The Only One Left

In The Only One Left, men prioritize their comforts, desires, opinions, and personal conveniences over the needs and wellbeing of women. This dynamic persists in both of the novel’s timeframes—its Gothic atmosphere of dread and claustrophobia is heightened by the powerlessness its female characters feel at the hands of the male authority figures in their lives.

In 1910, when Evangeline Staunton, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy and elite Gilded Age family, became pregnant by one of her family’s servants, she was in a potentially ruinous position. The social mores of her time dictated female sexual purity and fidelity to one’s social class, so she was in danger of becoming a pariah. Evangeline’s vulnerability was exploited by Winston Hope, a new-money social climber who coerced the Hope family into letting Evangeline marry him—even a marriage to a social inferior was better than having a baby out of wedlock. The controlling and abusive Winston reveled in his newfound power: He had numerous affairs and wasted Evangeline’s money, spending recklessly on the opulent Hope’s End even after his business ventures failed. The toxic family dynamic relied on patriarchal power: Neither Evangeline nor her daughters could stand up to Winston, and legally, they had no recourse to prevent his behavior. Winston’s need to assuage his insecurities superseded any duty he felt to ensure the safety of his family.

In the 1920s, another authority figure in the lives of the Hope women offers only paternalistic and dismissive care. While Evangeline’s suffers from her husband’s emotional, sexual, and financial abuse, her physician Dr. Walden prescribes laudanum—a sedative that will keep Evangeline quiet, for her husband’s sake. Her medically induced addiction keeps her compliant and harmless. Not only does Dr. Walden prioritize Winston’s power over Evangeline’s agency, but he is also clearly a terrible doctor who nevertheless retains his position. The doctor is easily bamboozled by Virginia, who feigns her mother’s symptoms to get her own prescription of laudanum. Later, after Virginia’s failed suicide, Dr. Walden misdiagnoses her with hypoxia and a permanent disability—a mistake that allows Virginia to maintain some of her ability to resist her sister.

In 1983, Kit McDeere, a woman with low socioeconomic status, is also subjected to financial control as her father Patrick uses her to protect himself from criminal responsibility for her mother Kathleen’s death. For six months, while Kit is under suspicion for Kathleen’s fentanyl overdose, Patrick remains distant and accusatory, offering no support during her six-month suspension, fear of losing her job, or guilt over her mother’s death. Patrick, who actually did help Kathleen die by assisted suicide, does nothing to help Kit until she is reinstated, at which point Patrick demands she come home because he doesn’t like the attention that her affiliation with the Hope family brings.

Moreover, Patrick uses his friend Detective Vick to pressure Kit—the same detective whose intrusive and presumptive investigation into Kathleen’s death tormented Kit. Though no longer actively pursuing a case against her, each time Detective Vick interacts with Kit, he tries to manipulate her with feigned empathy and paternalistically condescending invitations to unburden her conscience, confident that she is guilty. When she defends herself and criticizes his professionalism, Vick dismisses her as an overly emotional woman. Using his power as the town’s main law enforcement, Detective Vick protects other men; he gives the benefit of the doubt to Patrick, who is an obvious suspect in Kathleen’s death, and refuses to consider that Mary’s death was murder rather than suicide.