Winifred

Winifred is the novel’s protagonist who arrives at Ensor House in the opening chapter to work as a governess. From the beginning, Winifred defines herself through violence and abnormality. She recounts acts of cruelty, deception, and murder with composure and often with a dry, ironic wit. Her first person narration encourages the reader to track her thoughts with unsettling closeness, even as her actions repel them. This gap between tone and content is central to her characterization. Winifred is articulate, observant, and intelligent, but her intelligence serves destructive ends. She understands social hierarchies well enough to exploit them, particularly the invisibility attached to her role as governess.

Although it is made clear that Winifred is unambiguously monstrous, the novel repeatedly emphasises that she is not in full possession of her faculties. Her sense of an internal force she calls “the Darkness,” her hallucinations, blackouts, dissociative episodes, and...