Alias Grace
Name: Margaret Atwood
Also known as: Margaret Elanor Atwood
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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.
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