Ardolph, who takes pleasure in destroying the reputations of virtuous women and breaking up their marriages, appeals to Laurina's vanity and he seduces her away from her husband.

After the Marchese's death, Victoria falls into Ardolph and Laurina's custody, and soon meets Il Conte Berenza, a noble but naïve Venetian man.

During her dreams, a familiar face begins to surface: that of Henriquez's servant Zofloya, who she sees as someone who can help her destroy Lilla.

He demands to know which of the banditti have harmed her and caused the bruises and cuts she suffer from, but they tell him that it was Ardolph had been beating her and her cries had attracted their attention.

She comments on human nature, their passions and weakness, and "either the love of evil is born with us, or we must attribute them to the suggestions of infernal influence.

Laurina di Cornari: mother of Leonardo and Victoria, married to the Marchese for 17 years before she leaves him and abandons her family for Count Ardolph.

Leonardo di Loredani: son of Laurina and the Marchese, a year older than his sister Victoria, he is "unable to resist, in any shape, the temptations of his heart".

William Nicholson of General Review of British and Foreign Literature, a popular literary journal of the era, wrote, "From this work we gather that ladies, who marry very young, ought to take care not to fall in love with accomplished seducers; that in case such ladies should run away with their seducers, it will be particularly incumbent on their daughters not to turn out as bad as their mamas; and more especially, if the devil should appear to them in the shape of a very handsome black man, they must not listen to him, for he will lead them from one crime to another.

These characters manipulate others, behave violently, and are sexually aggressive, which previously had been predominantly male characteristics in Gothic fiction.

The prominent female characters Victoria and her mother Laurina transgress in ways that were deemed inappropriate in this time period.

Beatriz González Moreno, an English professor at University of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain, wrote of Zofloya, "Dacre's novel constitutes a strategically crafted and singular work of complex Female Gothic that speaks to its time by challenging various established views regarding women's nature and roles".

[5] Dacre's act of hiding her authorship behind a pen name serves as a means of distancing herself from the accusation of writing material considered offensive, devious, and inappropriate for the nineteenth century.

She had quitted her house for the purpose of enjoying more freely the fresco of the evening, and to stroll along the banks of the lake; the young Leonardo, however, arrested her attention and she softly approached to contemplate him- his hands were clasped over his head and on is cheeks, where the hand of health had planted its brown red nose, the pearly gems of his tears still hung- his auburn hair sported in curls about his forehead and temples, agitated by the passing breeze-his vermeil lips were help open and disclosed his polished teeth-his bosom, which he uncovered to admit the refreshing air, remained disclosed and contrasted by its snowy whiteness thee animated hue of his complexion.

"(103) Megalena as the dominant partner in her relationship "With a look, wherein was depicted the blackest rage, the deepest vengeance and the bitterest scorn, without advancing a step, she continued to contemplate them; then firmly and deliberately approaching Leonardo, she seized him by the arm.

[2] Compare this, however, to the descriptions of Lilla as a, "beautous" and "fair" girl, the stereotypical characteristics given to female protagonists in many gothic novels.

At the very beginning of the novel, the father-figure is immediately removed from the family portrait as a result of an action taken by the female head of house, or Laurina.

Again, it was a rare occurrence for a novel to sport a woman with enough agency to literally and figuratively remove the power of the male head of house.

[7] The novel continues, giving even more power to the mother figure, for Dacre describes that, "brilliant examples of virtue and decorum...[would have] counteracted the evils engendered by the want of steady attention to the propensities of children".

Victoria and Zofloya forge a power relationship throughout the course of the novel which seems to upset the dominant fair-skinned, subservient dark-skinned hierarchy.

"Zofloya reflects contemporary obsession about intercourse between black men and white women," wrote American academic Anne K. Mellor in European Romantic Review.

The genre of the Gothic has long enabled both its practitioners and its readers to explore subjective desires and identities that are otherwise repressed, denied or forbidden by the culture at large.

But as the novel progresses, Victoria becomes more and more dependent on Zofloya, who repeatedly professes his own desire for her, kneeling before her, kissing her hand, preserving her bloodied handkerchief next to his heart, gently pressing her to his bosom, and insisting that she belongs to him".

The presence of this subverted power relationship in the novel paired with the demonic description of the Moorish character reflects a fear of future slave revolts.

At this time period, slavery in the Caribbean become synonymous with violent uprisings and attempts at freedom, with slaves trying desperately to flee from their bondage and owners.

The novel "maintains a plot not remarkable for its art nor striking in its management, but so closely imitated to Lewis's Monk, as to force the reader upon a comparison between the two works, incomparably to the prejudice of the one before us".

The July 1806 issue of Monthly Literary Recreations said that Zofloya was "a romance so void of merit, so destitute of delicacy, displaying such depravity of morals, as the present.

According to Carol Margaret Davison, Zofloya "received little scholarly attention" although it has gained consideration in the past two decades for its gender dynamics.

The Literary Journal declared that "it evidently appears that our fair authoress must have been strongly attacked by the disease when she wrote these volumes and treated by the Devil, English, and common sense so scurvily".

The Annual Review wrote, "There is a voluptuousness of language and allusion which we should have hoped, that the delicacy of the female pen would have refused to trace.

The Passions wrote: "Cast in a different mould than those of her precursors, her heroines do not exhibit any elegance or artificiality of diction, nor coy daintiness of mien, nor any inveterate ingenuousness of character…Miss Dacre's women are not one-dimensional beings concerned with propriety or taste.