Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

First published: 1996

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Historical realism

Time of plot: 1828-1972

Locale: Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Principal characters

• Grace Marks, a young servant imprisoned for murder
• James McDermott, a stable hand hanged for murder
• Thomas Kinnear, a wealthy gentleman farmer and Grace and McDermott’s employer, who is murdered by McDermott
• Nancy Montgomery, a housekeeper and a lover of Kinnear, who is murdered by McDermott
• Simon Jordan, a young doctor specializing in mental illness
• Mary Whitney, Grace’s close friend and coworker
• Jamie Walsh, a flute-playing farmhand and Grace’s future husband
• Jeremiah, a peddler and magician

The Story:

Grace Marks, a talented seamstress who loves to quilt, was born poor in 1828 in the north of Ireland to a drunken failure of a father and a mother overborne by poverty. Grace is one of nine children. In 1843, she had been convicted, along with the bad-tempered, violence-prone stable hand James McDermott, of murdering their employer, the wealthy gentleman farmer Thomas Kinnear. Also killed was Kinnear’s pregnant lover, Nancy Montgomery, who had been jealous of Grace.

McDermott makes Grace complicit in the murder by threatening her. They flee to the United States but are soon apprehended and returned to Ireland. They are tried and then found guilty. McDermott receives the death penalty and is hanged. Grace, fifteen years old at the time of the crime, receives a sentence of life imprisonment. Grace breaks down in prison and is remanded to a mental hospital. After eight years there, she is released as a model inmate and allowed to work as a skilled housemaid for a wealthy prominent woman, Mrs. Palmer. Grace is now twenty-three years old.

Simon Jordan, a young doctor who is sympathetic to the new medical preoccupation with mental illness, is interested in Grace’s case, one of the most famous of the time. He meets with Grace repeatedly and gains some of her confidence, though doctors generally terrify her, and for good reasons. Grace has blocked her memory of the trauma so deeply that neither Dr. Jordan nor hypnosis unearths the truth. Grace herself quite likely does not know. She becomes so dissociated that she speaks during hypnosis as if she is her good friend and coworker Mary Whitney, who had died after a botched abortion. The question of the degree of Grace’s involvement in the murder or Kinnear and Montgomery is never answered.

Enlightened liberal opinion personified by a local parson, the Reverend Verringer, and his allies believes Grace is the victim of a miscarriage of justice, given her youth, her mental fragility, and the ambiguities of the trial (McDermott had told one story, Grace several others). Verringer and the others enlist Dr. Jordan in their cause. He works with Grace from May to August in 1859, but then confesses failure. Grace remains an enigma. An itinerant peddler named Jeremiah, who has many names and faces and who also is a mesmerist and magician, attempts to aid Grace by urging her to leave town with him; she cannot respond.

Dr. Jordan gives up his attempts to understand Grace. He travels briefly to Switzerland to participate in a mental clinic, returns to the United States, enlists with the Unionists in the American Civil War, and is wounded and loses his memory. In 1872, Grace is pardoned. She had been in prison for twenty-eight years and ten months. She is taken to New York State and soon marries Jamie Walsh, her sweet-tempered admirer from long ago at Kinnear’s farm. The marriage had been arranged without her knowledge by her supporters. The new couple settles on a farm outside Ithaca, New York.

It turns out that Grace had written a letter to Dr. Jordan many years ago, a letter she had never sent to him. In the letter, she summarizes her life but does not clarify the central question of her guilt or innocence. Grace continues to quilt.

Bibliography

Bloom, Harold, ed. Margaret Atwood. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2000. A collection of essays by literary critics that provides analyses of Atwood’s major novels, including Alias Grace. Includes a brief biography, a chronology of Atwood’s life, and an informative editor’s introduction.

Cooke, Nathalie. Margaret Atwood: A Biography. Toronto, Ont.: ECW Press, 1998. Although this is not an authorized biography, Atwood answered Cooke’s questions and allowed her access, albeit limited, to materials for her research. A substantive work.

Howells, Coral Ann. Margaret Atwood. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. A lively critical and biographical study that elucidates issues that have energized all of Atwood’s fiction: feminist issues, literary genres, and her own identity as a Canadian, a woman, and a writer.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. This collection of twelve excellent essays provides critical examination of Atwood’s novels, including Alias Grace, as well as a concise biography of the author.

Wilson, Sharon Rose, ed. Margaret Atwood’s Textual Assassinations: Recent Poetry and Fiction. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2003. This collection of scholarly essays examines Atwood’s work, with a focus on her writings published since the late 1980’s. Includes discussion of the novel Alias Grace and others.

Wisker, Gina. Margaret Atwood’s “Alias Grace”: A Reader’s Guide. New York: Continuum, 2002. A brief but comprehensive reader’s guide to Atwood’s Alias Grace. A good place to start for students new to Atwood’s fiction.