Revenge as a Destructive Force in Freida McFadden’s The Coworker

Thematic Claim

In The Coworker, revenge is not a satisfying act of justice but a self-consuming cycle that mutilates everyone it touches. Dawn Schiff’s elaborate plan to frame Natalie Farrell for murder began as grief-fueled payback for the bullying that drove Dawn’s best friend Amelia “Mia” Hodge to suicide. Yet as the plot unfolds, revenge transforms Dawn into a killer far more dangerous than her target, and the novel ends with both women bound by blackmail rather than redemption. The story insists that vengeance, however justified in origin, erodes the avenger’s humanity and perpetuates harm.

Origins of Revenge: The Bullying of Amelia Hodge

The root of Dawn’s revenge lies in high school. In a flashback chapter (47), Dawn reveals that her real name is Amelia—she was Mia’s childhood friend. Natalie and her accomplice Tara Wilkes forged love notes from a boy named George to humiliate Mia, who had cerebral palsy. When the prank was exposed on Valentine’s Day, Mia publicly discovered that George had no feelings for her. Two days later, Mia took her own life. Dawn watched her best friend’s spirit break under Natalie’s casual cruelty and afterward burned with a hatred that never cooled. She decided that Natalie must pay, not with death—that was too easy—but with public shame and imprisonment, the same sort of annihilation Mia endured.

This backstory reframes the entire novel: Dawn’s present-day meticulous emails, her obsessive organization, and her fragility all stem from a wound that never healed. Her revenge is not spontaneous but a carefully nurtured mission spanning more than a decade.

The Frame-Up Plan: Systematic Manipulation

Dawn executes her revenge with chilling precision, aided by Caleb McCullough, Mia’s half-brother. She and Caleb plant evidence to make it appear that Natalie murdered Dawn. Key elements of this campaign include:

Fake emails and turtle figurines: Dawn composes emails documenting bullying and embezzlement. She stages a violent scene at work: her beloved turtle figurines are smashed, and one stuffed turtle is stabbed with “blood” leaking out. Though initially she blames Natalie, the reader later learns that Dawn and Caleb orchestrated this vandalism to build a motive.
Blocked phone calls: Caleb records Dawn crying “Help me” and makes a call to Natalie’s phone from Dawn’s line, creating the false impression that Dawn is in distress.
Fingerprints and a bloody knife: Caleb uses his access to Natalie’s home and car to place her fingerprints on a knife and a ceramic turtle—the actual murder weapon—along with blood evidence in her trunk.
The fake death: Dawn stages her own disappearance. A dead woman with hacked-off hair and a beaten face (later identified as Tara Wilkes) is mistaken for Dawn, leading to Natalie’s arrest for murder.

The plan appears flawless. Natalie is arrested on live television during the charity 5K race she organized in Mia’s memory—a final irony that Dawn savors. Dawn watches from a motel room, feeling no remorse. Her revenge seems complete.

Unraveling and Escalation

The plan begins to crack when Caleb, conflicted, reveals the truth to Natalie. Natalie traces Dawn’s blocked calls to a Rhode Island motel and confronts Dawn on a pier, where Dawn intends to drown herself with a cinderblock tied to her ankle—creating a dead body to solidify the murder charge. This moment is the climax of the revenge theme.

On the pier, Dawn’s rage explodes. She attacks Natalie with a cinderblock, crying that Natalie stole Caleb. Natalie defends herself with pepper spray, and the two women end up sitting together, exhausted. Natalie admits that she runs the 5K each year as penance for what she did to Mia. Dawn is unmoved but ultimately does not jump. The revenge is incomplete.

Yet the aftermath reveals a darker turn. When the dead body is identified as Tara Wilkes—Natalie’s old friend who helped write the fake valentines—Dawn’s true capacity for violence is exposed. She has already killed Tara, a murder that remains unsolved. Revenge has escalated from a frame-up to actual homicide.

Complexity and Contradiction

The novel does not allow the reader to see Dawn as either a pure victim or a simple villain. Her grief is real, and Natalie’s bullying was genuinely cruel. Yet the revenge plan transforms Dawn into someone who can kill without hesitation and feel no regret. In the epilogue, both women have returned to their old patterns: Natalie continues embezzling from the charity and manipulates Seth into divorcing his wife; Dawn lives with Caleb, wearing an engagement ring with a turtle-themed emerald. The two are locked in a mutual blackmail pact: Dawn keeps quiet about Natalie’s embezzlement, and Natalie stays silent about Tara’s murder. Neither is reformed.

This ending subverts the expectation that justice will be served. Instead, revenge becomes a permanent bond between the women, a corrosive secret that neither can escape. The cycle of harm continues—Natalie still bullies (she says of Seth’s ex-wife, “she can’t hurt me”), and Dawn remains capable of murder. The very revenge meant to honor Mia now binds the women together in a parody of friendship.

Character and Symbol Connections

Characters:

Dawn Schiff is the avenger whose obsession strips away her vulnerability and replaces it with cold calculation. Her love for Caleb becomes possessive; she nearly kills Natalie when she feels Caleb slipping away.
Natalie Farrell is both perpetrator and victim. Her past cruelty is undeniable, yet she faces a prison sentence for a crime she did not commit. The revenge plot exposes her own capacity for manipulation (she continues embezzling).
Caleb McCullough represents the conflicted ally. He helps Dawn but eventually betrays the plan out of guilt, yet he remains ignorant of Tara’s murder.
Seth Hoffman is an unwitting pawn; his affair with Natalie and later divorce are manipulated by both women.
Detective Santoro and Kim Healey are minor players who represent institutional authority that fails to see the truth.

Symbols:

Turtle figurines symbolize Dawn’s fragility and her desire for a safe, controlled world. Their destruction mirrors the violence Dawn later inflicts. The ceramic turtle murder weapon is a direct link: what Dawn loved becomes a tool of vengeance.
Blocked phone calls represent the deception at the heart of the revenge plan—truth is hidden behind anonymous numbers.
The charity 5K race is a symbol of Natalie’s guilty attempt to atone; Dawn’s manipulation of it shows how revenge corrupts even acts of remembrance.

Study Questions and Answers

How does Dawn’s revenge plan rely on her own pain being dismissed by others?
Dawn’s coworkers, especially Seth, dismiss her concerns about Natalie’s bullying. This isolation feeds her belief that only extreme action—a frame-up for murder—will make anyone take her suffering seriously. Her meticulous emails become the only record of her truth.
Why does Dawn feel no remorse about killing Tara Wilkes, even though Tara was not the primary target?
Tara participated in the bullying that led to Mia’s suicide. Dawn views her as equally guilty. By the epilogue, Dawn’s willingness to kill has expanded beyond the original plan, showing that revenge, once begun, has no natural limits.
In what way does Caleb’s love for Dawn complicate the revenge plot?
Caleb genuinely loves Dawn, but he also shares the desire for revenge against Natalie. His affection for Dawn leads him to help frame Natalie, but it also makes him hesitate when Dawn plans to kill herself to seal the frame-up. His eventual confession to Natalie undermines the plan, revealing that love can both fuel and sabotage vengeance.
What does the mutual blackmail pact between Dawn and Natalie suggest about the nature of revenge?
The pact shows that revenge does not bring closure or justice. Instead, it creates a permanent entanglement. Both women are now trapped by each other’s secrets, unable to move on. The original grievance is lost in a new equilibrium of mutual distrust.
How does the epilogue contradict the idea that revenge can be morally justified?
The epilogue shows both women unreformed and continuing harmful behavior. Natalie still embezzles and manipulates; Dawn still harbors violence. The 5K race that honors Mia becomes a stage for their lies. Revenge has not made anyone better—it has only produced a stable, corrupt arrangement. The novel suggests that even the most righteous anger cannot produce a clean resolution.