Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

PATCHWORK: SEWING THE FABRIC OF THE NARRATIVE

in 

Margaret Atwood's "Alias Grace" (1996)

“You are what you remember” (Dr Dupont in Alias Grace)

“You are what you forget “(Dr Simon Jordan in Alias Grace)

 

Source: here

Margaret Atwood’s “Alias Grace” published in 1996 is based on a real story of alleged murderess “Grace Marks” who “at age 15/16 was convicted of killing her employer and his mistress with a fellow member of “the help,”, James McDermott. Grace’s trial was highly publicized across Canada, the US, and Europe. Her story soon became sensationalized and romanticized, and the true story seemed to fall by the wayside as the years went on.” Source here

The Quilting process: not the End but the Stitching

Margaret Atwood's “Happy Endings”

Atwood works on a real story, and therein, the end of it is already known. It is the fabric of the findings and diggings in the process of telling that brings significance into the novel through the intersectional territories of science, psychology, history, and identity. Indeed, a poem in the form of a ballad about the “crimes of Thomas Kinnear, Esq. And of his housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery at Richmond Hill and the trials of Grace Marks and James McDermott and the hanging of James McDermott at the New Gaol in Toronto November 21st, 1843 “ precludes the narrative.

Concerning this matter, it is interesting to bring to front Margaret Atwood’s experimental “Happy Endings”: Atwood plays around with the same end but unspins different stories. The aim is not the end but the process, she seems to be pinpointing. At a point in the novel, Grace also reflects on the act of "telling": 

“ When you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion: a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood… It’s only afterward that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling to yourself or to someone else” (page 346 / chapter 33).

Science versus Charlatanism

A full story arch is presented, comprehending Grace Marks’ childhood and her sea travelling from Ireland, to the multiple houses in which she has served till reaching Mr. Kinnear’s. The story (a frame narrative)is told in a retrospective way  from the Penitentiary in which Grace Marks has been confined and is working for the “Governor’s” household.  Her case is further studied by the medical men and other reformists and conservatives to determine whether she might be finally acquitted or found guilty.  Her amnesia, her memory gaps about certain details of the crimes puts her at the beckon and call of inquisitive minds and eyes.

The story is offered in multiple perspectives mainly by Grace Marks herself and Simon Jordan, who shows interest in assembling the forgotten pieces of Kinnear’s and Nancy’s crime by using different psychological and scientific methods to prod Grace into remembering.  Actually, at the end of the narrative, Simon makes reference to Simon the apostle:

"Like my namesake apostle, I have cast my nets into deep waters; though unlike him, I may have drawn up a mermaid, neither fish nor flesh but both at once, and whose song is sweet but dangerous" (page 490 / Chapter 50)

Social contesting forces constitute the backdrop of the novel reformists and conservatives, Catholics and protestants, science and charlatanism. Atwood makes a comprehensive research of the science of the times: theories of mesmerism, neurological-hypnotism, seánces, asylums, institutional mistreatment, anatomy, surgical dissection...to name a few of the approaches presented in the narrative:“The Nineteenth century, he concluded, would be to the study of Mind what the Eighteenth had been to the study of Matter- an Age of Enlightenment” 

Indeed, the precarious conditions of asylums and the deficiencies in the treatment of patients, as well as the double standards contributed to muddled conceptions of psychological treatment.

Sewing the patchwork

Mary Whitney alias Grace versus Grace alias Mary

 Whitney / Dédoublement

The novel unfolds further in the shadows by resorting to rich metaphoric accoutrement such as the pervading patchwork and the quilts as well as oneiric imagery. Apart from an embodiment of sorority and domesticity, the quilts constitute a leitmotif, a metonymic way of putting the strewn pieces together. Grace, Penelope-like in her sewing and Scheherazade-like in her storytelling, engages Dr. Jordan’s attention while sewing as he attempts to unearth the forgotten fragments of her memory.

The novel is  entitled “Alias Grace” whereas Grace’s elopement and posters bear “Alias Mary Whitney”.  This duality plays a paramount role. Mary Whitney, Grace's alter ego, constitutes a lens through which the novel explores  themes of bipolarity, “double-consciousness,” or “dédoublement”. 

Mary Whitney is Grace’s best friend at the Alderman’s. Indeed, when Mary passes away due to a hemorrhage by an abortion malpractice, Grace seems to fall into a trance and believes herself to be Mary. During a séance/hypnotism session, this possession materializes and Mary seems to speak through Grace.  She exonerates her of the crimes committed by alleging her using her body as a shell to do so. Bipolarity? Shenanigans as the men of science seem to bespeak of? 

This duality is further played upon by Grace's secretive and frolic dual nature as to her responses to Dr Jordan.  Both are drawn together in the novel by a series of parallelisms that may trigger the twofold natures at stake in a different direction.

Both are brought together through dreams, and both suffer amnesia. Jordan loses his short term memory after a blast in the American Civil War. The story that rounds the circle of connection is Dr Jordan’s relationship with his landlady: Rachel Humphrey urges Simon Jordan kills her husband so they can be together bring back to mind the story of Mr Kinnear, Nancy Montgomery and Grace Marks

The Tree of Paradise

Grace Mark sews herself a quilt with a tree of paradise, snakes framing it, with all the bits and pieces of all the women that she is, she was, she could be…Mary Whitney, Nancy, Grace Marks...

“On my Tree of Paradise, I intend to put a border of snakes entwined; they will look like vines or just a cable pattern to others, as I will make the eyes very small, but they will be snakes to me; as without a snake or two, the main part of the story would be missing. Some who use this pattern make several trees, four or more in a square or circle, but I am making just one large tree, on a background of white. The Tree itself is of triangles, in two colours, dark for the leaves and a lighter colour for the fruits; I am using purple for the leaves and red for the fruits. They have many bright colours now, with the chemical dyes that have come in, and I think it will turn out very pretty.

But three of the triangles in my Tree will be different. One will be white, from the petticoat I still have that was Mary Whitney’s; one will be faded yellowish, from the prison nightdress I begged as a keepsake when I left there. And the third will be a pale cotton, a pink and white floral, cut from the dress of Nancy’s that she had on the first day I was at Mr. Kinnear’s, and that I wore on the ferry to Lewiston, when I was running away.” (Page 534 Chapter 53)

Language afterthoughts:

Please, find here a link to a corpus of interesting expressions we have gathered from 

the novel.