Violence and Its Legacy in The Housemaid Is Watching
Thematic Claim: Violence as an Inherited Burden
In The Housemaid Is Watching, Freida McFadden threads a haunting question through every plot twist: Can violence ever be truly escaped, or does it pass from parent to child like an unwanted heirloom? The novel argues that violence leaves a stain that no amount of scrubbing can remove. Both Millie and Enzo carry lethal pasts, and their children — especially nine-year-old Nico — display troubling early signs of the same aggression. Even the supporting character Martha reveals a history of killing that mirrors the Accardis’ story. The legacy of violence is not just a theme; it is the engine that drives every character’s choices and fears.
Tracing Violence Through the Plot
Millie’s Original Sin
Millie (formerly Wilhelmina Calloway) killed a wealthy teenage boy when she was young — an act that sent her to prison for years. In the earlier novels The Housemaid and The Housemaid’s Secret, she took on housemaid roles to hide her identity while also using violence or the threat of it to protect others. In the present story, Millie has tried to build a normal life with Enzo, but the shadow of that first killing never lifts. She fears that her violent past is encoded in her children’s DNA, as shown when she frantically Googles “Is my child a psychopath?” after Nico’s violent outbursts.
Enzo’s Reckoning
Enzo Accardi fled Italy after beating his sister’s abusive husband half to death — a deliberate act of revenge, not a crime of passion. He has carefully avoided discussing his past with Millie, yet his own history of violence mirrors hers. When Nico punches another boy at a Little League game, Enzo initially defends the aggression as “normal boy behavior,” revealing how deeply his own history shapes his parenting. His eventual arrest for the murder of neighbor Jonathan Lowell — a crime he did not commit — underscores how the legacy of violence makes him an easy suspect. The community sees his past before they see his character.
Ada’s Shocking Confession
The most devastating inheritance comes from Ada, the “daddy’s girl” who seems gentle and bookish. After Enzo is arrested for Mr. Lowell’s murder, Ada sobs into her pillow and confesses to Millie: “I was the one who killed him.” This revelation turns the theme on its head. Ada did not inherit aggression from Millie or Enzo — she acted out of perceived necessity, believing she was protecting her family from a threat. But the act itself, and the calm way she hides it, suggests the same capacity for violence that her parents possess. The legacy skips a generation in form but arrives nonetheless.
Martha’s Parallel Story
In the epilogue, Martha reveals that she too has killed. Years earlier, she worked for a wealthy family whose teenage son assaulted a girl; Martha believed he got what he deserved. Later, while stealing jewelry from Suzette Lowell’s house, she is caught by Mr. Lowell. In a panicked moment, she stabs him with a letter opener to silence his threats to call the police. She then watches Enzo be arrested for her crime, all while justifying her actions through the lens of self-preservation. Martha’s story is a dark mirror of Millie’s — both are housemaids, both have killed, and both hide behind their unassuming roles.
Character Connections to the Theme
Millie and Enzo: The Original Carriers
Both parents have killed, but they differ in their responses. Millie is hyper-vigilant about Nico’s behavior, seeing her own past reflected in his coldness. Enzo, by contrast, normalizes aggression as “what boys do,” perhaps because his own violent act was justified in his eyes. Their conflicting approaches create a tension that leaves Nico without a consistent moral framework.
Nico: The Child on a Precipice
Nico’s disturbing behaviors — punching a boy who was “being a jerk,” flushing his dead pet praying mantis down the toilet without ceremony, lying without guilt — align with Millie’s fears of psychopathy. Yet the novel also shows that his environment (a new home, a strained family) may be partly responsible. The theme leaves open whether Nico’s violence is inherited or learned.
Ada: The Quiet Catalyst
Ada’s violence is the most hidden. She stabs Mr. Lowell with a pocketknife — a symbol of concealed threat — and then lets her father take the blame. Her act suggests that the legacy of violence does not always manifest in overt aggression; it can erupt quietly, unexpectedly, and destroy a family from within.
Martha: The Mirror
Martha’s confession in the epilogue ties the entire series together. She killed the same way Millie once did — a sudden act to escape a predator — and now she must run. Her story proves that the cycle of violence continues beyond the Accardi family, touching everyone who has been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Symbolic Threads
| Symbol | Connection to Violence |
|---|---|
| Blood | Appears in the prologue (covering the narrator’s hands) and in Martha’s description of Mr. Lowell’s gushing throat. It represents the physical stain of violence that cannot be washed away. |
| Pocketknife | A small, concealable weapon. Enzo gives a gun to Martha, but Ada uses a pocketknife — a tool of intimate, close-range violence. It symbolizes how even the smallest instrument can carry a deadly legacy. |
| Praying Mantis | Nico’s pet dies during molting; Nico flushes it without ceremony. The mantis’s predatory nature mirrors the family’s hidden violence, and its casual disposal suggests Nico’s growing emotional detachment. |
| Hidden Room | In The Housemaid’s Secret, the guest bedroom hide Douglas’s abuse. In The Housemaid Is Watching, secrets are hidden in drawers, in DNA, and in the false testimony of neighbors. The motif suggests that violence is always concealed — until it erupts. |
Complexity and Contradiction
The novel complicates its own theme in two key ways:
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Justified vs. Unjustified Violence
Millie killed a rapist; Enzo killed an abuser; Martha killed a thief-threat; Ada killed a man she believed was harming her father. Every act of violence in the book can be argued as self-defense or protection of others. Yet each act also destroys the perpetrator’s life. The line between hero and criminal blurs. -
Inheritance vs. Choice
Millie fears Nico is becoming a psychopath because of her genes, but the novel also shows her efforts to guide him toward therapy, remorse, and accountability. Ada chooses to kill, but she does it out of love, not cruelty. The theme suggests that while the tendency may be inherited, the motive and context matter — and that redemption may still be possible, however faint. -
Who Is the Real Threat?
Throughout the story, the Accardis suspect their cleaning woman Martha of snooping and stealing. But Martha is actually a victim herself, and the real threat — Suzette’s abusive husband — is dead by the epilogue. The book questions whether the “legacy of violence” truly lies in individuals or in the systems (poverty, abuse, lack of support) that push ordinary people to extremes.
Study Questions and Answers
1. How does Millie’s past in the first two Housemaid novels inform her fear for Nico in this book?
Millie killed a wealthy teenager as a young woman and went to prison for it. In The Housemaid Is Watching, she sees Nico’s lack of guilt and his casual violence as red flags that he may have inherited her “propensity for violence.” She Googles psychopathy in children and pushes for therapy, revealing her deep fear that her own past is repeating in her son.
2. What does Enzo’s reaction to Nico’s Little League punch reveal about his own history?
Enzo initially defends Nico’s aggression as “normal boy behavior,” citing his own childhood fights. Later, Millie reflects that Enzo beat his brother-in-law half to death in Italy — a deliberate, violent act. His reluctance to punish Nico harshly suggests that he still sees violence as a legitimate tool, especially when used against wrongdoers.
3. Why is Ada’s confession more shocking than Martha’s?
Ada is presented as the gentle, bookish “daddy’s girl” who sobs uncontrollably after Enzo’s arrest. Her confession that she killed Mr. Lowell with a pocketknife subverts every expectation. Unlike Martha, who kills in panic during a theft, Ada kills deliberately to protect her father — and then lets her father go to prison for months. Her act is both protective and destructively selfish.
4. How does the praying mantis symbol connect to the theme of inherited violence?
Nico’s praying mantis, Little Kiwi, dies during molting — a process of shedding an old skin. Nico flushes it without mourning, demonstrating his emotional coldness. The mantis is a predatory insect; its death and casual disposal mirror how Nico treats his own victims (the boy on the playground) and foreshadows the family’s shedding of moral restraint. The legacy is passed on even as the pet dies.
5. Does the book ultimately suggest that violence can be escaped or that it is inescapable?
The novel offers no easy answer. Millie and Enzo try to start fresh, but Enzo ends up arrested for a murder he didn’t commit, and Millie must face the fact that Ada is a killer. Martha flees but lives in fear. Nico’s future remains open — he might get therapy and change, or he might follow his parents’ path. The ending suggests that while violence leaves a stain, redemption is not impossible, but it requires constant vigilance and honesty.
Final Thoughts
The legacy of violence in The Housemaid Is Watching is not a simple curse; it is a complex web of choices, circumstances, and inherited tendencies. Freida McFadden forces readers to confront uncomfortable questions about justice, family, and whether anyone can truly outrun their past. By weaving together the stories of Millie, Enzo, Ada, Nico, and Martha, the novel paints a world where violence is both a poison and, sometimes, a necessary shield. The only certainty is that the stain — like the blood on the prologue’s living room floor — never fully comes out.
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