# The Sacrificial Nature of Love in My Darling Dreadful Thing

Defining the Thematic Claim

In My Darling Dreadful Thing, Johanna van Veen presents love not as a gentle refuge but as a consuming force that demands the surrender of personal autonomy, safety, and even sanity. Devotion in this novel is repeatedly framed as a form of self-annihilation: characters bind themselves to one another through blood, sacrifice, and suffering, and the strength of their love is measured by how much they are willing to lose. The author herself confirms in the closing interview that the book is "a love story," yet it is a love story in which every act of affection carries a price. The thematic claim that emerges is that love, in this Gothic world, is inherently sacrificial—it requires the lover to give up pieces of the self, sometimes literally, and the novel interrogates whether such sacrifice is a proof of love or a distortion of it.

Love as a Binding Sacrifice: Roos and Ruth

The earliest and most visceral expression of sacrificial love appears in Roos's childhood bond with Ruth. As a five-year-old hiding beneath the floorboards of her mother's séance room, Roos is terrified and weeping. A creature named Ruth shares that cramped space and wants to drink her blood. To suppress her cries, Roos bites the flesh between her thumb and index finger until it bleeds, leaving wounds that never heal. When blood from that wound splashes onto Ruth's face, Ruth licks it, fixes her dislocated jaw, and speaks for the first time, declaring them "wedded" and promising to keep Roos safe. This moment establishes the central bargain of their relationship: Roos gives her blood, her pain, and her silence, and in return Ruth offers protection and companionship. The blood is not merely a symbol; it is the literal currency of their union. Roos later reflects that if she had not spilled her blood, Ruth might have found another girl, suggesting that the sacrifice is what makes the love possible—and also what makes it binding.

This sacrificial foundation recurs throughout their relationship. In the séances Roos conducts with Mama, Ruth acts as a spirit control, entering Roos's body to touch clients. Roos endures pinching, fondling, and beatings, sometimes coughing blood for tips. Ruth's presence is both a comfort and a demand; she is Roos's only friend, but she also feeds on Roos's suffering. When Roos later tries to break free from Ruth, Ruth's response is to tighten her grip until Roos's hand turns black, crying, "Then die! Die, die, die, only do not abandon me!" Ruth's love is possessive and all-consuming; she cannot conceive of love without suffering. In a pivotal confrontation, Roos asks, "Must love be about suffering?" and Ruth replies that suffering and sacrifice are the only ways to prove the strength and sincerity of love. This exchange crystallizes the novel's central tension: is love that demands self-destruction truly love, or is it a form of coercion? Ruth, who has been stabbed, hit, strangled, and drowned, knows love only in terms of pain, and she expects Roos to accept the same terms.

The Price of Devotion: Roos and Agnes

Roos's relationship with Agnes offers a contrasting but equally sacrificial model of love. Agnes is the first person who seems to offer Roos a chance at a normal life, free from the séances and the exploitation of Mama. Yet that promise comes with its own demands. When Roos decides to leave Ruth, she offers Agnes a terrible sacrifice: "I can learn how to be normal for you. This third eye of mine, or whatever it is that allows me to see spirits, I will gouge it out for you." She is willing to renounce Ruth, to tear out the very ability that defines her, in order to prove her love. This is a literal self-annihilation—Roos would destroy a part of her own perception and identity to become what Agnes wants. Agnes, for her part, does not ask for this sacrifice; she simply holds Roos and rocks her, offering comfort rather than demanding payment. Yet the novel makes clear that Agnes herself has been shaped by sacrificial love. In an earlier conversation, Agnes admits that she was Thomas's "creature utterly and completely," and that she sometimes thinks she still is. Her love for Thomas was so total that it consumed her autonomy, and she carries that wound into her relationship with Roos. The parallel between Roos's willingness to sacrifice her sight and Agnes's history of total submission suggests that love in this world always involves a loss of self, whether voluntary or coerced.

The K— family subplot deepens this theme. Willemijn, Agnes's sister-in-law, loves her brother Thomas "so much it bordered on the fanatical." She is the one who devises the plan to dig up Thomas's corpse and attempt to restore him to life, because "there was nothing she wouldn't have done, no lengths she wouldn't have gone to." Her love is not romantic but fraternal, yet it is equally sacrificial: she risks damnation, social ruin, and her own sanity to bring her brother back. Mrs. K—, the mother, also demonstrates this pattern. Roos tells Doctor Montague that Mrs. K— died "because of love"—she wanted her husband back so desperately that she took Roos in to help her achieve that goal. The K— women's devotion is so extreme that it becomes a form of self-destruction, and Roos herself is caught in the machinery of their sacrifice. The novel thus shows that sacrificial love is not confined to the supernatural bond between Roos and Ruth; it pervades human relationships as well.

Symbols of Sacrifice

The novel uses several recurring symbols to reinforce the theme of sacrificial love. Blood is the most obvious: it is the medium through which Roos and Ruth are bound, the substance that Roos sheds in childhood and continues to shed throughout her life. Blood represents both the cost of love and the proof of devotion. The bog also carries sacrificial connotations. In the author interview, van Veen discusses her fascination with bog bodies, noting that they are often theorized as sacrificial victims and that their resting places have been visited as holy sites. The bog in the novel is a place of death and transformation, where bodies are preserved and where the boundary between life and death blurs. It is fitting that the novel's climax involves the bog, as it is the site where love and sacrifice converge most dramatically. Ruth's jaw is another potent symbol: it is dislocated and broken, and it is only fixed when Roos's blood touches Ruth's face. The jaw represents Ruth's brokenness and her dependence on Roos's sacrifice for wholeness. Finally, the plaster saints that fill the K— household symbolize the obsessive, quasi-religious devotion that the family practices. Roos finds them unsettling, and they serve as a reminder that love in this novel often takes on the quality of worship—demanding total surrender and unquestioning faith.

Complexities and Contradictions

The novel does not present sacrificial love as an unqualified good. It repeatedly questions whether love must be painful to be real. Roos's plea, "Must love be about suffering?" is the central challenge to Ruth's worldview. Ruth's answer—that suffering is the only proof of love—is both sincere and horrifying, and the novel leaves the question open. The author's note describes the book as a love story, but it is a love story that acknowledges the darkness within devotion. The epilogue complicates the theme further. Years later, Roos lives a quiet life, typing for Doctor Montague, but she spends most of her time waiting for Agnes. She fears Agnes has forsaken her, yet she holds that "the love and yearning must mean something." She plans to rise from the grave if she dies before Agnes returns, and she believes that Agnes, being strong, could become a spirit and would be waiting. This is a love that transcends death, but it is also a love that keeps Roos in a state of perpetual waiting and self-denial. She lets "the memory possess her," suggesting that her devotion has become a form of haunting. The novel thus acknowledges that sacrificial love can be both sustaining and destructive, and it refuses to offer a simple resolution.

Another layer of complexity comes from the unreliability of Roos's narration. The reading group guide asks whether Roos is a reliable narrator, and the novel itself raises the possibility that Ruth is a delusion rather than a real spirit. If Ruth is a product of Roos's trauma, then the sacrificial bond between them is not a supernatural pact but a psychological one—Roos has created a companion who demands her blood and suffering because that is the only love she knows. This ambiguity does not diminish the theme; it deepens it. Whether Ruth is real or imagined, the pattern of sacrifice remains. Similarly, Doctor Montague's role is ambiguous. He helps Roos, but his notes reveal his own blind spots and his reliance on Freudian theories that pathologize her experience. His compassion is real, but it is also limited by the scientific frameworks of his time. The novel thus suggests that even well-intentioned love—like Montague's care for Roos—can be a form of control, imposing its own demands on the beloved.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does the novel use blood as a symbol of sacrificial love, and what does it suggest about the cost of devotion?

Blood is the literal medium of Roos and Ruth's bond. Roos's childhood wound, which never heals, is the source of the blood that binds them. Blood represents the physical price of love—the pain, the injury, the loss of self. The novel suggests that devotion always costs something, and that the most intimate relationships are often built on a foundation of sacrifice. The fact that Roos's wounds never heal implies that the cost is ongoing, not a one-time payment.

2. Compare the sacrificial love between Roos and Ruth with that between Roos and Agnes. What are the similarities and differences?

Both relationships require Roos to give up parts of herself. With Ruth, she gives her blood, her silence, and her autonomy; with Agnes, she is willing to give up her ability to see spirits and to renounce Ruth entirely. The key difference is that Ruth demands sacrifice as proof of love, while Agnes does not ask for it—Roos offers it voluntarily. Yet both relationships leave Roos in a state of waiting and self-denial, as seen in the epilogue. The novel suggests that even voluntary sacrifice can become a trap.

3. How does the K— family's devotion to Thomas illustrate the theme of sacrificial love?

Willemijn's love for her brother is "fanatical" and leads her to dig up his corpse and attempt to restore him to life. Mrs. K— takes Roos in specifically to help bring her husband back, and she dies "because of love." Their devotion is so extreme that it consumes their lives and leads to destruction. The K— family shows that sacrificial love is not limited to the supernatural; it can manifest in ordinary human relationships as a form of obsession that overrides all other concerns.

4. In what ways does the novel complicate the idea that sacrifice is necessary for love?

Roos directly questions this idea when she asks, "Must love be about suffering?" Ruth insists that suffering is the only proof of love, but the novel does not endorse this view. Agnes offers a different model: she comforts Roos without demanding anything in return. The epilogue, however, shows that even Agnes's love leaves Roos waiting and uncertain. The novel thus presents sacrifice as both a possible expression of love and a potential distortion of it, leaving the reader to judge which relationships are truly loving.

5. How does the epilogue's depiction of Roos's waiting reflect the theme of sacrificial love?

In the epilogue, Roos lives a quiet life but is consumed by her love for Agnes. She fears Agnes has forsaken her, yet she continues to wait, planning to rise from the grave if necessary. This is a love that demands continued sacrifice—Roos gives up her present life for the hope of a future reunion. The novel suggests that love can be a form of self-annihilation even when it is not overtly violent, and that devotion can become a haunting that possesses the lover long after the beloved is gone.