Zofloya

Despite Victoria’s characterization, she hesitates when Zofloya first proposes that she murder her husband, creating an opportunity for Zofloya to coax her into agreeing to the plan. Zofloya’s persuasion demonstrates the Erosion of Moral Integrity Due to Pride and Vanity, since Victoria gives in when he tells her that her “beauteous form was never made to pine by hopeless love” (163). The narrator connects Victoria’s surrender to a feminine tendency to be lured by flattery: “flattery, like heavenly dew upon the earth, gratefully dost thou descend upon the ear of woman” (163). Ironically, Victoria is judgmental of Laurina (her mother) for having been seduced, but she is likewise seduced by Zofloya’s appeals to her vanity and pride. These recurring moments where women make destructive choices with consequences that reverberate afterward show how Dacre’s novel functions as a kind of moral parable, warning that women need to be perpetually on guard against men who may try to entice them into sin.

Victoria and Zofloya’s use of poison—a weapon that relies on stealth and deception—subverts the power dynamics that otherwise constrain them. As a wife and a servant, Victoria and Zofloya have limited social capital and power; after proposing a move away from Venice, Victoria frets about what to do “should Berenza object” (168), revealing that her husband has control over household decisions. As much as Victoria is depicted as a woman with agency, desires, and an almost monstrous need to pursue her own goals, she is circumscribed by her role as a wife. Victoria and Zofloya are in a position to easily administer poison because of their domestic roles; it is expected that Victoria would bring beverages to her husband, and Zofloya participates in preparing food and drink due to his role as a household servant. While Berenza has power, he is also vulnerable because of the trust he places in these individuals.

This dynamic reveals nineteenth century fears that individuals deprived of power might rise up in violence and vengeance. When Dacre published her novel in 1806, the French Revolution (1789-1799) and the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) were recent events that tended to loom forebodingly in the British imagination, raising the threat that individuals who lacked social power could rebel and assert themselves through violence. By the time Zofloya was published, there had been decades of outcry over the cruelty of the transatlantic slave trade; the British Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act in 1807, outlawing the buying and selling of slaves in the British Empire (the Slavery Abolition Act was not passed until 1833). While many people advocated for the end of the slave trade on the grounds of human rights, others pointed out that enslaved people had a strong incentive to revolt and potentially enact violence against the individuals who oppressed them. There had been significant slave revolts in regions such as Saint-Domingue (modern-day Haiti) and Jamaica, and these events fed into these fears. Although Dacre’s novel is set in the 15th century, the threat posed by a person of color with close access to a white household (and particularly, to a white woman) played on nineteenth century anxieties in the context of slavery.

The move to the castle in the Apennines (a mountain range running through Italy) marks a transition to a more traditional Gothic setting. The castle is a textbook example of a Gothic structure, “enclosed within the profoundest solitude […] half embosomed it in terrible but majestic sublimity” (170); the change of setting contributes to a change of mood in the novel, as events become darker, more violent, and more sinister. This period also marks a gradual change in the dynamic between Victoria and Zofloya: Their fates become more intertwined once they commit two murders together, and Zofloya largely discards his initial attempts at deference. When Victoria questions his plans for how they will conceal the cause of Berenza’s death, he rebukes her: “‘I have said,’ he cried, in a stern authoritative voice” (191). By this point, Victoria has largely surrendered her power and is reliant on Zofloya’s decisions. This emerging dynamic mirrors what happened to Laurina after she began an affair with Ardolph: She lost much of her agency and became subject to him. In Dacre’s novel, this loss of agency is an inevitable consequence whenever a woman succumbs to the temptations of a man.