Power and Control in The Housemaid: A Cycle of Manipulation, Confinement, and Violent Reversal

Defining the Thematic Claim

In The Housemaid, power and control are not fixed possessions but fluid forces that shift between characters through confinement, surveillance, gaslighting, and violence. Andrew Winchester uses physical imprisonment and psychological torture to dominate his wife Nina; Nina, in turn, orchestrates a calculated campaign to control the housemaid Millie as a tool to escape her abuser. When Millie finally reverses the dynamic, she does so through the very violence that once made her a victim. The novel argues that control is cyclical: each character both suffers and inflicts it, and breaking the cycle requires not only resistance but also a willingness to become the controller.

Part 1: Andrew’s Domination – Physical Confinement and Gaslighting

Andrew’s power over Nina rests on a foundation of brute force and mental manipulation. Throughout the story, he locks her in the attic—a cramped, windowless room with a door that only opens from the outside. When Nina discovers the truth of her imprisonment, she recalls that Andrew previously convinced her and the authorities that she had suffered a breakdown, that the attic was merely a storage closet. As revealed in Chapter 45 (Step 5: Discover that you’re not crazy after all), he reinstalls blinding lights and taunts her: “La luz es un privilegio, Nina.” He treats basic necessities like electricity as rewards to be earned, stripping her of dignity and autonomy.

Andrew’s control extends beyond the attic. He uses their daughter Cecelia as leverage, threatening to harm her if Nina tries to escape. In Chapter 49 (Step 8: Finding a Substitute), Nina reflects that Andy “me controla por Cece.” His physical abuse—grabbing her arms, shaking her—reinforces her powerlessness. Even when Nina appears to cooperate, Andrew monitors her every move, installing a GPS tracker on her phone. This surveillance ensures that any attempt at freedom is detected and punished.

The attic symbolises the total deprivation of agency: a space where light, noise, and human contact are controlled by another. The locked door that only opens from outside literalises the impossibility of escape. Andrew’s gaslighting—making Nina doubt her own perceptions—completes his grip. He frames her as mentally unstable, so that no one believes her when she protests.

Part 2: Nina’s Counter-Control – Orchestrating a Substitute

Desperate to break free, Nina adopts the very tools of control used against her: surveillance, manipulation, and the exploitation of another’s desperation. In the same chapter (49), she explains her plan to find a “sustituta” for herself—a beautiful, young, desperate woman who will attract Andrew and take her place. She hires a private detective to dig into Millie’s past, discovering that Millie is a convicted killer. Nina then deliberately treats Millie with cruelty, making messes, lying about her daughter, and humiliating her. She admits: “No me resulta fácil tratarla así… pero tengo que salir.”

Nina’s surveillance is meticulous. She tracks Millie’s phone via GPS, plants evidence (the playbill on Millie’s nightstand), and orchestrates a false shoplifting accusation. She forces Millie to perform degrading errands with strict item approvals—a form of micromanagement that mirrors Andrew’s control over light and food. The white dress is central here: Nina intentionally leaves it out for Millie to try on, knowing it will trigger a confrontation. The dress symbolises the role Millie is meant to assume—Nina’s replacement in the marriage and in Andrew’s crosshairs.

Yet Nina is also a victim of the system she perpetuates. She cannot escape without sacrificing another woman. Her control over Millie is a tragic necessity, born of her own powerlessness. The complexity lies in her simultaneous status as abuser and abused: she inflicts on Millie the same gaslighting and humiliation she suffers from Andrew.

Part 3: Millie’s Reversal – Violence as Liberation

Millie enters the story as a desperate ex-convict, but her past reveals a capacity for lethal violence that becomes her ultimate weapon. In Chapter 53, Nina learns that Millie killed a boy who was assaulting her friend—beating him repeatedly with a paperweight. The detective’s photos show a crushed skull. Millie also has a history of fighting back: breaking a boy’s arm in elementary school, slashing a teacher’s tyres, punching a coworker. This is not a passive victim; it is a woman who responds to oppression with force.

When Millie discovers that both Andrew and Nina are using her, she reverses the dynamic. Having been locked in the attic herself, she understands the terror of confinement. But unlike Nina, who tried to escape by embedding another, Millie confronts Andrew directly. The novel’s climax—the killing of Andrew (implied in the wake of Chapter 61)—is Millie’s ultimate assertion of control. She does not merely escape; she eliminates the source of power.

The missing teeth symbol gains full significance in Chapter 61, where Evelyn Winchester confesses that she pulled her son’s teeth with pliers as a child to teach him “discipline.” This origin reveals that Andrew’s cruelty was learned from his own mother’s brutal control. Evelyn then tells Nina she is “glad” Nina gave Andy a final “lesson.” The cycle closes: Andrew was a victim before becoming a perpetrator; Millie becomes a perpetrator to stop the perpetrator.

In the epilogue, Millie interviews with a new client, Lisa, who bears a bruise shaped like fingers. Millie recognises domestic abuse and offers her help. She has shifted from the one who needed rescue to the one who provides it—but she still operates within the same power framework, now using her skills of deception and violence on behalf of another woman.

Complexity and Contradiction

The theme resists a simple good-versus-evil reading. Nina is the story’s primary antagonist for much of the book, yet she is also Andrew’s captive. Her manipulation of Millie is cruel, but it is also a survival strategy. Millie is the hero, but her method—murder—replicates the very violence she opposes. Even Enzo, the groundskeeper who helps Nina, is complicit in her scheme.

Evelyn’s role deepens the contradiction. She approves of Nina’s lethal lesson, suggesting that the Winchesters’ dysfunction is multigenerational. Control is passed down like a twisted inheritance. The attic, the locked door, the white dress, and the missing teeth all point to the same truth: power is a currency that characters alternately hoard, steal, and spend, but rarely escape.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Andrew’s use of the attic embody his control over Nina?
Andrew locks Nina in the attic and controls the light—bright bulbs that blind her or complete darkness. He frames her imprisonment as a “lesson,” treating basic needs as privileges. The attic becomes a physical manifestation of his total power over her body and mind.

2. In what ways does Nina mirror Andrew’s tactics when controlling Millie?
Nina surveils Millie with a GPS tracker and private detective, she deliberately humiliates her (messy house, degrading errands), and she manipulates Andrew’s attraction to Millie. Like Andrew, she treats another person as a tool for her own survival.

3. What role does Millie’s violent past play in the novel’s power reversal?
Millie’s conviction for killing an attacker shows she can use lethal force. When she eventually kills Andrew, it is not a sudden break but the return of a capability she has always possessed. Her past makes her reversal credible and inevitable.

4. How does the symbol of missing teeth connect to the theme of cyclical control?
Evelyn pulled her son Andrew’s teeth as a child to enforce dental hygiene. This abusive discipline taught him that power means inflicting pain. Andrew later uses similar brutal “lessons” on Nina, and Evelyn approves when Nina kills him, perpetuating the cycle.

5. Does the epilogue suggest Millie has truly broken the cycle of power and control?
Millie steps into a protective role for Lisa, using her skills to help another abuse victim. However, she remains within a world of deception and potential violence—she has not dismantled the system, only reversed her position within it. The cycle continues.

For deeper exploration, see the character study of Millie Calloway, Nina Winchester, and Andrew Winchester, as well as our analysis of the attic and the locked door.