Valentine's Day Massacre of the Coverdale family and their induction into a coma. Joan, unlike Eunice, had a relatively comfortable childhood. Her parents gave her the best educational opportunities, but she abandoned everything to devote herself to finding a married man and to prostitution (66-67). Throughout the novel, Joan uses false clichés from the Bible and her past sins of prostitution and adultery to rightfully portray herself as being redeemed by God. Joan uses her religion, and by extension God himself, to express her feelings; Rendell hates her behavior: "A pious woman should not be emaciated, which is why she rarely gave in to her dislike of people through purely malicious gossip." It was not she who reproached and hated them, but God; not she but God to whom they had inflicted imaginary wounds… Joan Smith was only his humble and energetic instrument” (62). Joan invents from the Bible when she learns that Mr. Coverdale no longer wants her in his house: “Woe to him whom the Lord despises! » (102). Unlike Eunice, Joan, by killing the Coverdale family, loses what little sanity she retains due to lack of religious sincerity. Joan crackles, “I am the instrument of the One above” (185), as she murders the Coverdales. Unlike Eunice, who wants to go unnoticed, Jeanne wants to proclaim to everyone her “victory over the enemies of God”. The madness of Joan and