God's Cage

Before the part Hearts and Gizzards in the novel, there is a part that is beyond ironic in context to the rest of the novel. In this part, Grace shows disgust and is very shaken by the idea of having to kill a chicken on herself. She says that she could never do it, as she has never done it before, and she "had an aversion to shedding the blood of any living thing" (Atwood 294). This is ironic because the whole novel is based off the case of Grace Marks -- the girl who helped murder Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery, which is the same Grace Marks who cries over even the thought of killing a bird in order to put dinner on the table. Grace is also very opinionated on those who attend church, as she calls them hypocrites because they believed they only believed that they were good people when they were on their best behaviour, but disregarded all of the other times in their lives when they weren't at their best. By this, she's saying that the only reason that people come to church is to prove to themselves, others and, more importantly, God that they are good people who are clean of any sin. Margaret Atwood even brings up a light/dark imagery in the chapter by saying :
 
"These are cold and proud people, and not good neighbours. They are hypocrites, they think the church is a   cage to keep God in, so he will stay locked up there and not go wandering about the earth during the week, poking his nose into their business, and looking into the depths and darkness and doubleness of their hearts, and their lack of true charity; and they believe they need only be bothered about him on Sundays when they have their best clothes on and their faces straight, and their hands washed and their gloves on, and their stories all prepared. But God is everywhere, and cannot be caged in, as men can." (Atwood 300)  As someone who doesn't attend church, I could appreciate this quotation because it gave me a sense of reasoning to why people even go to church. In this quotation, Grace was saying that people who go to church have something to hide and they hide it by preparing their stories, cleaning up their act, wearing nice clothes and standing in front of God and saying that they have not sinned. This also shows hypocrisy because people were always punished for "sinning" when the people who are punishing them have probably sinned themselves. Nancy Montgomery is a prime example of a hypocrite because she attends church to say that she doesn't live in sin, yet she is carrying on a relationship with her housekeeper, who is obviously of higher status, and if the relationship were ever to be revealed, she would've been called a whore and been looked down upon. Instead, she was seen as the mistress of the house and was very respected in that sense. However, when Mary Whitney carried on a sexual relationship with the housekeeper's son and discovered that she was carrying his child, she was thrown away like garbage, and given only five dollars to support herself and the child, and was called a slut by the same man who swore that one day he would marry her.

While reading these chapters, a lot of prejudice and hypocrisy is seen in the society of the nineteenth century. The hypocrisy quote made me think a lot about the unfairness of punishment. To compare Nancy Montgomery and Mary Whitney in the same situation, we see this imbalance of punishment, and how the problem ended for each of them. Nancy Montgomery basically got a promotion by carrying on her relationship with Thomas Montgomery while Mary Whitney died trying to rid herself of the burden she was carrying inside of her because she carried on her relationship with the housekeeper's son. Why should it be that two people can commit the same act, yet only one person will be punished for it?

Motive, Maturity and Mary

At the end of Chapter 25, we start seeing that Grace might have some motive for killing Nancy Montgomery. When first arriving at Thomas Kinnear's house, Grace sees Nancy as someone who just seems to be looking out for her best interest and after losing her dear friend Mary, Grace looks up to her as the only support system she has left. However, the relationship between Nancy Montgomery and Thomas Kinnear is already being implied in this part of the book, and jealousy is getting in the way of Nancy and Grace's friendship. Grace begins to feel like a scapegoat and her labor is being abused when she is blamed for ironing and putting away a shirt with a button missing, when Grace recalls, "... Nancy had been in the wrong twice,f or that shirt must have been washed and ironed by her, before I was ever anywhere near; and so she gave me a list of chores as long as your arm, and went flouncing out of the room and down the stairs, and out into the yard, and began scolding McDermott for not cleaning her shoes properly that morning." (Atwood 262). This moment is almost heartbreaking for Grace because when she was hired by Nancy, she felt they were going to become good friends, almost like sisters, just as she had with Mary Whitney, but she quickly realizes that this isn't the way that things are going to be. The motive isn't as obvious in this scene, but it does demonstrate that Grace wasn't too fond of her and wouldn't be overly appalled if the idea of killing her was brought up by James McDermott.

Although Nancy no longer proves to have the potential of acting as Grace's sisterly figure, I began to see that Grace no longer needed one. During her stay at the Asylum, she's endured a lot of harassment which would seem  to make her even more fragile than she already is at her young age. However, during her sessions with Dr. Jordan, she appears to be very level-headed, and very mature. She's grown very quickly throughout the book, and I'm starting to see a bit of Mary Whitney in her personality, as she's beginning to see things the same way she did such as the why men act the way they do, and she's more aware of the unfairness of the gender roles and class structure put in place by society. I don't think that Grace's growth is over quite yet, and she still has many things to learn for herself and she still has many things to discover while at Thomas Kinnear's house.

Mr. Thomas Kinnear: A Fine Gentleman

A few things can be said about Thomas Kinnear based on first impressions: he is polite, charismatic, charming and overall a very fine gentleman. When Grace first meets Mr. Kinnear, he introduces himself as her new employer in a public place, which is a statement on its own as servants were never really addressed by their employer, especially in public, as there was a certain hierarchy that was meant to be maintained. It's already seen that Mr. Kinnear doesn't treat his servants as they were servants, but rather as if they were friends, family, or unlike how the other upper-class citizens treat their help, like human beings. After being introduced to Thomas Kinnear, she is introduced to his Bay Gelding horse, Charley, she is taken back to the place she will have to call home for the next little while. Some other things can be noted about Thomas Kinnear, and that is that he didn't have someone drive him, which was usually what was expected. He also assisted Grace when it came to loading all of her luggage into the wagon, and on top of that, he insisted on her sitting in the front seat with him. I thought that this was a brave act performed by Mr. Kinnear, mostly because servants were supposed to work for their employer and they were to do it without any assistance, and without any complaints.

It's not that things are off about Thomas Kinnear because frankly, there should have been more just like him in the nineteenth century. However, it almost seems throughout the novel as if he was trying to mess around with the Great Chain of Being associated with this era, while also trying his luck. In his household, Grace observes that he has a peacock feather fan displayed openly, and peacock feathers were apparently considered to be bad luck. Thomas Kinnear is presented as a very fine gentleman who is very respectable and treats others with this same respect, but although he is all of these things, he can also be seen as very arrogant in a way where he thinks that he can cheat the universe by going against everything that everyone's ever believed, and by already knowing his fate, I can safely say messing with hierarchies and trying luck was probably not a good call for Thomas Kinnear.

A Precious Treasure to be Kept Safe

Part 7 of the novel Alias Grace starts off with one of the most memorable poems and one of the most memorable quotes in the book so far. The poem, written by Christina Rossetti, relates to Mary Whitney's death as it talks about grievance:

Yet if you should forget me for a while
  And afterwards remember, do not grieve;
  For if the darkness and corruption leave
  A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
  Than that you should remember and be sad.
-"Remember," 1849
I liked this poem the most out of all the other poems that were used in the novel because the death of Mary Whitney in the last chapter was so well portrayed that it almost made me feel as if I had lost a friend myself, which made this poem impact me even more. It made me put myself into Grace's shoes and it made me think about how she would feel about this poem if she read it after Mary's death. The other memorable quote in this chapter was narrated by Dr. Simon Jordan when he was considering life and just how easily it can be manipulated and taken away:
"How easily people die, for one; how frequently, for another. And how cunningly spirit and body are knit together. A slip of the knife and you create an idiot. If this is so, why not the reverse? Could you sew and snip, and patch together a genius?" (Atwood 217)
I read this quote a week ago and unlike most other things, it's managed to stick in my mind.I like this quote mostly because it makes you think about the truth of it. Why is it that it's so effortless to take away life or create an idiot, but we constantly struggle to save lives or are unable to find a way to fabricate a genius?

Chapter 21 is a refreshing break from the overly emotion episode of Grace and her times in the Alderman household with Mary Whitney as its main focus is on Dr. Jordan's interpretation of everything he's learned so far about Grace. He asks around about her past to see if everything she has said checks out and learns about the other people mentioned in her stories. It's already seen that Dr. Jordan has very deeply involved himself in Grace Marks' case to the extent that he treats her as if she's his only patient. By the end of the chapter, it's almost as if he's become so involved that he goes as far as dreaming about Grace, which is what is implied by Atwood in his dream description. By ending the chapter like this, it makes me wonder whether Dr. Jordan is interested in Grace's innocence or if he's interested in Grace.
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A Secret Worth Dying For

Chapter 20 starts off at the end of November and into December. In order to stay warm in the cold extreme Grace describes to Dr. Jordan that she and Mary would take their clothes into bed with them so that they would keep warm before putting them on and they would also heat bricks to put them in their bed. This concept of staying warm is almost obsolete in our age of well insulated houses and heat that blasts through the house 24/7, but since I live in a house where almost everything modern is obsolete, I'm familiar with some of these concepts. In the dead of winter, I discovered the method of keeping my clothes under my sheets to keep it warm for when I put it on, and sometimes when that doesn't work, I've had to changed underneath the blankets just to avoid hypothermia. I can safely say that I haven't had to go as far as heating a brick to put in my bed, but I've come pretty close to that, as I am the proud owner of a Magic Bag and a microwave.

I wish I could say that the contents of chapter twenty is a happy transition away from reminiscing on cold, but it isn't. Chapter twenty was all about Mary Whitney's tragic end and it then elaborated on what we know of Grace Marks so far. Mary's health quickly begins to decline in the chapter and it isn't immediately revealed why. I'll admit to cheating by saying that I knew Mary's fate before reading this chapter. I knew that she had become pregnant by the son of the housekeeper, who had later abandoned her with only five dollars to support herself. In the nineteenth century, it was socially unacceptable to have a child out of wedlock, and it was especially unacceptable in Mary's case as she was merely a servant to the Parkinsons' and their son was her superior. Grace watches Mary go through this less than ideal situation, feeling utterly useless as she only knows what she is going through with the pregnancy, but Mary's concept of raising the child on her own - especially out of wedlock - is completely foreign to Grace. Mary later realizes that it would be too difficult to raise a child with no husband, no money, and no permanent place to live and decides to get an abortion. There are many things we take for granted in the twenty-first century that the people in the nineteenth century had to live without. Abortions were considered to be very risky in the nineteenth century, unlike today where abortions (as highly debated as they are) are a simple procedure where you walk in and walk out with only a few manageable side effects. While reading about the painful, not only physically but mentally, process that Mary had to go through with the abortion, it made me thankful for the medical advancements that we have today, and it made me realize what a strong character Mary Whitney was. Not only did she act as the family that Grace never had, but she was very opinionated on equality, she followed her heart and she also knew how to use her head. She always thought it was unfair that while they had to spend their lives at the bottom of the social chain cooking, cleaning, living in poor living conditions and having to endure the sexual harassment of the men in the household, the rich were living in the luxury and service that people like Mary and Grace provided them while also having to pay them very little. I thought that Mary was a very essential character in the book because she was the older, more knowledgeable and more experienced person who helped Grace throughout her whole life struggles. I understood Grace's pain as she was forced to listen to the only person who had ever truly cared for her scream in agony while not being able to do anything about it. Mary had not only suffered during the procedure, but she suffered greatly after as well. She remained ill for days after to the point where she went as far as creating her own will, leaving everything that she's ever owned to Grace. Even if I didn't know what happened already, I would've seen this as Mary's story coming to an end. The next morning, Grace finds Mary lying in bed, staring up at the sky as if she was focusing on going to Heaven as she died. Just as the end of Mary's story begins, Grace's story begins as the death of Mary begins Grace's journey onward to a new job offered to her by Nancy Montgomery where her employer would be none other than Thomas Kinnear.

Alias: Mary Whitney

After reading up to chapter 20, I can safely say that I do not envy the women in the nineteenth century. I don't sympathize for the fact that they all acted as servants and inferiors to men, but what I do sympathize for is what many of us still sympathize for today, and that's what women like to call the "monthly gift". I no longer felt the need to complain after reading about the process that women had to go through in the nineteenth century once a month. Grace quickly discovers "Eve's curse" and her initial thought is that she is dying. However, she seeks guidance from her only apparent friend, Mary Whitney. The advice she gives Grace is to wear a red petticoat and then shows her how to fold and pin the cloth. I would think that this would be a more than tedious task to do every month, especially when the clothes you wear are the same ones you wear for several years. While reading this passage, I not only gave an involuntary shudder many times, but I also considered myself to be lucky to be living in the twenty-first century.

The chapter revisits the relationship between Grace and Mary and the things that Grace learned while she was working with Mary at the Parkinson's. Throughout the chapters, Mary has an almost maternal instinct towards Grace and Grace sees Mary as the motherly figure that she had lost. She even says in the novel, "Mary too me under her wing from the very first." Mary provides her with some of the basic needs that she was deprived of for so long as a servant, such as fresh, fitting clothes, a bath and even food stolen from the Cook. Although the novel is based on the historical event of Grace Marks' murder conviction, there are many references to family, home survival and the daily struggles that even we go through today.

Understanding the Misunderstood of Grace Marks

Alias Grace
Name: Margaret Atwood 
Also known as: Margaret Elanor Atwood
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/GLD/hits?r=d&origSearch=true&o=DataType&n=10&l=d&c=2&locID=stc23378&secondary=false&u=CLC&t=KW&s=3&NA=Margaret+Atwood&TI=Alias+Grace

Alias Grace is the recipient of The Giller Prize an shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, making it Atwood's most commercially successful novels. The novel was inspired by Susanna Moodie's account of Grace Marks, who was convicted of murder in the nineteenth century. Atwood also published a series of poems titled Journals of Susanna Moodie which were based on Moodie's life as a Canadian pioneer. Atwood also developed a television script based on Grace Marks entitled Servant Girl and after that she began to write Alias Grace after researching the Victorian era. The novel combines factual information of Grace Marks with fabricated aspects such as Dr. Simon Jordan. Themes such as gender relations and separation, ethnic divisions, and class distinctions as well as feminine identity are expressed throughout the novel by means of narrative structure.
 
Alias Grace recounts the story of housekeeper Grace Marks through various texts, making much of the novel based on historical facts with the exception of fictionalized character, Dr. Jordan. Grace is twenty-four at the beginning of the novel when she is visited by psychiatrist Dr. Simon Jordan. The nove begins to split into two narratives, that of Grace's past until leading up to her conviction, and Dr. Jordan's life and experiences with Grace Marks.

Grace discusses her past, such as her family's immigration from Ireland and the death of her mother. Grace also discussed how she lived in poverty before offered a housekeeping job by Mrs. Alderman Parkinson, where she met Mary Whitney. When Grace leaves the employment of Mrs. Alderman Parkinson, she receives a new housekeeping job by Nancy Montgomery at Thomas Kinnear's household, where she then meets James McDermott  and Jamie Walsh who are stable boys at the estate. The story quickly unfolds as Grace claims that James murders Nancy Montgomery because he blames her for him getting fired, and then shoots Thomas Kinnear when she refuses to. To seek refuge, Grace runs to Toronto where she is ultimately found and arrested.

Complex feelings are developed by Dr. Jordan as he hears these events, even though he is sure they are not entirely truthful. He enlists a hypnotic therapist, Dr. Jerome DuPont, to help Grace remember the events relating to the murder. During the hypnosis, she says that "Grace" knows nothing of the murders and claims to be Mary Whitney. The novel is concluded with Dr. Jordan going off to Europe, and Grace being pardoned and then taken to New York where Jamie Walsh waits to marry her.

Themes covered throughout the novel are female oppression and sexual indiscretion. Relationships and desires between characters show negative outcomes as the fate of many of the women in the situation ends in death. The majority of women are depicted as being dependent on men and inferior to them, example being when Grace seeks refuge by marrying. The quilt is a large metaphor for the book as Grace is often shown quilting through her sessions with Dr. Jordan, representative of fabricating the story of her past.

Atwood has been critically acclaimed for reconstructing the Victorian vision through her evocative prose. Auerbach proclaimed, "[Alias Grace] is a realization of a living and utterly credible world." and patchwork narrative makes the novel understandable. The quilting symbol is recognized as a desire for unity which can also be suggested through the novel's air of sexual longing. Depth has been added to the characters, mainly Grace, through the multiple perspectives. Alias Grace has been interpreted as domestic condemnation as well as a sense of gaining freedom of conforming. Margaret Atwood is congratulated for leaving Grace's innocence not fully known and for retelling the story of Grace Marks's life without prejudicing opinion in one direction or another.