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.
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