land is treated as a minor inconvenience, driving the home’s foundational cruelty. This institutional callousness is echoed by Mr. Pounds’s hypocritical dinner-table speech praising the Factory Act for “protecting” children, disguising the fact that hundreds of child deaths have served as the foundation for his fortune. The narrative directly connects this societal rot to Winifred’s personal history through her father’s letters. Written in red ink that has “rusted over time in the nature of blood” (89) and bearing a gold-leaf boar crest, the letters are artifacts that physically link aristocratic lineage with murderous intent. His repeated command to “Kill her” becomes a foundational text for Winifred, an inheritance of violence. Her reaction is one of communion; by licking the ink, she performs a ritual of acceptance, symbolically ingesting her father’s violent legacy and embracing it as her own.

Winifred’s murder of William Fancey is rendered through a surreal, hallucinatory lens that blurs the line between motive and action. While Winifred is under the influence of Godfrey’s Cordial, the crying infant transforms into a taunting, articulate spokesman for the patriarchy, drawling “in the accent of the monarchy” (95) and calling her a “trollop’s daughter” (95-96). The baby becomes a grotesque manifestation of all her insecurities: her illegitimacy, her disposability, and her lack of paternal love. Her violent response is directed at the personified voice of the class system that condemns her. Feito uses the surrealist qualities of the scene to suggest that the psychological pressures of Winifred’s world are so extreme that they can influenced her warped perception. The distinction between what is real and what is imagined becomes irrelevant; Winifred’s violence and their object remain the same.

Following the murder, Winifred’s calm, logistical approach to replacing the dead infant cements the theme of The Commodification of Human Bodies. Her solution is to procure a substitute, treating the child as interchangeable. The ensuing sequence of replacing the baby reduces both William and the stolen child to disposable objects, their humanity erased in a transaction of macabre problem-solving. Much like Mr. Pounds’ failure to realize the implications of his assessment of Winifred’s skull, Mrs. Fancey’s failure to recognize her own child is the ultimate indictment of a social stratum where children are accessories and status symbols, rather than individuals. Winifred’s ability to “fix” the problem reflects the dehumanizing logic of a society where the poor are an exploitable resource, their children functionally indistinguishable from the property of the wealthy.

The murder of Miss Lamb confirms the novel’s radical subversion of the Gothic governess tradition, cementing Winifred’s status as an unapologetic predator. Where a traditional governess like Jane Eyre suffers silently, Winifred responds to Miss Lamb’s threat of exposure with murder. Mrs. Pounds’s failure to notice the murder that has just taken place compounds the macabre quality of the scene, pointing to the ruling class’s deep self-absorption and their inability to perceive the violence festering under their own roofs. Sue Lamb is no different from the babies Winifred has killed and stolen; they merely exist as accessories to Winifred’s selfish designs.