The Hunger for Power: Control and Agency in Hungerstone

Kat Dunn’s Hungerstone (2024) follows Lenore Crowther’s journey from a silenced, controlled wife to a woman who actively shapes her own fate. At its core, the novel argues that true agency emerges not from rigid self-mastery but from embracing one’s own appetites — even when those appetites are monstrous. This analysis traces that thematic claim across the plot, examines key characters and symbols, and addresses the complexity of Lenore’s transformation.

Defining the Thematic Claim

Lenore’s arc is a rebellion against the psychological and physical control imposed by her husband, Henry, and by Victorian society. For a decade, she has performed the role of the perfect mistress: managing Nethershaw, charming Henry’s guests, and suppressing her own desires. Her survival strategy is total self‑control, but this “mastery” leaves her numb and starving. The novel’s central claim is that control without agency — the ability to act on one’s own hungers — is a form of living death. Only by reclaiming her appetite (literally through bloodlust and figuratively through defiance) does Lenore become the author of her story.

Tracing the Theme Through the Plot

1. The Arsenic Cage (Chapters 1–6)

The opening chapters establish Lenore’s passive entrapment. She wakes to her period, a monthly reminder of her childless marriage, and reflects on ten years of emotional numbness. Henry’s control is subtle but total: he dictates their movements, manages her social performance, and — as she later discovers — poisons her with arsenic‑laced pastilles. The pastilles are a perverse symbol of control: she takes them to suppress her hunger, but they are also Henry’s instrument of slow domination. In Chapter 6, Carmilla Kernstein exposes this dynamic during dinner. When Carmilla asks what Lenore truly hungers for, Lenore deflects with platitudes about duty. Carmilla’s sneer — “What a small, pathetic future you build” — forces Lenore to confront the gulf between her performed control and her unfulfilled life.

2. Awakening and Confrontation (Chapters 10–23)

The middle of the novel sees Lenore’s agency begin to crack through. In Chapter 10, she accompanies Henry to the Ajax Works and performs her role as the admiring wife, but her internal monologue reveals growing resentment. She realizes that her self‑control has been a cage, not a shield. The turning point comes in Chapter 14, when she witnesses Henry accidentally kill Lord Abney. Instead of collapsing, Lenore immediately constructs a cover story: “It was an accident.” In that moment, power shifts — she holds the secret that can destroy him. Yet she still serves his interests, burying her own truth.

Carmilla’s presence accelerates Lenore’s transformation. In Chapter 17, Lenore openly defies Henry at dinner, throwing food and demanding, “What do I want?” She has begun to reject the pastilles that symbolize her poisoning — both literal and figurative. By Chapter 20, she discovers the arsenic in Henry’s trunk and replaces it with sugar, literally turning his poison into a harmless sweet. She also writes a letter to be opened in the event of her death, creating leverage. This act is the first time she seizes narrative control: she becomes the author of her own insurance, no longer a passive recipient of his plots.

3. Seizing Power and Becoming Predator (Chapters 23–26)

Lenore’s agency culminates in two decisive acts. In Chapter 23, she reveals her knowledge to Henry, blows the arsenic powder into the air, and tells him his fate depends on her survival. She has stolen his power of life and death. The scene shows her relishing control: “I am mistress of Nethershaw, and my world is exquisite.” Yet this mastery remains within the human sphere — she is still bound by social rules.

The final break comes in Chapters 25–26. When Henry threatens asylum, Lenore attacks him on the moor. Her hunger gives her preternatural strength, and she kills him with her own hands. Then she lies to the detective, blaming the dogs, and walks away unpunished. Carmilla arrives and recognizes “a dark light” in Lenore’s eyes. Lenore joins Carmilla, stepping into a predatory existence beyond law and morality. Agency here becomes absolute: she writes her own story not only by surviving but by choosing a monstrous path. The novel ends with Lenore embracing a hunger that is both liberation and damnation.

Character Connections

Henry Crowther: The embodiment of patriarchal control. He uses arsenic, social expectation, and threats of the asylum to keep Lenore submissive. His murder is the climactic rejection of his rule.
Carmilla Kernstein: The catalyst for Lenore’s awakening. She forces Lenore to name her hunger and models a life of unapologetic appetite. In Chapter 18, Carmilla says Lenore has “found” her mind, not lost it — reframing madness as liberation.
Cora Lamb: A foil who has everything Lenore lacks — youth, freedom, a future. Lenore both loves and resents her. Cora’s death (by Carmilla) frees Lenore from envy, but it also forces her to confront her own complicity in the cycle of predation.
Aunt Daphne: Represents the disciplining of Lenore’s childhood. The memory of her “sharp eye” haunts Lenore, showing how control was internalized long before Henry.
Molly: The servant who tends Lenore without questioning her mistress’s authority. Molly’s silent obedience mirrors Lenore’s former compliance.

Symbol Connections

Arsenic pastilles: A multi‑layered symbol. They represent the poison of patriarchal control, but also Lenore’s false attempt to control her own appetite. When she replaces the arsenic with sugar, she transforms the symbol from poison to power.
The moor: The untamed landscape where Lenore first kisses Carmilla, where she hunts Henry, and where she finally embraces her predatory nature. The moor is freedom beyond society’s rules — but it is also cold, dangerous, and inhuman.
Mirrors: In Chapter 6, Lenore avoids her reflection. Later, she learns to see herself clearly, even when that reflection is monstrous. Mirrors represent self‑knowledge and the loss of comforting illusions.
Carriage: A symbol of traumatic memory — her parents died in one, and she faints when Carmilla’s carriage crashes. Yet by the end, Lenore rides in Carmilla’s carriage willingly, claiming a new journey.

Complexity and Contradiction

Lenore’s agency is not an unqualified triumph. She becomes a predator who kills without remorse and lies without compunction. The novel refuses to romanticize her liberation: her final hunger is for blood, and she joins Carmilla in a world “beyond human rules.” Is this true agency, or simply a new form of enslavement to appetite? Dunn leaves the question open. Lenore gains the power to act, but that power isolates her from humanity. The novel complicates the idea that control is either good or bad: Lenore’s early self‑control was destructive, but her later lack of control (the hunger that drives her to kill) is also destructive. Agency, in Hungerstone, is a paradox — it requires surrendering to something larger than oneself, whether that be desire or fate.

Study Questions and Answers

How does Lenore’s relationship with the arsenic pastilles change over the course of the novel?
Answer: Initially, the pastilles are a tool of self‑medication: she takes them to numb her hunger and conform to Henry’s expectations. After discovering Henry is poisoning her, she replaces the arsenic with sugar, transforming the pastilles from a symbol of victimhood into one of defiance. By Chapter 23, she flaunts her knowledge, blowing the powder in Henry’s face, and the pastilles become a weapon of psychological control.
What role does Carmilla play in Lenore’s transformation from passive wife to active agent?
Answer: Carmilla functions as a catalyst. She forces Lenore to articulate her hidden desires (“What do you hunger for?”), models unapologetic appetite, and provides the emotional and physical space for Lenore to break free. In Chapter 18, Carmilla literally pulls Lenore through a window, symbolizing the rupture of her old life. Yet Carmilla also represents a dangerous path: her influence leads Lenore into predation, not simply liberation.
How does the murder of Lord Abney (Chapter 14) alter the power dynamic between Lenore and Henry?
Answer: Before the murder, Henry holds all the cards — he controls the money, the household, and Lenore’s body. After she witnesses his accidental killing of Abney and constructs the cover story, Lenore gains a secret that makes her indispensable to Henry’s survival. The balance tips: she is no longer a passive victim but a co‑conspirator with leverage. This moment plants the seed for her later rebellion.
In what ways does the moor symbolize Lenore’s loss of control and her attainment of freedom?
Answer: The moor is wild, lawless, and dangerous — the opposite of the regulated domestic spaces Lenore has inhabited. Her first intimate encounter with Carmilla happens on the moor, breaking social rules. Her final confrontation with Henry occurs there, and she uses the terrain to hunt him. After the killing, she walks the moor with Carmilla, free from human judgement. However, the moor also symbolizes alienation: it is cold and isolating, suggesting that true freedom comes at the cost of human connection.
Does Lenore truly achieve agency by the novel’s end, or does she simply exchange one form of control for another?
Answer: The novel deliberately blurs the answer. Lenore certainly gains the power to act — she kills Henry, lies to the detective, and joins Carmilla on her own terms. Yet she is now driven by an inhuman hunger that she cannot fully control. In the final chapter, Carmilla’s cold laughter echoes in Lenore’s mind, suggesting she has become a tool of a larger, predatory system. Agency in Hungerstone is not absolute freedom but the ability to choose one’s constraints. Lenore chooses the constraint of appetite over the constraint of social performance, but she is still bound.