The story features female proximity to violence. As a woman in the world, and specifically, as a woman around men, Margot is frequently under the threat of violence, both explicitly and implicitly. Much of the story centers around Margot’s thoughts, so there is fantastical uncertainty to this violence. The violence never actually occurs, or rather only occurs in Margot’s imagination, as when Margot enters Robert’s house:

[S]he had the brief wild idea that maybe this was not a room at all but a trap meant to lure her into the false belief that Robert was a normal person, a person like her, when in fact all the other rooms in the house were empty, of full of horrors: corpses or kidnap victims or chains (Paragraph 68).

While this might appear exaggerated or hyperbolic, it is not the first time that Margot realizes she really does not know anything about Robert. Even Robert’s alleged cats, through which Margot develops a relationship and rapport with Robert, are nowhere to be seen, indicating she perhaps does not know him as well as she thinks.

The narrative’s vagueness aims to leave the reader as unsure as Margot is herself.