Power

The author uses the main character Dorothy’s relationships with men in order to explore the consuming nature of the individual’s search for power. Indeed, each man that Dorothy kills and eats is an attempt to assert or reclaim power over the lover. In Chapter 2, “Roast Parsnips,” Dorothy narrates from the narrative present, scoffing at the guards for being bullies: “these men living their fantasies of power, as if their squalid teenage dreams cracked open and spilled incarcerated candy at their feet” (21). Dorothy is disgusted by the guards’ behavior for more than one reason. Now a prisoner at Bedford Hills penitentiary, Dorothy finds herself in a position of weakness and disempowerment. She regards the guards in this manner, because she has lost agency over her own life.

Dorothy’s desire for power is arguably the primary motivation for all of her decisions throughout the novel...