Alcott's Gothic thrillers typically display strong-willed heroines who suffer difficult lives and renounce the prescribed, subjugating gender role of docile sentiment. Two examples of manipulating, vengeful women like Jean Muir include Pauline Valery of the short work "Pauline's Passion and Punishment." In the novella V. V.: or, Plots and Counterplots, the orphan and victimized widow Virginie Varens is a Parisian dancer who assumes a disguise to try to land an estate and title by remarriage.