The novel probes the human emotions and behaviours and how hypocrisy, bigotry, prejudice, vanity and malice alter people's perspective and make unacceptable things acceptable and vice versa.[16]
In a review for the Trinity College Foundation Studies Literature paper "Steep Stairs Review Collected and Neglected Works", Neralie Hoadley notes how "[the novel] is gothic in the sense of being extreme in its depictions of events in the overstated manner associated with tragedy. Love is central to the intensity of feeling that drives the main narrative line, though only covered with the utmost brevity and obliqueness. Hate is essential in any good tragedy, and as this novel deals with the base motivation of revenge, hate is present in abundance. Haute couture provides Rosalie Ham with a satirical voice to lampoon rural sensibilities." Hoadley also compares the climax of the novel with Shakespearean tragedy Macbeth, referring towards the fate of characters and also the play of Macbeth that Dungatar's people participate in.[17]
In an interview Ham describes the most common traits she found annoying in humans and similarly these traits are incorporated in her characters, "three of the things I find MOST annoying about humans (suspicion, malice and prejudice) but it's rife among all of us."[18]
