Patchwork History

"Rethinking History as Patchwork: The Case of Atwood's Alias Grace
Critic: Magali Cornier Michael
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Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace presents a patchwork of texts as an "other" means of representing historical events and persons that rejects the mono-vision of traditional histories. This representation undermines linearity and the cause-and-effect logic that derives from it. The result is a more dynamic construction which evolves while still retaining the integrity of its pieces. Atwood's novel engages curiosity through presenting all of the juxtaposition of the texts along with the first and third person narrations used. The juxtaposition of the texts equalizes the novel's status as neither fiction nor valid, and the texts begin to challenge each other's authorities when placed beside each other.

The main focus of the novel is the trial of Grace Marks in the 1840's. Atwood uses the historical bounty available to write the story of Grace Marks and claims that it is based on reality. Even though the known facts are not changed, the accounts contradict each other in a way that few facts emerge as unequivocally known. The unknown truth of Grace Marks' role in the murder makes the historical events and people compelling and they story also achieves a "reality status" through their presentation. Alias Grace is a text that actively participates re-conceptualization of history socially, culturally and texturally. The novel highlights text and storytelling through frames where all of the events are viewed by undermining any clear distinction of different texts.

Hayden White and Dominick LaCapra have demonstrated that historical methodology has tended to efface the active role of language, texts, and narrative structures in the creation and description of historical reality in the nineteenth century, as well as thought structures and symbolic meaning being an integral part of everything we know as history. LaCapra argues historians depend on what is termed as a documentary model of knowledge that tends to ignore the way documents are texts that rework reality. Historical research still assumes that accurate access to the "truth" is possible.

Giana Pomata points out the notable gender dimension in the second half of the nineteenth century, which led to the absence of women from history. Historic pieces such as memoirs and biographies, generally authored by women, were in favor a more general history. During the women's movement, the absence of women in history was questioned and there was a need for "a re-evaluation of established standards of historical significance". Historical narratives are essential in accessing real events, ideas and meanings of history according to Susan Stanford Friedman. For most scholars of feminist history and historians, they found that questioning historical methodologies never lapses into relativism and that historical narratives can never capture the truth in history.

Alias Grace is based around the history of the murder trial and essentially finding the truth. The novel demonstrates how letting one narrative dominate one's reading can change the perspective of the piece. Alias Grace demonstrates a spatial structure rather than a linear structure.The novel doesn't focus on finding the truth about specific events or people, but rather questioning the document to uncover the unreliability of all narratives. Atwood highlights the documents that produce rather than represent material events and persons through a method of juxtaposition.The novel balances out the authority of official documents and de-authorized texts by highlighting the similarities between the two. Throughout the story, Grace Marks is aware of the control she has over the story as she tells it to Dr. Jordan as well as she is aware of the alternate versions of her story being told by others. The novel stresses the importance of details as they can dramatically change the accuracy of a story and make a difference between versions of stories told. The patchwork quilt structure in Alias Grace offers many potential patterns that creates insight into past events without creating an hierarchy among them.

8 Weeks

I just finished reading chapters 14 and 15 and so far, those are my two favourite chapters in the book. The chapters reflect on Grace and her family struggles and their eight week trek from Ireland to Canada. I found the chapters compelling because the imagery used was very effective. In one passage, Atwood describes the sounds, smells and atmosphere of the old boat that Grace, her mother and aunt were on when they were on their way to Canada. I sympathized for the family and everyone else on the boat because the conditions were described and associated with harsh smells, poorly ventilated cabins, uncomfortable sleeping arrangements and storm they had to endure.I liked this part of the book because it gives a more detailed background story of Grace Marks' life and shows the emotion and physical suffering she had to endure while making her way over to Canada. While reading these chapters, I could almost imagine myself in that situation of being at the bottom of a rocky boat with what would feel like a hundred other people, some of which were also sick.

Grace is also given a more human and vulnerable attribute to her character when the story of her mother's suffering is being told. This humanized both Grace and her mother because Grace's mother had been put through a lot of emotional abuse from her family and her husband and Grace had to see her mother suffer because of it. For a split second while I was reading these chapters, I felt as if Grace was innocent of her crimes just because of what she had suffered in her childhood. I felt like this was like a turning point in the novel because in the beginning, Atwood had focused on the crime and her punishments, and by showing her tainted childhood, it portrays the fact that shes not a crazed killer, but she is just someone living a less than perfect life.

Précis

Critic: Mona Knapp
Review of Alias Grace
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Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace recounts a historical murder case in the 1840's. The antiheroine is Grace Marks who was convicted at sixteen for helping murder her employer and his mistress. She was pardoned in 1872 after serving 29 years in mental asylums and prison. She was spared the death penalty because of her questioned sanity and guilt. Grace is met through the eyes of the fictional Dr. Simon Jordan in 1859. His position is to provide a psychiatric evaluation and assist in determining her innocence. His interest in the unconscious mind is shown to be a motivator in finding the root cause of Grace's supposed memory loss and episodes of madness. Her childhood portrays the early loss of her mother and siblings and the abuse caused by her alcoholic father.

Atwood portrays the nature of neuropsychological theories in the story and predates formal understanding of schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder. Atwood presents the symptoms of the second disorder as a reason for her uncharacterically violent self. The story's research gives the reader a believable and audible voice for Grace which takes us into her mind and dispair.


The novel juxtaposes several characters' inner monologues, newspaper clippings, historical accounts and poetry exerpts as well as letters written and Grace's narrative to Dr. Jordan. The fact that Grace's story will never be full known can cause frustration to the reader as it did to Dr. Jordan when he is unable to find the truth he was looking for. Unfortunately, after searching for the truth for so long and not being able to find it, Dr. Jordan's ending is tragic.

Criticising Criticisms

Author: Margaret Atwood                            Title: Alias Grace

I was interested in reading a piece by Margaret Atwood because she's a very well known Canadian author and I have heard both negative and positive reviews about her work. I had never read anything by Margaret Atwood before and when I saw the list of books available for the independent study unit, I decided that Alias Grace would be a good choice for me to read.

Margaret Atwood was influenced by Victoria author Susanna Moodie, who herself had written an account on the scandal of Grace Marks and her murder conviction. Atwood wrote a series of poems based on Moodie's described experiences as a Canadian pioneer which she had published and titled Journals of Susanna Moodie, which then prompted her interest in the Grace Marks case. She had then started further research on the case and on the Victorian era herself in order to better understand the specifics, which is when she began to write Alias Grace. In the novel, Atwood goes more in depth about themes such as gender roles, social classes and feminine identity. Through her writing, Margaret Atwood has been classified as a fictional writer, cultural historian and a poet.



Other works by Margaret Atwood

• Double Persephone (poetry) 1961
  
• The Animals in That Country (poetry) 1968
  
• The Edible Woman (novel) 1969
  
• The Journals of Susanna Moodie: Poems (poetry) 1970
  
• Procedures for Underground (poetry) 1970
  
• Surfacing (novel) 1972
  
• Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (criticism) 1972
  
• The Servant Girl (teleplay) 1974
  
• Lady Oracle (novel) 1976
  
• Dancing Girls, and Other Stories (short stories) 1977
  
• Two-headed Poems (poetry) 1978
  
• Life before Man (novel) 1979
  
• The Handmaid's Tale (novel) 1985
  
• Cat's Eye (novel) 1988
  
• The Robber Bride (novel) 1993
  
• Alias Grace (novel) 1996
  
• The Blind Assassin (novel) 2000
  
• Oryx and Crake (novel) 2003
  
• The Penelopiad (novel) 2005

Critical Articles:
Knapp, Mona. "Review of Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood." World Literature Today 71.3 (2001): Web. 16 Oct 2010. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=false&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=11&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=Margaret+Atwood&TI=Alias+Grace

Cornier Michael, Magali. "Rethinking History as Patchwork: The Case of Atwood's Alias Grace." Modern Fiction Studies 47.2 (2001):. Web. 16 Oct 2010. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&h=1100075559&c=1&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=Margaret+Atwood&TI=Alias+Grace


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Letters to Dr. Jordan

I'll be brief --

I am more than tired than reading letters written to Dr. Jordan, from Dr. Jordan and concerning Dr. Jordan. In fact, I actually feel physically exhausted from reading these letters. Yes, I can appreciate the change in narrative structure as it changes the style and makes things "interesting", but as close minded and ignorant as this sounds, I really don't care what other people have to say to Dr. Simon Jordan. Although I realize that Dr. Simon Jordan is merely a fictional character invented by Margaret Atwood in order to create reason between Grace and humanity, and I realize that the letters were placed in the novel in order to show the different perspectives and opinions that people had of Grace Marks at the time. However, if I wanted to read five letters consecutively, then I would just check my mailbox every so once in a while. I wouldn't mind reading a letter directed to or from our dear Dr. Jordan every other chapter or so in order to refresh my mind by giving me new material to read, but to be quite honest, I wanted to read about Grace Marks and her unknown story, not what other people have to say to her doctor.

However, the letters have to eventually stop and when that happens, then hopefully things will finally get interesting.

Past the Table of Contents

I think that the fact that I made it to the table of contents is saying a lot, let alone the fact that I've made it past them. To say that Margaret Atwood has truly won me over through Alias Grace would be like saying Stephenie Meyer has captivated my heart through the Harry Potter series.  By this, I'm referring to the pasted descriptions of Grace Marks written by other authors such as Susanna Moodie and Emily Bronte which almost made it look like movie reviews. Although I can appreciate these authors' inputs and descriptions of the main character, I still think that it would be nice to hear the opinion of the author whose novel I'm reading. While we're still on the topic of not Margaret Atwood, I came across a poem written by Emily Bronte at the time of Grace Mark's conviction. The poem was a pretty basic summary of the story, not to mention that every stanza rhymed (which I found the most impressive of all). Although the poem is merely an interpretation of the true events, it gives a bit more insight to the story itself because it made me question whether or not a young girl like Grace Marks is capable of murder and if she was in fact telling the truth about being innocent, or if she is the psychopathic "murderess" that the people convicted her of being.

Susanna Moodie and Emily Bronte may have gained my attention and kept me from slamming the book closed, but I will give credit to Margaret Atwood for one thing --writing something appealing.
I'm completely joking. Margaret Atwood is fully capable of tasteful writing... just not to me. But anyway.


While at the Governor's house with his wife, Grace is identified as being a "romantic figure" by some of the women there, however they also point out that she doesn't smile or laugh. Grace reminds herself that she hasn't had a reason to smile in such a long time, and if she were to laugh she feared she would not be able to stop, which would ruin her romantic image as "Romantic people are not supposed to laugh. I know that much from looking at pictures." (Atwood, 25) Honestly, I don't know why this line caught my attention. Maybe it just struck me as bizarre that a murderer can even be seen as a romantic figure or maybe it was the fact that I had always interpreted love in this certain era to be forced, as wives were seen as property and husbands were seen as assets. The other thing about that quote that made me wonder was if you were romantic, wouldn't that imply that you are either in love, or want to be in love? And if it does, then wouldn't that make you happy? If this is the supposed case, then why would smiling ruin such an image of being romantic? As far as I see it, if you're a romantic, you're in love and if you're in love, then you're happy and if there are no signs of being happy or in love then said person is not a romantic as Grace Marks was described as.

However, I still think that there's some hope for Grace Marks yet as being a romantic figure -- she was convicted for murdering Thomas Kinnear and his mistress, Nancy Montgomery. Some say she did it out of jealousy. Some say she did it because she was deranged. My prediction so far is that Grace Marks was in love with Thomas Kinnear and she knew that she could never be involved with him. That fact became proven when he started seeing Nancy Montgomery, and when the truth became too difficult, she murdered them both. So I guess you could say that in a jealous, deranged kind of way, Grace Marks acted romantically in the way of her crimes.

And I guess I'm alright with reading about that for the next three months.