Institutional abuse of power

Institutional abuse of power in the novel is not confined to a single cruel official: it is a pattern in which authority, dependence, and social stigma leave vulnerable people with little protection. The workhouse gives Albert Pinnegar access to girls and the power to threaten their futures; the threatened removal of Cissie to Hatter’s Hall shows how institutional procedures can turn vulnerability into confinement. Beyond its walls, the same imbalance persists in the household and in public life, where women’s choices and reputations remain exposed to male control. The harm is both personal and structural: an individual’s misconduct acquires force because the institutions around its victims offer few reliable means of resistance.

Authority and the workhouse

The workhouse places girls such as Sunday Small and Cissie Burns in a dependent position, while Pinnegar’s role as housemaster gives him authority over their work and daily circumstances. Sunday is required to report to his office each morning. Some days he watches her, some days ignores her, and on others she must resist his unwanted advances. The routine matters: his access to her is not an isolated encounter but part of a working arrangement she cannot simply refuse without consequence. When he locks his office door and attempts to force himself on her, Sunday fights back and warns that she could tell Mrs Lockett and the Board of Guardians. Her resistance briefly makes him hesitate, but he counters by threatening to target Daisy Branning instead. His position lets him turn the girls’ fear for one another into leverage.

Pinnegar’s conduct is reinforced by his belief that women exist to serve men. After losing his workhouse position, he resents women’s increasing opportunities and treats Sunday’s refusal as a betrayal deserving punishment. He also blames her for his own circumstances, despite the fact that his harassment and attempted assault are what she resisted. The contrast between his claims of male entitlement and Sunday’s insistence on speaking out exposes a central mechanism of abuse: authority is used to recast a victim’s refusal as wrongdoing, while the official’s actions are obscured or rationalized.

Confinement and the threat of removal

Cissie’s removal to Hatter’s Hall makes the institutional consequences particularly stark. When the asylum carriage arrives in the workhouse yard, Cissie recognizes it and understands that the promised placement where she could care for her baby was not what awaited her. She pleads to remain with her child and identifies Pinnegar as the person who caused her pregnancy. Miss Frost does not investigate the allegation in the scene; instead, she seizes Cissie, knocks her bundle of belongings to the floor, and discredits her by invoking the stigma attached to unmarried mothers. The two men who have come in the carriage advance while Cissie is terrified and resisting.

The threatened destination carries its own coercive force. Cissie believes that once confined she will never be released, and the narrative presents her lack of anyone who might come for her as part of that danger. Sunday later recounts the episode to Lady Lavinia Huntley: Cissie had feared Pinnegar, was sent away under a false promise, and disappeared into the asylum. The separation from her baby is not merely the result of one person’s cruelty; it is made possible by a system that can remove a woman with little apparent regard for her wishes or for the allegation she has made. The narrative also shows how the threat of that outcome disciplines other girls. When Daisy reveals that Pinnegar has assaulted her and threatened to send her brother Tommy to Hatter’s Hall if she tells, Sunday fears that reporting him could expose Daisy to the same fate as Cissie.

Repeated coercion and its consequences

Pinnegar’s abuse reaches beyond his office. Following Sunday’s departure from the workhouse, Daisy says that he began summoning her to his office, harmed her, and threatened her with Tommy’s confinement if she disclosed what happened. Sunday discovers Daisy’s pregnancy and chooses, for the moment, to keep it secret while they consider what to do. The decision reflects the girls’ limited confidence that official disclosure will protect them: Cissie’s treatment has already shown how an accusation can be met with punishment rather than safety. Daisy’s pregnancy becomes a continuing burden, and she later expresses distress about the child and the possibility of giving it away. Sunday answers from her own experience of abandonment at the workhouse, making clear how institutional neglect can shape a child’s future as well as a mother’s.

After Pinnegar is no longer at the workhouse, the threat does not immediately disappear. He is seen near Biddy Spooner’s home, and Sunday warns him to stay away, accusing him of egging the windows and killing the household’s fowl. His presence unsettles Nell, while reports that he has spread malicious rumours about Sunday lead men to proposition and disrespect her. Sunday’s name and safety are thus attacked together: the rumours help make her vulnerable in public, while his repeated appearances maintain pressure around the household. Biddy worries that Sunday is doing the work of two after Daisy’s death, and Tommy’s grief also changes the household’s daily life. These consequences show that abuse radiates outward, burdening friends and dependants who try to protect its targets.

Power beyond formal institutions

The novel connects the workhouse’s hierarchy to other settings without treating every prejudice as identical. At a gathering in Biddy Spooner’s home, Rebecca is shocked to learn that Sunday is a maid and objects to her presence among people she considers her social superiors. Sunday’s employment status becomes a reason to exclude her, while Rebecca’s possessive attention to Jacob makes Sunday increasingly uncomfortable. The scene shows how class conventions can police access and belonging even outside an official institution.

Gendered authority also appears in Lavinia Huntley’s marriage. While pregnant, Lavinia returns from a funeral to find Ashley Huntley drinking and angry that she attended the funeral of a maid. His rebuke frames her act of respect as a risk to their unborn child and dismisses the dead woman’s mistreatment. Earlier, Zillah is ordered to follow Ashley’s instructions if the baby is a girl, under threat that Lavinia will be sent to an asylum and Zillah to the workhouse. The household’s apparent privacy does not make these threats less coercive: Ashley’s authority over his wife and servant invokes the same institutions that threaten Cissie and Daisy. In a different public setting, Sunday witnesses people recoil from and insult Mickey at the cattle market because of his racial identity. She links arms with him in defiance. This episode is not the same as Pinnegar’s official abuse, but it widens the novel’s view of how social power can mark some people as undeserving of equal treatment.

Resistance and the limits of protection

Resistance in these episodes is practical and often precarious. Sunday physically defends herself from Pinnegar, threatens to expose him to people whose authority he fears, protects Daisy by withholding her pregnancy temporarily, and stands beside Mickey when others shun him. She also tells Lady Lavinia what happened to Cissie, bringing a suppressed accusation into a conversation with someone able to hear it. These acts do not erase the harm or guarantee immediate protection; Sunday’s fear that Daisy could suffer Cissie’s fate shows how clearly she understands the risk of speaking.

The novel’s treatment of institutional abuse therefore rests on a tension between exposure and impunity. The workhouse office, asylum carriage, household command, and public rumour are different instruments, but each can restrict a vulnerable person’s choices while shifting blame onto the person harmed. Against that pressure, the girls’ acts of resistance and the care offered by their friends create forms of protection outside the authority that failed them. The contrast makes the abuse legible not simply as individual misconduct, but as power sustained by dependence, stigma, and the possibility that an allegation will bring further punishment.