The Only One Left

Hope’s End symbolizes the precarious position of the Hope family, riddled with secrets and based on a foundation of lies. As its name suggests, Hope’s End is doomed to collapse into the ocean. The image of the dangerous, outsized, frightening house, full of the weighty secrets of an oppressive past, is a common trope in Gothic literature genre that Sanger borrows from.

Winston Hope commissioned the manor house in 1913 as a monument to himself; like Winston, it is outwardly expensive but internally rotten and lacking stability—a façade to mask his financial ruin. While it appears grand and ostentatious in scale and ornamentation, the erosion of the ground beneath it and the crumbling of the structure itself are a testament to Winston’s recklessness, hubris, and greed.

The deterioration of Hope’s End, which has progressed to perilous conditions by the time Kit arrives, is obvious to everyone but Mrs. Baker (Lenora Hope), who deludes herself into thinking that the house, like the narrative she has created for herself and her sister, is sound enough to remain intact despite the ravages of time and neglect. Rather than using her inheritance on the mansion’s upkeep, Lenora has been forced to pay off the blackmailer Berniece Mayhew. This misapplication of funds symbolizes the Hope family’s dependence on lies and Lenora’s misguided attempts to seize power and control.

Fittingly, the house begins to crumble more rapidly, and the ground literally starts to give way beneath it as Kit grows progressively closer to the truth of what happened on the night of the Hope family murders. The looming collapse indicates that the house—and the self-serving mythos of the Hopes—can only stand while its secrets are kept. When the crime is solved, the house and the perpetrators of the novel’s murders are wiped from the face of the earth.