MEMORY AND NARRATION OF TRAUMATIC EVENTS IN MARGARET ATWOOD'S NOVEL ALIAS GRACE PDF Free Download
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VYTAUTO DIDŽIOJO UNIVERSITETAS
HUMANITARINIŲ MOKSLŲ FAKULTETAS
UŽSIENIO KALBŲ, LITERATŪROS IR VERTIMO STUDIJŲ KATEDRA
Viktoriia Slyvka
ATMINTIS IR TRAUMINIŲ ĮVYKIŲ NARACIJA MARGARET ATWOOD
ROMANE „GREIS“
Bakalauro baigiamasis darbas
Anglų filologijos studijų programa, valstybinis kodas 6121NX039
Filologijos pagal kalbą studijų kryptis
Vadovė Kristina Aurylaitė _________ ___________
(parašas) (data)
Apginta doc. dr. Rūta Eidukevičienė __________ ___________
(parašas) (data
Kaunas, 2021
MEMORY AND NARRATION OF TRAUMATIC EVENTS IN
MARGARET ATWOOD’S NOVEL ALIAS GRACE
By Viktoriia Slyvka
Department of Foreign Language, Literature and Translation Studies
Vytautas Magnus University
Bachelor of Humanities Thesis
Supervisor: Kristina Aurylaitė
24 May, 2021
Summary
The subjective nature of memory and the way it is connected to phsychological trauma have been
studied by scientists and philosophers for centuries and have been used as motifs in fiction as well.
This thesis analyzes the motif of subjective memory and psychological trauma used in Margaret
Atwood’s historical novel Alias Grace (1996). The analysis is conducted using two theoretical
approaches: psychological research on the processes memory involves, and how one’s memory is
affected after the experience of traumatic event, and the research in narratology. The theoretical part
of the thesis discusses the following topics: the concept of memory and its subjectivity from
psychological and philosophical perspectives, relying on the propositions by American
Psychological Association, Kourken Michaelian, Larry R. Squire, Daniel Schacter, Endel Tulvin,
Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine; the concepts of psychological trauma and the 19th century hysteria,
relying on the ideas of APA, Elizabeth Loftus, Angelica Staniloiu, Gillian Ciddal, Bessel van der
Kolk and Allyson Kreuiter; and narratological concepts of narrator, focalizer and unreliable
narrator, drawing on Gerard Genette, Uri Margolin, Gerald Prince, Burkhard Niederhoff, and
William F. Edmiston. The analytical section of the thesis focuses on the narration of the main
character Grace Marks, who is sick of a dissociative disorder and narrates about her life in a form of
memories.
Santrauka
Subjektyviąją atminties prigimtį ir kaip ji susijusi su psichologinėmis traumomis, mokslininkai ir
filosofai tyrinėjo šimtmečius. Neretai jie ją naudojo, kaip motyvą kuriant grožinės literatūros
kūrinius. Šis mokslinis darbas analizuoja subjektyviosios atminties ir psichologinių traumų
motyvus, naudojamus Margaret Atwood istoriniame romane „Greis“ (1996). Analizė atliekama
remiantis dviem teoriniais požiūriais: psichologinis procesų, susijusių su atmintimi, tyrimas bei kaip
vienų atmintis yra paveikiama traumuojančios patirties ir naratologinis tyrimas. Teorinėje darbo
dalyje aptariamos šios temos: atminties samprata ir jos subjektyvumas iš psichologinės ir filosofinės
perspektyvos, remiantis Amerikos psichologų asociacija (APA), Kourken Michaelian, Larry R.
Squire, Danielio Schactero, Endelio Tulvino, Platonu, Aristoteliu ir Augustinu; psichologinės
traumos konceptas ir XIX amžiaus isterijos sampratos, remiantis APA, Elizabeth Loftus, Angelica
Staniloiu, Gillian Ciddal, Bessel van der Kolk ir Allyson Kreuiter idėjomis; ir naratologinis
pasakotojo, fokalizatoriaus ir nepatikimo pasakotojo konceptai, kuriuos perteikė Gerardu Genette'u,
Uriu Margolinu, Geraldu Prince'u, Burkhardu Niederhoffu ir Williamu F. Edmistonu. Analitinėje
darbo dalyje daugiausiai dėmesio skiriama pagrindinės veikėjos Grace Marks, sergančio
disociaciniu sutrikimu, pasakojimui.
Table of Contents
Summary
Santrauka
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1
2. The Key Ideas in the Studies of Memory and Narratology .............................................................. 3
2.1 The Concepts of Memory and the Effects of Psychological Trauma ....................................................... 4
2.2 Trauma, Supression of Memories and Madness ....................................................................................... 8
2.3 Ideas in the Studies of Narratology ........................................................................................................ 10
3. Memory and Narration of Traumatic Events in Alias Grace by M. Atwood ................................. 12
3.1 Individual and Collective Memory in Margaret Atwood’s Novel Alias Grace ..................................... 12
3.2. Subjectivity of Grace Marks’ Self-Narrative ........................................................................................ 14
3.3 Grace Marks as an Unreliable Narrator .................................................................................................. 20
3.4 Grace Marks’ Narrative as Means of Obtaining the Self and Power ..................................................... 26
4. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 30
Works Cited ........................................................................................................................................ 31
Appendix: Plot Summary of the Novel Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood ....................................... 34
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1. Introduction
This thesis focuses on the issues of memory and narration in the historical fiction novel Alias Grace
(1996) by Canadian writer and literary critic Margaret Atwood (b. 1939). Margaret Atwood is a
Canadian writer who is internationally respected for her impact on Canadian literature. She has
published thirty six novels and books of poetry, nine collections of short stories, two graphic
novels, and eight books for children, in which she explores themes of gender and identity, power
and politics, climate change and the power of language (“Margaret Atwood’s Main Website”, n. p.).
Some of Atwood’s narratives have been adapted to film and television series, including the recent
TV adaptations of The Handmaid’s Tale (2017) and Alias Grace (2017).
Atwood’s novel Alias Grace was published in 1996 and won the Canadian Giller Prize as
well as was nominated for the Booker Prize. The novel is based on a notorious 19th century double-
murder case that happened in what is now the province of Ontario (Katz, n.p.). In 1843, two
servants at Richmond Hill, just nearby Toronto, named James McDermott (20 years old) and Grace
Marks (16 years old) were convicted of the murders of their employer Mr. Thomas Kinnear, the
owner of the farm where the servants worked, and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery, who was
Kinnear’s mistress and who was pregnant with child at the time of the murder (Katz, n.p.).
McDermott and Marks were arrested while trying to escape to the United States; they carried items
that belonged to newly killed Mr. Kinnear and Montgomery (Katz, n.p.). McDermott was sentenced
to death and was promptly hanged while Marks’ youth gave way to her more lenient conviction
(Katz, n.p.). Thus, Grace was considered being an accessory to the murder and was sentenced to life
imprisonment (Katz, n. p.). Yet, thanks to the evidence of the interested parties which believed in
her innocence, Grace Marks was fully granted a pardon in 1872 (Atwood 463). She left to the USA,
where official records about her disappeared (Atwood 463). She was considered to have changed
her name to avoid unnecessary attention, and married soon afterwards (Atwood 463). Because
during the trial Marks always insisted of having no memory of the murders, it was impossible to
determine whether or how she was involved in the actual killings (Atwood 463). Various public
opinions about Grace leave her true historical character in obscurity, and her guilt or innocence
remain unknown till today (Atwood 463).
Ambiguity that has surrounded one of the most notorious Canadian women of the 1840s
inspired Margaret Atwood to recreate the historical story, reconsidering 19th century social
problems of gender and class. The action of Atwood’s novel is set ten years after the trial. Grace
Marks resides in the Kingston Penitentiary, Ontario, and serves as a domestic maid in penitentiary
Governor’s house. In that house, Grace is being visited by a young American psychiatrist Dr. Simon
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Jordan, hired by one of the liberal-minded social Reformers and influencers in 1850s Toronto, the
Methodist minister Revered Verringer who having no ulterior motives is working to secure a federal
pardon for Grace Marks. The Reverend considers that Government authorities are more considerate
of expert opinion and, to the future petition on the behalf of Grace Marks’ pardon, he hopes to add
Dr. Jordan’s medical report determining that she is not a murderer, but merely a hysteric, which is
considered a classic female disorder in 19th century psychoanalysis. Grace claims that she has no
memory of the murders, and Dr. Jordan interviews her in order to uncover Grace’s memories,
allegedly lost to amnesia. He allows Marks to narrate her life story, hoping that it would help to
restore her lost memory of the murders. When Dr. Simon Jordan realizes that his method is not
working as he has expected, he allows the Reverend’s friend, Dr. Jerome DuPont, to hypnotize
Grace in order to reach the suppressed memories. During the hypnotic session, Marks starts
speaking in the voice of Mary Whitney, her friend who died of complications from an unsuccessful
abortion. The voice admits to having possessed Marks and to having killed Nancy Montgomery, but
also claims that Grace’s was absent during the murder and her unawareness of Mary Whitney’s
presence in her mind. Because Dr. Jordan realizes that he cannot write a report about the results of
the hypnosis for he could be seen as a charlatan, he escapes back to the United States. The novel
ends with the collection of letters between secondary characters. Mrs. Humphrey, Simon’s lover
who was socked to find out about the doctor’s unexpected departure, writes multiple letters to Dr.
Jordan, making attempt to reestablish their acquaintance. From Simon’s mother, Mrs. Constance
Jordan, she finds out that the man left for a tour of Private Mental Asylums and Clinics in Europe,
and later joined the Union army in the capacity of Military surgeon for the period of American Civil
War. Also, Mrs. Constance provides that Simon had been struck in the head by the piece of flying
debris, and unfortunately, his recent experiences, including his activity in the city of Kingston, had
been completely erased from his mind. Concerning Grace, she was pardoned in 1872 and moved to
the United States. There, she got married with Jamie Walsh, who, in the past, lived with his family
next to Mr. Kinnear’s property and had a crush on Marks. Though he testified against Marks during
the trial, he marries Marks and they live in Ithaca, New York, in the end.
In Atwood’s novel Alias Grace, the protagonist Grace Marks, who allegedly suffers from
amnesia and is also revealed to possibly suffer form a dissociative disorder, narrates the story as the
first-person narrator. Memory plays an important role in the novel because telling her life story
Grace Marks refers to her personal past, which makes her narration subjective. At the same time,
Grace Marks’ narration reveals that she is an unreliable narrator, which makes the novel very much
ambiguous. This research discusses how the motives of memory disfunction and psychological
trauma are manifested in Margaret Atwood’s novel Alias Grace, and what the role storytelling plays
in Grace Marks’ dealing with her trauma. The analysis is conducted using two theoretical
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approaches: psychological and philosophical research on memory and trauma, and the research in
narratology.
This thesis is structured as follows: the introduction introduces the topic and presents
background information about the writer as well as the subject and problems of the paper. The
second section is theoretical and is divided into three subsections: 2.1 introduces the concept of
memory from psychological and philosophical perspectives; 2.2 discusses the notions of suppressed
memory and psychological trauma, and draws on how it was interpreted in the 19th century 2.3
presents the notion of unreliable narrator and introduces narrators and focalizers. The third
analytical section is divided into four subsections: 3.1 introduces narratological structure of the
novel and discusses how two types of memory, individual and collective, are represented in it; 3.2
sums up why Grace Marks’ self-narrative is subjective; 3.3 presents Grace Marks as an unreliable
narrator; 3.4 introduces how Grace Marks obtains the self and power through her narration. The
main ideas of the research are summarized in the conclusion. Also, the paper includes short
summaries in English and Lithuanian, and a table of contents at the beginning, as well as works
cited list and appendix with the plot summary of the novel at the end.
2. The Key Ideas in the Studies of Memory and Narratology
Currently, the broadest scientific definition of memory has been provided by American
Psychological Association. APA Dictionary of Psychology defines memory as
the ability to retain information or a representation of past experience, based on the mental
processes of learning or encoding, retention across some interval of time, and retrieval or
reactivation of the memory. ("Memory," n. p.)
The definition identifies three major processes that memory involves: “encoding”, “retention”, and
“retrieval” or “reactivation”, These structural stages have been studied by various psychologists and
philosophers. Subsection 2.1 discusses the ways such ancient philosophers as Plato, Aristotle and
Augustine, and such scholars as Kourken Michaelian, Daniel Shacter, Endel Tulvin, Larry R. Squire
Matthew Frise, ect. define the concept of memory and their major insights about the mental
processes it involves. 2.2 discusses how how the concept of memory is related to psychological
trauma, how symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in women were interpreted in the 19th
century. The subsection 2.3 introduces how ideas of memory and psychological trauma are linked to
narratology.
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2.1 The Concepts of Memory and the Effects of Psychological Trauma
The first written discussions on the subject of memory were developed by ancient Greek
philosopher Plato, who compared human mind to a wax tablet (Plato 897). According to Plato’s
theory, the tablet resembles a storage room in one’s mind, which is constantly filled with marks of
exact images or representations that have just been perceived by an individual; accordingly, if these
images are lost, they are forgotten (Plato 897). Similarly, in his authobiographical Confessions,
Augustine compares memory to a storehouse, where human perception inserts specific information
pieces and, and from where, by recalling, they are retrieved or reconstructed:
Out of the same storehouse, with these past impressions, I can construct now this, now
that, image of things that I either have experienced or have believed on the basis of
experience—and from these I can further construct future actions, events, and hopes; and I
can meditate on all these things as if they were present. (Augustine 398)
Trying to identify the phenomenon of memory, both Plato and Augustine narrowed the concept of
memory to the image of a storage or a “treasure house”, where the information one receives through
perception is encoded and either retained for later reconstruction or from where it disappears.
Plato’s student Aristotle discusses the matter of memory in terms of time. He reasons
one cannot remember the future, but of this one has opinion and expectation…; nor can
one remember the present, but of this there is sensation; for by sensation we cognize
neither the future nor the past… Memory is of the past. (Aristotle, qtd. in Bloch 25)
Aristotle’s idea suggests that the nature of memory is to be “of the past”. Indeed, memories that an
individual recalls had to be previously put into the place, which Augustine metaphorically calls “a
storehouse” (Augustine 398). Accordingly, memories resemble something that happened before the
actual retrieval of them at the present.
Besides this idea, in their statements, Aristotle and Augustine approach another aspect of
memory: its tie with the present sensation and an expectation of the future. As Findlay suggests,
”consciousness is an arena where past and present, memory and sensation interact. This situation
affords opportunities for creation and control of ‘reality’” (Findlay 139). According to Findlay, the
interplay of memory and sensation assure witnessing the present moment by an individual or in
other words, creating it in one’s mind with the help of associative memory and thus having control
over it (Findlay 139). This complex process allows a person to experience the present and live the
life (Findlay 139). Similarly, a contemporary psychologist Andrew Moon suggests that
“remembering entails knowing” (Moon 2717-2729). Moon considers that remembering requires the
evidence that the person knows something is true: “If we remember that p, then we know that p”
(Moon 2718), which again confirms the importance of memory in terms of experiencing the present
moment. Thus, coming back to Aristotle’s “sensation of the present” (Aristotle, qtd. in Bloch 25)
and connecting it to the ideas of Findlay and Moon, memory, which is “of the past”, exists in terms
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of present sensation, and the same sensation greatly depends on remembering the past (Findlay 139;
Moon 2718).
The relationship between memory and the future expectation has been studied by the
group of scientists-psychologists led by Daniel Schacter at Harvward University. In the report about
the outcomes of their multiple researches, it is stated that “the episodic memory system supports the
construction of future events by extracting and recombining stored information into a simulation of
a novel event” (Schacter et.al., 681). Their research suggests that the part of the human brain that is
responsible for adaptation to new situations allows encoded past information to be used when
simulating possible future scenarios (Schacter et.al., 681). Such behaviour of the brain is called
“mental time travel” or imagining the future, and it is responsible for generating an individual’s
expectation of the future (Schacter et.al., 677). Linking these findings with Findlay’s and ancient
philosophers’ ideas, both a person’s experience of the present moment and an expectation of a
possible future are closely bound with their previous life experience, which what Plato and
Augustine call the “storehouse” of their memory (Plato 897; Augustine 398). Thus, a person’s life
experience to some extent affects how they experience present situations and what expectations
from the future they have (Findlay139; Schacter et.al., 681).
The ideas presented above help to draw a general understanding of what memory is as a
phenomenon. Now, the focus will shift to memory as an integral complex process and to the stages
it involves. According to Larry Squire, “memory is not a unitary faculty of the mind but is
composed of multiple systems that have different operating principles and different neuroanatomy”
(Squire 12711). “The standard taxonomy of memory systems” divides memory into two main
categories: declarative and non-declarative (or procedural) (Squire 12711). Declarative memory is
divided into episodic memory (Tulving 5), which allows to recall the events of an idividual’s past,
and semantic memory, concerned with remembering facts, ideas and propositions acquired over
time (Squire 12711). In contrast with declarative, procedural memory is interpreted as “a collection
of unconscious, nondeclarative memory abilities, such as skill learning and habit learning” (Squire
12711, Renoult et.al., 550). Schacter and Tulvin are convinced that procedural memory operates at
unconscious or automatic level, and does not require the conduct of the hippocampal structures,
responsible for receiving input and sending output to other parts of the brain, while declarative
memory does (Schacter and Tulvin 26-27).
This paper focuses on the subcategory of declarative memory firstly introduced by Tulving
as episodic memory (Tulving 5). Episodic memory has been studied in detail by Kourken
Michaelian (2016). Michaelian explains episodic memory as
the form of memory responsible for allowing us to revisit specific episodes or events from
the personal past. It is typically contrasted with semantic memory, which allows us to
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recall facts without necessarily giving us access to the episodes in which they were
learned. (Michaelian 5)
Reconstructing episodes of the personal past prevails in the narration of the main character
Margaret Atwood’s novel Alias Grace. Grace Marks narrates her life-story to the young psychiatrist
Dr. Simon Jordan and thus revisits episodes and events from her personal past.
In his work, Michaelian discusses stages of memory process that APA introduces as
encoding, retension and retrieval (“Memory,” n.p.). Encoding is the initial stage in the complex
memory process which “takes the subject’s original experience of an episode to an initial, labile
short-term memory representation” (Michaelian 83). The stage of encoding is supplemented by the
process of “consolidation” which can be defined as the transformation of a short-term
representation into a long-term representation, so-called “memory trace” (Michaelian 83). This
stage is important in the entire memory system because it allows human beings to not simply
memorize, or to put the information into their mind for a short-term, but to remember, to fix that
information in their consciousness for the future lasting active use (Michaelian 87). APA Dictionary
of Psychology does not single out the process of consolidation, emphasizing only encoding
(“Memory,” n.p.).
Frise points out that the concept of encoding was studies actively by the 20th century
psychologists, including Frederic Bartlett and Daniel Schacter, who claim that memory process is
not simply a deposition of exact and identical images and a later withdrawal of them: “memory
selectively stores information, expands part of it, combines it with background information and
adds data from the context, in which the subject later retrieves the information” (Frise, n. p.). Frise’s
statement supports the idea by APA that encoding is based on individual’s learning and adaptive
skills. Michaelian refers to such abilities of human mind as “adaptive constructive processes”, but
he also adds that these processes “due to their constructive nature, inevitably give rise to distortions,
errors, and illusions” (Michaelian 101, Schacter 603). He argues that encoding of memories permits
generalizations and illusions for “the cognizer to better extract common features of episodes” from
their memory (Michaelian 101). Often, generalization may not be very accurate due to different
reasons (lack of context as an example), and therefore, different interpretations of the same situation
by different people are possible (Michaelian 101). This explains memory’s unreliability and
subjectivity, as memories constructed by each person are individual.
Michaelian points out that even if construction of memory occurs at the stages of encoding
and consolidation occurs, a “memory representation” does not always remain stable until retrieval:
If this [consolidation] process, which unfolds over a period of many years, is interrupted,
unconsolidated memories can be partly or entirely lost. This is why, for example, amnesia
often involves loss of memory for an extended period preceding the damage giving rise to
it. Even once consolidation has run its course, memories are not permanently fixed. This is
due not only to the possibility of reconstruction at retrieval but also to the occurrence of
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reconsolidation. When retrieved, memories again become susceptible to modification, and
a period of reconsolidation is required before they can be said simply to be stored again.
(Michaelian 87)
As Michaelian insists, memories are reconsolidated each time they are retrieved (Michaelian 83).
Thus, memories are the subjects to constant modification; they are dynamic, and once the process of
reconsolidation does not run successfully, memory traces may be lost. This finding may also
explain such conditions as amnesia, which the protagonist of Margaret Atwood’s novel claims to be
suffering from; this will be discussed in subsection 3.2.
After an experience has been consolidated, the memory is stored (or retained) (Michaelian
83). Retention is a time gap between encoding and reactivation during which the memory trace is
inert until it is retrieved (Michaelian 83). “Retrieval” (or reactivation), the last stage of memory
process, “refers to the process giving rise to the subject’s current representation,” and as it has been
mentioned, reconsolidation occurs one more time at this point, making the memory representation
liable again (Michaelian 83). Michaelian’s explanation of the retrieval stage also emphasizes one
more time that memory is subjective. Every time reconsolidation of memories occurs, the context of
the situation varies, and an individual’s adaptive skills, which are different from person to person,
are involved again (Michaelian 83). Thus, the same memories which are repeatedly reconsolidated
appear to be more individualized (Michaelian 83).
People usually are able to remember episodes of their past well. Yet, these episodes can be
forgotten by a person, like in case of Atwood’s character Grace Marks, who forgets events of the
day of the murders. Frise mentions that psychologists and philosophers have tried much to
understand the nature of forgetting, but they have touched only “the topsoil of this field” (Frise
223). He suggests that forgetting is “a mental relation between a subject and a content,” and that it
is either a mental state, “something that a subject is in at a time,” or a mental process, “something
mental that unfolds over time, like the process of calculating a sum” (Frise 224).
According to Michaelian, failure to remember happens due to the problems that occur at
the stage of (re)consolidation of “memory trace” in one’s mind (Michaelian 87). Frise suggests that
such failure “may result from a shortage of suitable retrieval cues” (Frise 231), and also points out
that the phenomenon of forgetting equally refers to both “a failure to access a memory” and
“memory inaccessibility” (absence) (Frise 235). According to Ken Eisold, the human mind may
also cause forgetting by “suppress[ing] memories that are painful or damaging to self-esteem”
(Eisold, n. p.). Therefore, Eisold calls memory “unreliable” and also “adaptive, reshaping itself to
accommodate the new situations we find ourselves facing” (Eisold, n. p.).
Consequently, the complex memory process involves three main stages, encoding (which
includes (re)consolidation(s)), retention and reactivation (or retrieval) (“Memory” n.p.; Michaelian
83), and allows to store various kinds of memories, such as episodes from individual’s past, facts,
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or skills, in the storehouse of one’s mind (Squire 12711; Augustine 398). A person’s memory
allows to experience or sense present situations (Augustine 398, Bloch 25; Findlay 135; Moon
2718) and imagine possible future scenarios of one’s life (Schacter et.al. 681). Also, memory is
subjective, as it is based on person’s individual learning and adaptive skills and resembles
reconstruction of one’s personal experience (“Memory,” n.p.; Michaelian 87). Memories are
dynamic because they reshape each time they are recalled (Michaelian 87), and they can be
forgotten due to various reasons which scientists still are trying to identify (Frise 223).
2.2 Trauma, Supression of Memories and Madness
Supression of memories is common among people who have suffered from physical or
psychological abuse: as explained by Elizabeth Loftus, “Something shocking happens, and the mind
pushes it [the memory about the traumatic event] into some inaccessible corner of the unconscious,”
writes Elizabeth Loftus (518). Psychological damage that appears to be a consequence of terrifying
and often unexpected event often results in a person’s mental or psychological trauma. APA
Dictionary of Psychology defines it as
any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation,
confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect
on a person’s attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of functioning. Traumatic events
include those caused by human behavior (e.g., rape, war, industrial accidents) as well as by
nature (e.g., earthquakes) and often challenge an individual’s view of the world as a just,
safe, and predictable place. (“Trauma,” n.p.)
In serious cases, psychological trauma can be so harmful to the human mind that it causes post-
traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is a strong emotional reaction of a person that occurs every
time he/she is reminded about the event through the references in the environment (e.g. objects,
colors, similar situations) (“Recovering Emotionally from Disaster,” n.p.). APA’s definition
suggests that such reaction can be, for instanse, intense fear, confusion, dissociation, or helplesness.
Mental traumas and other factors, such as brain chemistry, environmental exposures before birth,
heredity, stress, can cause more serious mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety disorders,
eating disorders and addictive behaviors (“Mental Illness,” n.p.).
Staniloiu and Markowitsch state that major stress and psychological trauma with which an
individual cannot properly cope can cause the so-called “mnestic block syndrome” or “dissociative
amnesia”, which is also a PTSD symptom, although rare (Staniloiu et.al. 35). This syndrome has
been observed to be developed in patients who have a fragile personality with low self-esteem
(Staniloiu et.al. 40). Dissociative amnesia can be both short-lasting (a few hours, days) and long-
lasting (in some cases more than 20 years) (Staniloiu et.al. 35).It is considered functional because it
has a function for the patient which is to block traumatic memories to consciousness that they
would not disturb person’s everyday life (Staniloiu et.al. 35). Thus, the patient seems to have a
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blank space for the event in their mind, but the memory of the event is supressed and displaced into
subconsciousness (Staniloiu et.al. 35).
In accordance with Staniloiu and Markowitsch, stress and trauma situations are especially
harmful to the human mind, if they occur in one’s childhood (before the age of 16): “once the
conditions are set in early childhood, they cannot be changed, as a bullet cannot change its
direction after it has left the gun” (Staniloiu et.al. 39). So, people who face traumatic events in
young age are at greater risk to develop amnesia (Staniloiu et.al. 36).
As Bessel van der Kolk states, active studies of the connection between psychological
trauma and different forms of dissociations began in the middle of the twentieth century (6), some
time after original historical murders of Mr. Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper. Sigmund Freud
was the first psychiatrist who regarded psychological trauma to be the reason for psychiatric
problems of his patients: he considered that symptoms of hysterical patients symbolically refer to
traumatic events in their childhood (Bessel 1). However, later Freud reformulated his theory,
suggesting that the development of neuroses occurs due to childish fantasies and misinterpretation
of childhood events (Bessel 1). Therefore, psychological trauma lost its central importance in the
field of psychoanalysis for some time (Bessel 1). However, in the first half of the 19th century, the
time when the Kinnesr murders took place, psychiatrists did not consider the symptoms of post-
traumatic stress disorder, such as amnesia and neurotic behaviour, as in the case of Marks, to be the
outcome of psychological trauma yet. On the contrary, any abnormal behaviour, most importantly
in women, was seen as manifestation of their “insanity” and the classic female disorder of
“hysteria” (Kreuiter 7).
APA Dictionary of Psychology provides that hysteria is an outdated term and defines it as
a lay term for any psychogenic disorder characterized by symptoms such as paralysis,
blindness, loss of sensation, and hallucinations and often accompanied by suggestibility,
emotional outbursts, and histrionic behavior. The name derives ultimately from the Greek
husteros, “uterus,” based on the early and erroneous belief that such disorders were unique
to women and originated in uterine disorders. (“Hysteria,” n.p.)
In the novel Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood includes an original extract from Beeton’s Book of
Household Management (1859-1861) which explains how the notion called “hysterics” was
interpreted in the 19th century:
… These fits take place, for the most part, in young, nervous, unmarried women…. Young
women, who are subject to these fits, are apt to think that they are suffering from “all the
ills that flesh is heir to;” and the false symptoms of disease which they show are so like the
true ones, that it is often exceedingly difficult to detect the difference. The fits are mostly
preceeded by great depression of spirits, shedding of tears, sickness, palpitation of the
heart, & ect…. The patient now generally becomes insensible and faints… incoherent
expressions are uttered, and fits of laughter, crying, or screaming, take place. (Atwood
137)
10
In the nineteenth century, the image of a sane woman was closely tied to gender norms
developed in the British society and also accepted in Canadian (Ciddal 131). Gillian Ciddal explains
that social gender norms were affected by the Britain’s doctrine of separate spheres, according to
which, due to their weak nature women were expected “to confine their activities primarily to the
domestic space and to be purveyors of morality and virtue,” while men were considered as
authoritative, logical and dominant (Ciddal 131). Thereby, newspapers dedicated many articles to
norms on the appropriate behaviour of ladies and gentelmen (Ciddal 131). Ciddal states that the
way newspapers portrayed the image of a “lady” was through the image of “unladylike” behaviour
(131), and the performance that was considered as “unladylike” was explained as manifestation of
the “hysteria” disorder in a woman (Kreuiter 7).
Allyson Kreuiter claims that hysteria was one of the main issues that allowed
psychoanalysis to emerge (Kreuiter 7). The medical discourse of the nineteenth century aimed to
define how femininity and sexuality of women should be understood and treated (Kreuiter 7). As
Kreuiter suggests that “feminine corporeality, sexuality and madness” were considered as the
wicked symptoms of “hysteria” disorder (7). Kreuiter writes that “… hysteria was seen as a
hereditary condition created by bad genetic material but it was also seen as caused by sexual
frustration” (7). Hysteria was the disorder because of which some women could be committed to
lunatic asylums (Kreuiter 7). Usually, these were females who challenged the norms of expected
feminine conduct, which British and Canadian societies were actively trying to define (Kreuiter7-8).
Consequently, one of the reasons why memories can be “forgotten” is their suppression
which occurs due to developed psychological trauma in a person (Loftus 518). Such memory
suppression is called dissociative amnesia, and it is functional because it blocks memories of a
traumatic event to the experiencer’s consciousness for the sake of saving it (Staniloiu et.al. 35). In
the nineteenth century, the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in women and also their
sexuality referred to the classic female disorder called “hysteria,” and therefore some women were
sent to lunatic asylums (Kreuiter 7).
2.3 Ideas in the Studies of Narratology
The theoretical study of narrative, or narratology, is “a humanities discipline dedicated to the study
of the logic, principles, and practices of narrative representation” (Meister 1). “Discourse” is central
for the studies of narratology, and as Dan Shen claims, it is distinguished from the “story”: “Story,
in simplest terms, is what is told whereas discourse refers to ‘how’ the story is transmitted” (“Story-
Discourse” 566). Shen states that “how” refers to the issues of who transmits the story, to whom,
and what particular information is transmitted; all these issues are explained by the theory of
11
narratology (“Story-Discourse” 566). The story in any narrative is told through narrator/s and
focalizer/s. Uri Margolin defines the term narrator as
the inner-textual (textually encoded) highest-level speech position from which the current
narrative discourse as a whole originates and from which references to the entities, actions
and events that this discourse is about are being made. (Margolin 1)
Thereby, the narrator is the “producer,” “teller,” “reporter,” or in other words, “the agent” which
tells the story and introduces the settings, events, characters, etc. (Margolin 3). In accordance with
Peter Huhn, there are three types of narrators, first- (I), second- (you), and third- (he/she) person:
insofar as narrators havethemselves as narrative agents, they are engaged in producing a
first-person narrative,whereas if it is their addressees who act as narrative agents, a second-
person narrative isbeing produced. If the entities referred to in the narrator’s discourse are
not part of the currentcommunicative situation, then a third-person narrative is produced.
(Huhn et.al., 313)
Huhn points out that the first-person narrative point of view can be considered subjective
because the information first-person narrator provides is limited to their personal view of the events
and characters (Huhn et.al. 313). The first-person narrative is mostly based on the narrator’s
individual experiences, thoughts, and feelings (Huhn et.al. 313). Furthermore, this type of narrator
may provide information that they have overheard from someone, or they can narrate episodes of
their past, recalling memories (Huhn at.al., 313) Thus, information presented in first-person
narratives is filtered through the narrator’s personal perspective and thus is subjective (Huhn et.al.,
313).
The concept of focalization has been introduced by Gerard Genette in 1972. He defines it
as a restriction imposed on the information provided about a narrator about his character (Genette
195). Genette introduced the term "focalization" as a substitute for "perspective" and "point of
view." In other words, a focalizer is a perspective of a character or a more specific entity (e.g. their
internal perception), from which the story is seen and told. It is “the agent that sees”, feels, thinks,
acts, and through whose point of view the story is read (Genette 195).
There are three types of focalizers suggested by Genette, zero focalizer, internal focalizer
and external focalizer (Genette 188). This typology is based on a declining degree of access to the
psychology of the characters.
The first term [zero focalization] corresponds to what English-language criticism calls
narrative with omniscient narrator and Pouillon 'vision from behind,' and which Todorov
symbolizes by the formula Narrator > Character (where the narrator knows more than the
character, or more exactly, says more than any of the characters knows). In the second term
[internal focalization], Narrator = Character (the narrator says only what a given character
knows); this is narrative with 'point of view' after Lubbock, or with 'restricted field' after
Blin; Pouillon calls it 'vision with.' In the third term [external focalization], Narrator <
Character (the narrator says less than the character knows); this is the 'objective' or
'behaviorist' narrative, what Pouillon calls 'vision from without'. (Genette 188–89).
12
Yet, narrators may not always be trustworthy. The term “unreliable narrator” was
introduced by literary critic Wayne C. Booth in 1961. The concept has been studied by many
narratologists including Monika Fludernik, Ansgar Nünning, Gerald Prince, etc., who developped
their own propositions on how to interpret the term and identify the unreliable narrator in the
literary narrative. One of the recent solutions for determining the unreliability of a narrator has been
provided by Tomas Kubíček.
Kubíček claims that an unreliable narrator is the one who omits, distorts, and hides
important facts from the reader intentionally (Kubičeck et.al 134). He states that that it is necessary
to identify signals in a narrative that would reveal that a narrator is unreliable (Kubičeck et.al 127).
He also points out that the narrators whose narratorial unreliability is a result of the author’s own
limitations cannot be considered unreliable because such narrators do not lie deliberately (Kubičeck
et.al. 127). Thus, if the narration shows that the narrator kept silent or hid facts about specific events
or characters which are important for understanding the story, he/she can be considered unreliable
(Kubičeck et.al.134).
3. Memory and Narration of Traumatic Events in Alias Grace by M.
Atwood
This section presents an analysis of Margaret Atwood’s novel Alias Grace, focusing on
subjectivity and unreliability of Grace Marks’ self-narrative, which is based on recalling memories
by Grace Marks’ first-person narrator, and also it discusses Grace’s self-narration as means of
obtaining the self and power. This section of the thesis is based on theoretical knowledge about
memory, mental trauma, and narratology, and uses ideas of memory subjectivity and unreliability,
suppression of memories after experiencing traumatic events, narration of the character’s past by
means of character-based internal focalization, and an unreliable narrator.
Subsection 3.1 introduces narratological structure of the novel and discusses how two
types of memory, individual and collective, are represented in it. Subsection 3.2 sums up why Grace
Marks’ self-narrative is subjective. Subsection 3.3 presents Grace Marks as an unreliable narrator.
Subsection 3.4 introduces how Grace Marks obtains the self and power through her narration.
3.1 Individual and Collective Memory in Margaret Atwood’s Novel Alias Grace
The narrative structure of the novel Alias Grace is quite complex, as it involves a variety of
narrative situations that are often independent of each other. The majority of the novel is narrated
by Grace Marks‘ as the first-person narrator, which allows one to observe an individual
interpretation of the events she has been involved in. From time to time, Marks’ narration alternates
13
with the third-person narration focalized by the young psychiatrist Dr. Simon Jordan, who visits
Marks’ at the Kingston penitentiary. Some scenes in the novel, such as hypnosis session with Dr.
DuPont, etc., are narrated by the third-person narrator with zero-focalization, which allows the
reader to interpret these situations in their own way.
Although Alias Grace is the writing of fiction, Margaret Atwood has done profound
research on the account of historical Grace Marks and fixed some facts about her in the novel. Alias
Grace includes excerpts from authentic historical documents, such as real confessions of Marks and
McDermott (Atwood 277-278, see also e.g. 339-340, 393, 417, 443), newspapers and journals (e.g.
Newmarket Era (Atwood 213)), original poetry by classics, such as Emily Dickinson (Atwood 49-
50, 472), Emily Bronte (Atwood 19), Robert Browning (Atwood 107; see also e.g. 278, 281),
Alfred Lord Tennyson (Atwood 137), etc. The variety of original writings that Atwood includes
suggest that the notorious murder case attracted a lot of attention in Canada and other English-
speaking countries and that it was actively discussed by different social groups. Besides that, the
novel starts from a ballad (Atwood 11-15), which reveals that the murder case was a hot topic
among lower-class society, which, in turn, offered another interpretation of the story. Delivering the
Bronfman Lecture at the University of Ottawa, Atwood shares about the process of writing the
novel:
The split in opinion [on the murders] continued through writers on the case right up to the
end of the nineteenth century. I felt that to be fair, I had to represent all points of view. I
devised the following set of guidelines for myself: when there was a solid fact, I could not
alter it… Every major element in the book had to be suggested by something in the writing
about Grace and her times, however dubious such writing might be; but in the parts left
unexplained – the gaps left unfilled – I was free to invent. Since there was a lot of gaps,
there is a lot of invention. (In Search of Alias Grace 1515)
Thereby, Atwood mixes excerpts from authentic historical documents with the fictional voice of
Grace Marks, Dr. Jordan, and with a variety of fictional letters of secondary characters, such as
colleagues of Jordan, Dr. Bannerling (Atwood 79-81, 519-521), and the Methodist minister
Reverend Verringer (Atwood 517-519), Jordan’s mother Mrs. William P. Jordan (Atwood 51; see
also e.g.54, 64, 347, 419), etc. Mona Knapp suggests that the novel is an elaborate exercise in
fragmentation and draws a parallel with the fragmented nature of Grace Marks’ character: “the
novel is unsettled, perhaps in an effort to reflect the fact that [Grace’s] story, like her personality,
will never be wholly known” (19). Cornier considers that variety of texts provided by Atwood
“occupy equal status as neither/both valid and fiction/fabrication,” and adds:
By being placed side by side, all the texts that make up the novel begin to challenge one
another's authority as well as any universal notion of ‘truth’… and yet, taken together they
become the only means of approximating/representing material events and persons located
in the past. (421)
14
“Fiction is where individual memory and experience and collective memory and
experience come together in greater or lesser proportions,” says Atwood (In Search of Alias Grace
1504). Indeed, the novelist involves both types of memory in the novel, individual and collective.
Atwood offers an alternative individualized version of the story by the fictional voice of Marks and
combines it with a variety of historical writings, which represent a shared pool of memories of the
19th-century society about the notorious double-murder case. This way, Alias Grace reflects a
fictionalized voice of the murderess with her personal recollection of the past, and at the same time,
the novel sheds the light on how Grace Marks’ involvement in the homicides was interpreted by the
society and thus gives access to what Maurice Halbwachs calls the collective memory (21).
3.2. Subjectivity of Grace Marks’ Self-Narrative
Grace Marks’ narration dominates the novel, which makes her the main source of information to
Dr. Jordan and the reader. In a form of memories as a first-person narrator, Grace tells her story to a
young psychiatrist Dr. Simon Jordan who conducts therapeutic sessions with Marks in order to help
her to recall allegedly forgotten memories. Thus, a twenty-four-year-old murderess narrates the
story of her life relying on what is referred to as episodic memory (e.g. Tulvin 7), as Marks
reconstructs episodes of her personal past:
So you [Grace] did not believe him, at first? he [Dr.Jordan] says [about McDermot’s idea
to kill Nancy]. Not at all, Sir, I say. Nor would you, if you yourself had been listening. I
took it all for idle threats. (Atwood 304-305)
Firstly, as it has been discussed in theoretical sections, both memory and a first-person
narrator are subjective because they refer to a person‘s individual point of view and experience
(„Memory,“ n.p.; Michaelian 83); thereby, Grace Marks’ first-person narration can be considered
subjective because one is referred to Grace‘s personal and, to some extend, immature view of the
events that she experienced in the past. For example, Marks recollects how her aunt and uncle
helped the Marks providing them with left-over goods (food and clothes) in Belfast, Ireland, and
how her father, who was spending the last money for alcohol, was curious about where the goods
were coming from:
Our father was long since past asking where such things [goods] came from. In those days,
Sir [Dr. Jordan], it was a matter of pride for a man to support his own family, whatever he
might think of that family itself; and my mother, although weak-spirited, was too wise a
woman to tell him anything about it. (Atwood 109)
In this scene, using the first-person narrator of Marks, Atwood immerses the reader into Grace’s
thoughts, feelings, and impressions about her parents’ responsibility to provide for the family, as
Grace expected it to be. Grace implies that the relationship between her parents was not healthy,
and subtly expresses her dissatisfaction that neither of them did their best to support the family
15
materially, as the father was bringing lesser and lesser money (Atwood 109), and the mother “did
little enough to provoke” the words to address the father about the problem (Atwood 109). Atwood
allows to observe how Grace reconstructs the episode of her personal past through the focalizer of a
nine-year-old girl, who, due to her young age, could misinterpret or misunderstand some facts.
Furthermore, Grace herself identifies: “But I was only a young girl at the time, and very ignorant”
(Atwood 122).
Similarly, Grace narrates about her immigration to Canada with family members.
According to Marks’ tale, her mother died on the voyage, as she most likely had a tumor:
My mother died that night. I wish I could tell you that she had visions of angels at the last,
and made us a fine deathbed speech, as in books; but if she did have any visions she kept
them to herself, for she did not say a word, about them or anything else. (Atwood 120)
In this scene, Grace focalizes on the mother’s death as an eleven-year-old girl. One can see that she
refers to the imagery, suggesting her own idea of what visions her mother could have had during her
last minutes. Besides the imagery, Grace also refers to the stereotypical image of a death scene,
which, according to her experience, was often portrayed in books. Thus, this specific memory is
very much personalized by Marks: she describes how she imagined her mother dying. Therefore,
the memory that Grace Marks reconstructs is independent of other opinions, and this episode, as
well as others in which she reflects on her childhood, can be considered subjective.
Judith Butler links the subjectivity of self-narratives to human vulnerability (Butler 20). As
Butler claims, human beings are vulnerable because their identity is “constituted” through relations
with other people (Butler 24). According to her, relations one has with others cannot be chosen
because people’s interaction cannot be predicted fully (Butler 24). Butler claims that such a type of
vulnerability creates boundaries for a person’s self-narration because it opposes the idea of an
independent subject who has complete knowledge of oneself (Butler 23). Butler states that “full
self-knowledge is constitutionally impossible”:
The “I” can tell neither the story of its own emergence nor the conditions of its own
possibility without bearing witness to a state of affairs to which one could not have been
present, which are prior to one’s own emergence as a subject who can know. (Butler 37)
The philosopher provides that people produce their narratives “in a fictional direction” because of
lack of self-knowledge, which is dependent on built relationships with others, and adds: “I am
always recuperating, reconstructing, and I am left to fictionalize and fabulate origins I cannot
know” (Butler 39). Thus, according to Butler, any self-narrative is subjective (Butler 39), and for
this reason, the one of Grace Marks is not an exception.
Grace Marks’ self-narration cannot be objective because Marks is a psychologically
traumatized person with vivid manifestations of PTSD symptoms. As it was discussed in the
theoretical section, psychological trauma is an experience that results in intense “disruptive
16
feelings” that later have a negative effect on individuals’ attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of
life (“Trauma, n.p.). Traumatic events “often challenge an individual’s view of the world as just
safe and predictable place,” and they start perceiving life pointedly through the prism of the
disturbing experience they were involved in in the past (“Trauma,” n.p.). Atwood’s Grace Marks
experienced three main traumatic episodes in her life, which are the death of the mother (Atwood
120), the death of the best friend, Mary Whitney, (Atwood 178), and extremely brutal murders of
the employer Mr. Kinnear and his housekeeper and mistress Nancy Montgomery, whose
dismembered bodies were found in the cellar of Mr. Kinnear’s property (Atwood 14).
According to Grace Marks memories, the death of her mother was very much shocking for
her, the girl of eleven: “I did not cry. I felt as if it was me and not my mother that had died; and I sat
as if paralized, and did not know what to do next” (Atwood 120). Traditional burying was not
possible on board the ship, and Marks’ mother was thrown into the Atlantic ocean covered in white
sheet:
As soon as the sheet was over her face I [Grace] had the notion that it was not really my
mother under there, it was some other woman; or that my mother had changed, and if I was
to take away the sheet now, she would be someone else entirely. It must have been the
shock of it that put such things into my head. (Atwood 121)
One can see that this episode was engraved in the girl’s memory as extremely painful. Furthermore,
Grace has flashbacks and nightmares that refer to her mother drifting in the ocean later on, which
are also post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms according to Ben-Ezra (75). For example, Grace
has a nightmare at night in All Hallows Eve, when she and her friend and co-worker, Mary
Whitney, decide to “find out who [they] will merry,” by throwing apple peel behind their backs that
it would spell the initial of the man’s name:
And when we [Grace and Mary] went to bed, I could tell that she had’t gone to sleep, but
was lying on her back beside me, …and when I did go to sleep, I did not dream of
husbands at all. Instead I dreamt of my mother in her winding sheet, drifting down through
the cold water, …and the sheet began to come undone at the top, …but the hair was over
her face so I could not see it, and it was darker than my mother’s hair had been; and then I
knew that this was not my mother at all, but some other woman, and she was not dead
inside the sheet at all, but still alive. And I was afraid; and I woke up with my heart beting
very fast… (Atwood 166-167)
The death of Marks’ best friend, Mary Whitney, was traumatic for the young mind of the
girl too. Grace got acquainted with Whitney at the place of Mr. And Mrs. Alderman Parkinson,
where both of them worked as servants. Once Marks met Mary, she “liked her at once” (Atwood
149). Grace was fond of her friendship with the girl and deeply appreciated their bond: “Mary
Whitney was a fun-loving girl, and very mischievous and bold in her speech. But towards her elders
and betters her manner was respectful and demure,“ says Marks (Atwood 149). As Whitney takes
Marks under “her wing from the very first” (Atwood 151), she thus replaces the mother figure for
17
Grace. In Mary Whitney, Grace finds strength, stubbornness, and fearlessness to express the
opinion, which she so much lacked in her “weak-willed,” “timid“ and “hesitating” mother:
I [Grace] was often astonished at the words that came out of her [Mary’s] mouth, as many
of them were quite coarse; it was’t that I never heard such language before, as there was a
sufficient store of it at home when my father was drunk… but I was surprised to hear it
from the girl, and one so young and pretty, and so neatly and cleanly dressed. (Atwood
150)
Thus, Marks becomes deeply attached to Mary because she feels protected and understood by her
strong and independent persona. Grace follows Whitney’s straightforward manner of speech: in the
prison, during the sessions with Dr. Jordan, or in her inner monologue, Marks tends to refer to
Mary's expressions when she is uncomfortable with something or when she comments on politics,
sexuality, morality, or manners. For example, sitting in the prison cell, Marks reflects on
representatives of higher social status:
People dressed in a certain kind of clothing are never wrong. Also they never fart. What
Mary Whitney used to say was, If there’s farting in a room where they are, you may be
sure you done it yourself. And even if you never did, you better not say so or it’s all Damn
your insolence, and a boot in the backside and out on the street with you. (Atwood 32)
Kreuiter suggests: “Grace seems to be using Mary to hide behind as a shield for her own
transgressive tendencies“ (Kreuiter 27). Indeed, overlooking Marks‘ narration to Dr. Jordan, one
may notice that she avoids any inappropriate expressions coming from her own persona; Grace
tends to be very polite: “And if you’ll forgive me for mentioning this, Sir [to Dr. Jordan],…”
(Atwood 116), “With a servant, Sir [to Dr. Jordan]. He [Mr. Kinnear] was a kind enough master,
and liberal when he wished to be“ (Atwood 308). Narrating the story of her life to Dr. Jordan, Grace
tries to conform to the image of a gentle and polite woman, and once she needs to express anger or
dissatisfaction, she turns to Whitney, whose expressions were bold, forthright, and genuine.
Mary Whitney’s story ends tragically. Engaged with a gentleman and left pregnant by him,
Mary dies of bleeding out after an unsuccessful abortion (Atwood 176). This fact strikes Marks,
who not simply spends a night with a corpse in her room, but has to clean blood from the sheets and
clothes after Mary’s death (Atwood 207). In light of Butler’s theory of human vulnerability, Marks
automatically becomes vulnerable when she gets strongly attached to Mary Whitney. Thereby, the
loss of Mary hits Marks’ mental integrity and leaves her in shock:
And one [of servants in the house of the Parkinsons] said, Poor Grace, to wake up in the
morning, and find her [Mary] cold and stark in the bed beside you, with no warning at
all… Then it was as if that had really happened; I could picture it, the waking up with
Mary in the bed right beside me, and touching her, and finding she would not speak to me,
and the horror and distress I would feel; at that moment I fell to the floor in a dead faint.
They say I lay like that for ten hours, and no one could wake me… and when I did wake up
I did not seem to know where I was, or what had happened; and I kept asking where Grace
had gone. And when they told me I myself was Grace, I would not believe them, but cried,
and tried to run out of the house. They told me later they’d feared for my reason, which
18
must have been unsettled by the shock of it all… Then I fell again into deep sleep. When I
woke up, it was a day later, and I knew that I was Grace, and that Mary was dead… But I
had no memory of anything I said or did during the time I was awake, between the two
long sleeps;… (Atwood 179-180)
According to this memory episode, which Marks focalizes as herself at the age of thirteen, the
experience of loss of the best friend, who, in some way, replaced the mother to the girl, shatters
Grace’s self, and she wakes up considering she is Mary Whitney. Judith Butler states that the agony
one faces after a loss of a dear person makes one strongly aware of how much they are relationally
constituted (Butler 22). The researcher claims that the fact of loss does not mean that two
individuals are simply separated and will not relate together anymore, but that the attachment makes
one lose a part of oneself, when the dear person leaves them (Butler 22). Grace Marks’ attachment
to Whitney is that strong that the loss of the friend splits the self of Marks into two independent
personalities, which suggests that Marks loses a part of herself, and at the same time, aquires a new
identity. APA Dictionary of Psychology identifies this state as a “dissociative disorder”,
characterized by the presence in one individual of two or more distinct identities or
personality states that each recurrently take control of the individual’s behavior.
(“Dissociative disorder,” n.p.)
Besides the fact that Grace Marks’ self splits, she identifies of having no memory of the
time between two faints when she was awake. Relying on the ideas of Loftus (518), Staniloiu and
Markowitsch (35), Grace Marks cannot remember anything because her memory of the traumatic
event is most likely supressed to subconsciousness as it is too harmful for the girl’s not yet fully
developed psyche. Grace retells what was said to have happened to her, which means that, having
no memory and evidence of that day, she recalls the memory as a fact by means of what is referred
as semantic memory (e.g. Squire 12711). And referring back to Butler’s idea of subjectivity of self-
narration (Butler 39), Grace recreates her memory “in a fictional direction” in this specific example
because, having no memory and evidnce of the past episode of her life, she still narrates about it and
thus fictionalizes and fabulates this specific memory focusing on what has been told about her by
other servants at Mrs. Parkinson’s.
Finally, the third and the most brutal traumatic event in Grace Marks’ life are the murders
of her employer and his mistress. Alike during the day when Mary Whitney dies, Grace claims that
she has no memory of how the murder of Nancy Montgomery took place:
‘… Where is Nancy, he [James McDermott, co-servant] said
‘She is dressing, I [Grace] said. Are you going to kill her this morning?’
‘Yes, he said, damn her, I will take the axe now and go knock her on the head…
‘I [Grace] went into the garden, to gather some chives, as Nancy had ordered an omlette
for breakfast… I tried to pray, but the words would not come,… I could feel his [God’s]
cold breath, I could hear the beating of his dark wings, inside my heart. God is everywhere,
I thought, so God is in the kitchen, and God is in Nancy, and God is in McDermott, and in
19
McDermott’s hands, and God is in the axe too. Then I heard a dull sound from withing,
like a heavy door closing shut, and after that I can remember no more for a time.’
‘Nothing about the cellar?’ says Simon. “Not about seeing McDermott dragging Nancy by
the hair, to the trapdoor, and throwing her down the stairs? It was in your Confession.’…
‘That is what they wanted me to say. Mr. MacKenzie [the lawyer] told me I had to say it to
save my life.’ (Atwood 316-317)
Again, one may suppose that Grace Marks’ memory of Nancy’s murder is supressed to
subconsciousness as she was frightened by the behaviour of co-servant James McDermott. It might
have been difficult to process such stressful situation for the girl of sixteen, and, perhaps,
consolidation of this memory did not pass properly, and it was suppressed to girl’s
subconsciousness (referring to Loftus (518), Staniloiu and Markowitsch (35), Michaelian (87)). The
symptoms that Grace lists, such as dizziness and lack of fresh air, suggest that she might have
experienced shock:
’I found myself standing at the front of the house, Sir [to Dr. Jordan], where the flowers
were. I felt quite dizzy, and had a headache. I was thinking I must open the window; but
that was foolish, as I was already outside.’ (Atwood 318)
However, Grace Marks’ character is much more complex: Grace, as a subjective first-person
narrator and as an imprisoned murderess, whose secret has not been revealed by anyone yet, has her
personal motifs to narrate (this will be discussed in the subsections 3.4), and one should not be too
quick to trust her words.
Although Grace claims that she does not remember the murders properly, she was there
when they took place. Therefore, she is a victim of this traumatic event, which, in turn, limits
Marks’ self-knowledge because of the amnesia complication after the incident. Explicit flashbacks
of Nancy that Grace experiences approve that she still has symptoms of post-traumatic stress
disorder. One of them appears at the very beginning of the novel when Marks takes a walk in the
yard of the prison:
I watch the peonies out of the corners of my eyes. I know they shouldn’t be there: it’s
April, and peonies don’t bloom in April… Furtively I reach out my hand to touch one. It
has a dry feel, and I realize it’s made of cloth. Then up ahead I see Nancy, on her knees,
with her hair fallen over and the blood running down into her eyes. Around her neck is a
white cotton kerchief printed with blue flowers, live-in-a-mist, it’s mine. She is lifting up
her face, she’s holding out her hands to me for mercy… this time it will be different, this
time I will run to help…and none of it will have happened… I put my hands over my eyes
because it’s dark suddenly, and a man is standing there with a candle, blocking the stairs
that go up; and the cellar walls are all around me, and I know I will nevel get out. (Atwood
6)
Consequently, the self-narration of the protagonist of Margaret Atwood’s novel, Grace
Marks, is subjective because of two main reasons: Grace narrates her life story in a form of
memories as the first-person narrator while both the first-person narrator and their memories are
subjective (Edmiston 730; Michaelian 83); and because Grace Marks is a psychologically
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traumatized person with explicit PTSD symptoms, such as amnesia and flashbacks, which limit
Marks’ self-knowledge and create boundaries for her objective self-narration (Butler 39).
3.3 Grace Marks as an Unreliable Narrator
Grace Marks’ narration is not simply subjective, but unreliable too. As it has been discussed in the
theoretical section, an unreliable narrator is the one who omits, distorts, and hides important facts
from the reader intentionally (Kubičeck et.al.134). If the narration reveals that the narrator kept
silent or hid facts about specific events or characters which are important for understanding the
story, he/she can be considered unreliable (Kubičeck et.al.134).
In Alias Grace, there are a few signals that suggests that Grace Marks is an unreliable
narrator. First of all, Marks constructs two narratives for two different audiences, which are Dr.
Jordan and the reader. Unlike Dr. Jordan who creates an image of Grace Marks during their
afternoon sessions, the reader observes a more ambiguous interior monologue of hers in the
narration. The thinking of Marks reveals to readers her unreliable nature, as Grace’s actual thoughts
differ from what Dr. Jordan hears in her discourse. For example, when Simon asks Grace about the
pattern she would choose for her own guilt, she narrates:
Well there is no doubt about that, I know the answer, it would be a Tree of Paradise like
the one in the quilt chest at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s, I used to get it out on the pretence
of seeing if it needed mending, just to admire it, it was a lovely thing, … But what I say to
him is different. I say, I don’t know, Sir. Perhaps it would be a Job’s Tears, or a Tree of
Paradise, or a Snake Fence; or else an Old Maid’s Puzzle, because I am an old maid,
wouldn’t you say, Sir, and I have certainly been very puzzled. I said this last thing to be
mischievous. I did not give him a straight answer, because saying what you really want out
loud brings bad luck, and then good things will never happen. (Atwood 89)
It is clear that in this scene, Grace resorts to the outright lie about which Dr. Jordan does not know.
Marks’ narration shows that Grace tends to state a fact to Dr. Jordan, but then reflects in her thought
that what she has mentioned is untrue. Thus, according to Kubičeck’s theory, Grace can be named
an unreliable narrator in relation to Dr. Jordan, as she hides the answer from him deliberately; yet,
Marks informs the reader about the fact that she does not say the truth, so, in this scene, Grace is
fully reliable in relation to the narratee.
Interestingly, during the very first meeting with Dr. Jordan, Grace lets him know that she
may lie. This happens when Simon explains to Grace the purpose of his visit:
If you will try to talk, he continues, I will try to listen. My interest is purely scientific. It is
not only the murders that should concern us. He’s using a kind voice, kind on the surface
but with other desires hidden beneath it. (Atwood 41)
Grace focalizes on Dr. Jordan’s speech, which allows to see her distrust towards the man, who, as
Marks assumes, is only interested in her as a murderess and wants to reveal her secret. Marks
replies: “Perhaps I will tell you lies, I say”, and continues focalizing on Dr. Jordan’s reply:
21
He doesn’t say, Grace what a wicked suggestion, you have a sinful imagination. He says,
Perhaps you will. Perhaps you will tell lies without meaning to, and perhaps you will also
tell them deliberately. Perhaps you are a liar. (Atwood 41)
One can see that Grace Marks hides her untruthfulness neither from Dr. Jordan nor the reader.
Because Grace admits the fact that the tale she will tell may not fully be trustworthy, she can be
considered a reliably unreliable narrator. Such explicit frankness plays into the hand of Marks
because metaphorically Grace suggests her openness to the conversation, which Dr. Jordan desires.
This way, during the very first meeting of Grace and Dr. Jordan, Atwood opens the possible truth
about Grace Marks’ mental state: the doctor assumes that Grace may lie deliberately, and also that
she can lie unconsciously, “without meaning to.” It appears that both suspicions of Dr. Jordan can
be justified.
According to the novel, Reverend Verringer, a liberal-minded reformer in 1950s Toronto,
who is working to secure a federal pardon for Marks because he believes in her innocence, invites
his friend Dr. Jerome DuPont, a practitioner of neuro-hypnotism, to hypnotize Grace in order to
reach her suppressed to subconsciousness memories (Atwood 48). During the hypnotic session, the
committee, consisting of Reverend Veringer himself, Dr. Simon Jordan, the penitentiary Governor’s
wife Mrs. Quennell, her daughter Miss Lydia, etc., reveals that Grace is possessed by the spirit of
Mary Whitney (Atwood 402). The demonic voice of Mary asserts that “Grace knew nothing about
[the murders]” (Atwood 401). When asked about killing Nancy Montgomery, in Mary’s voice
Grace replies:
‘The kerchief killed her. Hands held it… She [Nancy] had to die. The wages of sin is death.
And this time the gentleman died as well, for once. Share and share alike!’ (Atwood 401)
Grace does not say who exactly killed Nancy, but she clarifies that it was the idea of Mary’s spirit
that possesses her: while Nancy pretty much happily lived with Mr. Kinnear and was awaiting a
child from him, Mary paid for the sin of fornication with her life, and thus she decides to take
revenge grounded on the idea of inequality and kills both Nancy and Mr. Kinnear. Whitney’s
testimony defends Grace’s innocence and presents Marks as the novel’s first-person narrator with
limited knowledge of the events. Thus, as Dr. Jordan assumed during his first meeting with Grace,
she might have lied unconsciously, and according to Kubičeck’s theory is a reliable narrator.
However, closer to the end of the novel it is revealed that Dr. DuPont, the practitioner that
conducted the hypnotic session, is Marks’ old friend Jeremiah the peddler, who has previously
worked as a medical clairvoyant in partnership with “the woman who knew the business:”
I [Jeremiah] was the one who made the passes and also took in the money, and she was the
one to have a muslin veil put over her, and go into a trance, and speak in a hollow voice,
and tell the people what was wrong with them, for a fee of course. It is a wellnight
foolproof, for as they [people] can’t see inside their own bodies, who is to say whether you
are right or not. (Atwood 267)
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Mesmerism in which the man was involved was merely a fake performance, which could be learned
easily. At some point, before the murders took place, Jeremiah even offered Grace to run away with
him and work in partnership. He pointed: “I would teach you how, and instruct you in what to say,
and put you in the trances. I know by your hand that you have a talent for it” (Atwood 268). In his
expression, Jeremiah emphasizes that such type of performance requires talent, and it appears that
back then, he had a belief that Marks had a skill for it. At this point, it is difficult to reveal whether
the hypnotic session of Marks by Dr. DuPont is trustworthy. Coral Ann Howells suspects that the
scene of hypnosis at the Governor’s house is merely a well-prepared performance by Jeremiah, and
the voice of Grace is originally Dr. DuPont’s in disguise (Howells 35). In this case, another
assumption by Dr. Jordan can be justified: Grace lies deliberately all throughout the novel, and thus
she can be labeled as an unreliable narrator (Kubičeck et.al.134), who omits and hides important
facts from Dr. Jordan.
Grace Marks’ narration may also be considered unreliable because she presents it as a gift
to Simon Jordan. When the doctor brings Grace a radish, which she asked for the day before, Marks
appreciates this good deed: “…because he brought me this radish, I set to work willingly to tell my
story, and make it as interesting as I can… as a sort of return gift to him” (Atwood 295). It appears
that Grace is an enthusiastic storyteller. She considers storytelling as a type an artwork that she gifts
to her audience, represented by Dr. Jordan. Indeed, Marks’ tale seems to be lengthy and
suspiciously overloaded with minute details. For example, when Grace narrates about the voyage
from Ireland to Canada, she remembers that the ship was struck “by a ferocious gale” exactly after
“a week and a half” (Atwood 118); when Marks narrates about the times in Canada, she recollects
that Mrs. Burt, a widow and the landlady of the Marks in Toronto, “smelled like a smoked fish”
(Atwood 125); besides that, Marks remembers how her house looked like and how it was furnished
to the detail:
She [Mrs. Burt] lived in the front part of the house, which was badly in need of a coat of
paint, and we lived in the two rooms in the back part, which was more like an
outbuilding… The floors were of white boards, set too close to the ground, and beetles and
other small creatures would make their way up through the cracks between them, worse
after a rain, and one morning I found a live worm… Mrs. Burt lent us two bedsteads with
corn-shuck mattresses… For water we had a pump outside in the yard; as for cooking, we
had the use of an iron stove that was in the passageway between the two parts of the house.
(Atwood 125)
Later, talking about her first employment place at the house of a businessman and politician Mr.
Alderman Parkinson, Marks counts golden items that the host possessed:
he [Mr. Alderman Parkinson] had so many gold watch-chains and gold pins and gold
snuffboxes and other trinckets, you could have got five necklaces out of him if he was
melted down, with the earrings to match. (Atwood 147)
23
It is absurd that Marks even recollects the clothing she chose for the jouney to Mr. Kinnear’s farm
and that she describes the road and types of houses she saw on her way there, which is the entire
page in the book:
Beside the ditches there were many flowers growing, daisies and such, with butterflies
flying about, and these parts of the roadwere very pretty… After a time the road was
worse, with deep ruts and stones, and jolting and bumping enough to unhike your bones,
… Some of the houses we [Grace and the driver] passed along the way were large and fine,
but others were just log houses, low and poor-looking. The fences around the fields were
of different kinds, snake fences of split rails, and others made of the tree roots pulled out of
the ground, which looked like giant hanks of wooden hair… For the journey I put on my
good summer things. I had a straw bonnet, trimmed with blue ribbon bow from Mary’s
box, and my cap under it; and a cotton print dress … (Atwood 203-204)
The number of minute details in Grace’s life story is impressive. Even more surprising is
the fact that Grace recounts all of them after eight-ten years. This feature of Marks’ narration is very
suspicious and it may be considered as a signal that Marks creates them deliberately to drag the
time, to delay the events she knows Dr. Jordan wants to hear about.
A valuable fact is that Grace Marks often narrates her life story in parallel with crafting a
patchwork quilt (Atwood 88), which Margaret Rogerson describes as “an art of making do and
eaking out” that “reflects the fragmentation of woman’s time” (Rogerson 5). Thus, Atwood
symbolically ties Grace Marks’ occupation, which requires stitching little pieces of fabric together,
to her position as a storyteller, who creates a complex story, retrieving fragments of memories from
the storehouse of her mind. Furthermore, both Marks’ creations the guilt and the tale are done by
Grace to satisfy people surrounding her: the tale for Dr. Jordan and the narratee, and the quilt for
Ms. Lydia, the Governor’s daughter.
As a storyteller, Grace Marks prepares for the meetings with Dr. Jordan thoroughly, and
before the session when Grace has to tell about the day of the murders, she questions herself in the
prison cell: “What should I tell Dr. Jordan about this day? Because now we are almost there”
(Atwood 295). Grace mediates on the possible variations of her story, pretending to or maybe truly
looking for answers concerning the day of the murders:
Did he [Mr. Kinnear] say, I saw you outside at night, in your nightgown, in the moonlight?
Did he say, Who were you looking for? Was it a man? Did he say, I pay good wages but I
want good service in return? Did he say, do not worry, I will not tell your mistress, it will
be our secret?
He might have said that. Or I might have been asleep.
Did she [Nancy] say, Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to? Did she say, I will
pay you your wages on Saturday and then you can be gone out of here, and that will be the
end of it and good riddance?
Yes. She did say that.
Was I crouching behind the kitchen door after that, crying? Did he [McDermott] take me in
his arms? Did I let him do it? Did he say Grace, why are you crying? Did I say I wished
she was dead?
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Oh no. Surely I did not say that. Or not out loud. And I did not really wish her dead. I only
wished her elsewhere, which was the same thing she wished for me.
Did I push him away? Did he say I will soon make you think better of me? Did he say I
will tell you a secret if you promise to keep it?
It might have happened. (Atwood 295-296)
Coral Ann Howells claims that the boundary between Grace’s memory, dream, and imagery are not
distinct in this scene, which makes it very much subjective and ambiguous (Howells 32). At this
point, the private retrospect of Marks turns into a riddle that causes even more questions than there
are answers provided. Marks refers to three dead people at the same time, Mr. Kinnear, Nancy
Montgomery and James McDermott, and asks directive questions, which refer not to the murders
directly, memory of which could be suppressed, but to the relationship Marks had with these
people. One can see that Grace provides only one clear answer, saying that Nancy wanted her to
leave. Yet, Grace has already mentioned it earlier, narrating her story to Dr. Jordan (Atwood 278),
so this information is not new. Other questions remain unanswered by Grace. She, as if playing,
withholds the answers from the reader and therefore one may assume that Marks is an unreliable
narrator in relation to them.
Margaret Atwood intensively immerses both Dr. Jordan and the reader into the narration of
Grace Marks. Atwood tends to omit quotation marks which would identify the direct speech of
Marks and other characters when Grace herself is the focalizer. For example, after the breakfast in
the prison, Marks narrates:
I am brought over to the Governor’s mansion as usual, by two of the keepers who are men
and not above making a joke amongst themselves when out of hearing of the higher
authorities. Well Grace says the one, I see you have a new sweetheart, a doctor no less
[about Dr. Jordan], has he gone down on his knees yet or have you lifted your own up for
him, he’d better keep a sharp eye out or you’ll have him flat on his bacl. Yes says the
other, flat on his back in the cellar with his boots off and bullet through his heart. Then
they laugh; they consider this very comical. (Atwood 63)
Such narration is suggestive of a thought flow in one’s mind. Yet, the free indirect speech is present
up to the point when Marks reaches the day of the murders during therapeutic sessions with Dr.
Jordan (Atwood 307-320). At this moment, which the reader awaits with the greatest desire,
Atwood cuts off closeness with the main character. The narrative switches to the third-person
narration with zero-focalization, and thus Grace Marks’ thoughts, which were accessible in the
narrative up to this point, are removed from the page:
‘Did you give James McDermott the kerchief from around your neck?’ Simon sounds more
like a courtroom lawyer than he wishes to, but he presses on.
‘The one that was used to strangle poor Nancy? It was mine, I know that. But I have no
recollection of giving it to him.’
‘Nor being down in the cellar?’ says Simon. ‘Nor of helping him to kill her? Nor of
wanting to steal the gold earrings off the corpse, as he [McDermott] says you wished to
do?’
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Grace covers her eyes with a hand, briefly. ‘All that time is dark to me, Sir,’ she says.
(Atwood 317)
The scene turns into an interrogation of Marks by Jordan, but the truth about Grace’s guilt or
innocence remains shaded, as Marks continues claiming that she does not recollect anything about
the actual murders (Atwood 317). Limiting the reader with Grace Marks’ internal world, immersing
him/her into the character’s subjective memory, and later withdrawing the information the reader
desires to hear the most, Atwood conveys the idea that some specific information one wishes to find
out can sometimes remain unknown. As the novelist claims, “I am not one of those who believes
there is no truth to be known; but I have to conclude that although there undoubtedly was a truth –
somebody did kill Nancy Montgomery – truth is sometimes unknowable, at least by us” (In search
of Alias Grace 1515).
Grace Marks’s narration appears to be suspicious in other cases too. In the tale that Grace
narrates to Dr. Jordan, Marks presents herself as an emotional and tender person, who is childishly
afraid of thunderstorms (Atwood 159, 279), doctors (Atwood 271), sheets hanging in the drying
room (Atwood 159), and she bursts into tears when Nancy instructs her to kill a chicken for supper
(Atwood 250). Marks positions herself as a person who believes in bad luck and superstitions; she
condemns the bad actions of other people, especially men. However, in comparison to this
cautiously crafted soft Marks, it is surprising to observe her cold and emotionless thinking about a
rotten corpse of Montgomery in the cellar. This happens when, in the Governor’s house, she reads a
signature in a scrapbook: “I will always be with you in Spirit, Your loving ‘Nancy:’”
I must say the first time I saw that, it gave me a fright, although of course it was a different
Nancy. Still, the rotten bones. They would be, by now. Her face was all black by the time
they found her, there must have been a dreadful smell. It was so hot then, it was July, still
she went off surprisingly soon, you’d think she would have kept longer in the diary, it is
usually cool down there. (Atwood 26)
It is interesting that the first reaction of Grace Marks is fear: one may question whether the haunting
image of Nancy would bother her, if she had not been involved in strangling her. Once the first
fright passes, Marks reflects on the subject surprisingly cold and calm. In comparison with the
vulnerable image Grace creates, such commentary on the corpse lying in the cellar seems to be
unnatural to Marks. This way, Atwood toys with readers the same way as Grace plays with the
doctor: the author does not affirm that Nancy was killed by Marks; the novelist merely makes the
text ambiguous and allows readers to interpret situations on their own.
Based on Kubičeck’s theory of unreliable narrators, Grace Marks can be considered a
reliably unreliable narrator in relation to Dr. Jordan because she informs him that she may lie, and
she actually does lie, as the reader can see in her inner monologue. Because the novel does not
clarify whether the hypnotic session is a fake performance, it is difficult to admit that Grace is an
26
unreliable narrator in relation to the reader. However, Atwood makes some scenes so ambiguous
that one may assume that Grace lies to the reader too.
3.4 Grace Marks’ Narrative as Means of Obtaining the Self and Power
According to Kurt Borg, once experienced, truma “ruptures and undoes the self” of a person, and
one is left with the demanding “task of recovering a sense of self, remaking one’s world, and
rediscovering meaningful attachments to others” (Borg 449). Kurt Borg discusses the matter of
narrative coherence in literary works and how it empowers traumatised people by giving them more
control over their lives (447). As he states, coherent narrative is a medium which helps a victim of
trauma to restore the meaning of the traumatic episode and the self in it (Borg 449). Narrating
trauma is considered a positive psychological practice because it allows the victim “to more or less
integrate the traumatic episode within a life story” and thus recover a sense of self (Borg 449). Borg
points out that trauma victims have a strong impuls to make their narratives coherent because
trauma “disempowers them by disabling one’s sense of agency”, and accordingly, making the
narration coherent, trauma victims wish to obtain the authorship over their story (448).
In the light of Borg’s theory of coherent narrative, Grace’s storytelling can be considered
theraupetic. Whether she was involved in the actual murders or not, Grace remains the victim of a
traumatic experiences, as she witnesses an expression of brultal violence during the Kinnear’s
murders, and deaths of dear people. While Grace narrates her life story, she herself learns to
understand the trumatic experiences she was involved in. Based on the examples provided in the
previous section, one can see how meticuos about details Grace is when telling about her life.
Marks constructs her story very coherently starting from her childhood up to the days of the
murders. This suggests that, as a trauma victim, she, in some way, desires to obtain the authorship
over her life and self. Yet, at the same time, Marks is not sincere and turns the narration into a game
of sorts: as she says, “I say something to keep him [Dr. Jordan] happy” (Atwood 99). Thus, Marks’
storytelling is also an attempts to prove her innocence to Dr. Jordan and keep him aside as long as
she can to entertain herself in the routine life of the prison.
Recounting her memories to Simon Jordan, Grace identifies herself not only as a trauma
victim, but also as the woman suppressed by the authority. Feminist theorist Showalter claims that a
female, importantly in the nineteenth century, was understood as an irrational creature, and “an
object” to the man’s rational “subject”:
women within our dualistic systems of language and representation, are typically situated
on the side of irrationality, silence, nature and body, while man are situated on the side of
reason, discourse, culture and mind. (Showalter 3-4)
Thus, the nineteenth century society assigned woman with the qualities of the “other,” “different,”
and turned her into the subject that needs constant supervision and guidance by men (Showalter 4).
27
Kreuiter claims that the concept of difference between man and woman was analogous to the
difference drawn between madness and sanity (Kreuiter 7). Thus, the 19th-century woman is
approximated with the mad person if she does not perform in accordance with social norms, and
accordingly, she turns to be the one whose voice is not taken into consideration, and whose story is
not heard.
In Atwood’s novel, Marks’ “madness”, which is most likely a post-traumatic stress
disorder, make Grace a perfect example of a person with the hysteria disorder in accordance with
the discourses present in the nineteenth century. Grace Marks’ imprisonment and residence in the
asylum and penitentiary represent how “insane” women were treated at those times.
Through Grace Marks’ experience as a prisoner, Atwood delves into how societal forces of
the nineteenth century prevented women from speaking. As a woman-prisoner, Grace Marks is
enclosed in silence and controlled by authorities constantly. She mentions that the prisoners were
forbidden to talk even while eating, and she points out how important spoken language is for human
beings:
I continue sleeping in my allotted cell, and I wear the same clothing and eat the same
breakfast, in silence if you can call it silence, forty women, most of them in here for
nothing worse than stealing, who sit chewing their bread with their mouths open and
slurping their tea in order to make a noise of some sort even if not speech… (Atwood 62)
After a few unsuccessful attempts to express her opinion in the mental asylum, Grace stops talking
altogether (Atwood 32). Because her words mostly turned against her and were used as an evidense
to prove her mental problems, Grace comes to the decision to limit her communication to civil
language only when she is addressed (e.g. “Yes Ma’am No Ma’am, Yes and no Sir” (Atwood 32)).
The woman cannot say a word even when Dr. Bannerling examines and sexualy abuses her in the
Penitentiary: “Take your hand off my tit, you filthy bastard, Mary Whitney would have said, but all
I could say was Oh no, oh no, and no way to twist and turn” (Atwood 32). Thus, Atwood portrays
Grace not only as a creature whose voice is ignored by authorities, but also as a sexual object in
men’s eyes. This way, Atwood sheds light on the problems of gender and class in the nineteenth
century society.
In her narration, Grace Marks often points out that no one has been interested in her
opinion since the day of the murders. Accordingly, Marks forgets how to express it at all:
It was difficult to begin talking [with Dr. Jordan]. I had not talked very much for the past
fifteen years, not really talking the way I once talked with Mary Whitney, and Jeremiah the
peddler, … I was not used to having my opinion asked, even about the weather and
especially by a man with a notebook. The only man of that kind I ever encountered were
Mr. Kenneth MacKenzie, Esq., the lawyer, and I was afraid of him… (Atwood 67)
However, even the lawyer does not take Grace Marks’ story into account: “It was my own
lawyer,…, who told them [the journalists] I was next door to an idiot. I was angry with him over
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that, but he said it was by far my best chance and I should not appear to be too intelligent” (Atwood
23). On the one hand, the lawyer wishes to save Grace Marks from the death penalty, and he
succeeds, but on the other hand, he “dresses” Marks into the identity of the stupid, as societal
powers expected it from a woman. Accordingly, Marks has to adjust to the created image,
nevertheless she considers herself intelligent and literate (Atwood 27). Grace struggles accepting
the identity offered without her consent and feels trapped not only physically but mentally as a
person who has no power/right to define herself. Worst part of it, Marks is often pried and teased by
higher society members because she is seen as odd and mad (e.g. by Miss Lydia, a daughter of the
penitentiary Governor (Atwood 25), by the matrons at the asylum (Atwood 32)). Atwood notes that
public institutions, such as penitentiaries and lunatic asylums, were visited like zoos for the sake of
entertainment, and even Susanna Moodie, whose accont on Grace inspired the author to write the
novel, asked to see Marks as the star attraction (Atwood 462).
The societal powers offer Grace Marks variety identities all at once. Because opinions
about Grace differed enormously, she was portrayed as a murderess, paramour, madwoman,
suffering saint, and an innocent victim by journalists simultaneously (Atwood 23). Grace’s position
as a possible killer was greatly reinforced by her notoriety as a sex partner of co-killer, James
McDermott, and this was one of the main discussions in the press. Thus, Grace appears to be the
central figure of social dispute and its victim at the same time. She counts “all the things that have
been written” about her (which is almost half a page in the book) and thinks of herself with sorrow:
“I wonder, how I can be all of these different things at once? (Atwood 23). Marks remarks her
dissatisfaction with the press writings in which facts about her and James McDermott were
constantly misinterpreted (Atwood 341). Grace repeatedly notes how her own words were distorted
and modified, even during the trials:
In the courtroon, every word that came out of my mouth was as if burnt into the paper they
were writing it on, and once I said a thing I knew I could never get the words back; only
they were the wrong words, because whatever I said would be twisted around, even if it
was the plain truth in the first place. (Atwood 68)
Thus, Grace Marks faces a difficulty of allocating herself real among the conflicting variety of
construction that have been made of her persona by Victorian society. The authorship over Grace
Marks’ story is fully taken away from her. And finally, the woman, who had no rights and voice in
the society, who was nicknamed a madwoman and a murderess, obtains freedom of speech and, in
her narration, expresses anger, dissatisfaction and pain that have accumulated over the years. Grace
Marks convenes her audiences to listen to her past, and this way, recalling memories turns into a
reconstruction of Grace Marks’ self.
Inasmuch as Marks was not permitted to fully realize the right to spoken language in the
penitentiary and in the asylum, it is even more significant for her to be allowed to talk freely with
29
Dr. Jordan. After years of lacking communication in her single cell in the prison, she does her best
to make the sessions with Dr. Jordan lasting. Marks understands that the secret hidden in her
memory storehouse is the reason for Dr. Jordan’s interest in her, so she build her life story like a
web, filling it with information that would be interesting for the doctor: “But now I feel as if
everything I say is right. As long as I say something, anything at all, Dr. Jordan smiles and writes it
down, and tells me I am doing well” (Atwood 69). Thus, Simon Jordan, confident that his plan of
recovery of the patient’s lost memory works, falls into the trap of Marks’ unreliable narration and
does not notice that it is Grace who controls him.
At the same time, Dr. Jordan is the person that causes the identity of an innocent Grace
Marks to show up. Coming Back to Butler’s theory, in which one’s identity is constituted
specifically through the relations upon which one is dependent (Butler 22), Marks’ identity of an
innocent woman appears in communication with Dr. Jordan. Grace’s motif is clear: she describes
herself as a guiltless in order for her relationship with Jordan to be lasting, and that he would take
her side and free her from imprisonment, as it was promised. Partly, Grace succeeds to achive her
aim, as Dr. Jordan actually takes her side and wants to believe in her innocence. Interviewing
Marks, Dr. Jordan finds out plenty personal information about Grace and grows fond of her: Grace
appears in his dreams (Atwood 159, 422), he catches himself thinking about her intimate (Atwood
346, 489). Thereby, Doctor Jordan turns to listening to “only the music played” by “the music box”,
which is Grace’s unreliable narration (Atwood 97).
Delivering the Bronfman Lecture at the University of Ottawa, Atwood identifies Grace
Marks as “a storyteller with strong motives to narrate but also [with] strong motives to withhold”
(In Search of Alias Grace 1515). Also, the novelist points out: “the only power left to her [Grace] as
a convicted and imprisoned criminal comes from a blend of these two motives” (In Search of Alias
Grace 1515). Indeed, narrating her life story as the first-person narrator and recollecting her
memories, Grace Marks defines herself through ideas, feelings and impressions she shares with Dr.
Jordan and the reader. In a way, storytelling helps Marks to identify how traumatic experiences
affected her life, and narrating about them, she learns to integrate them into her life story. At the
same time, in narration, Marks has a chance to communicate the truth, as she understands it: she
presents her personal understanding of morality, social norms and power, though through the
personality of Mary Whitney. These may be the reasons for the protagonist to narrate. On the other
hand, withholding information is beneficial for Grace Marks too, as it is the character’s
manifestation of power and dominance, which she as a silenced and suppressed by men’s authority
woman has lacked for ages. Withholding the answer about her involvement in the killing of Nancy
Montgomery, Marks takes revenge on the authority represented by Simon Jordan leaving the secret
he wants to find out to herself.
30
4. Conclusion
Consequently, a person’s memory is a system of complex processes that are based on various
operating principles (Squire 12711). Memory entails an individual’s subjective interpretation of
events and experiences, which are transformed into memories, and thus is always potentially
unreliable (“Memory,” n.p.; Michaelian 101). Yet, the way one’s memory functions may deviate
from the norm when the person has experienced traumatic events. In such a case, memories may be
so harmful to the person’s psyche that they are supressed to the subconsciousness in order to not
disturb the person’s everyday life (Loftus 518; Staniloiu et.al. 35). This limits a person’s self-
awareness, and the trauma victim may develop a desire to recover their sense of agency (Borg 449).
Margaret Atwood uses the motives of memory disfunction and psychological trauma in her
novel Alias Grace. The protagonist and the central narrator Grace Marks convicted for her
involvement in two murders, allegedly suffers from amnesia and is also revealed to possibly suffer
from multiple personality disorder. The convicted and imprisoned criminal develops the narrative of
her life referring to the episodes of her personal past. Grace as the first-person narrator recalls
fragments of her memory distorted by psychological trauma and focalizes on them as a character-
based internal focalizer. For the reason that memory and first-person narrators are based on the
individual’s individual experience, Grace Marks’ narration is subjective. As a trauma victim, Grace
constructs her narrative coherently and in detail, but this features of her narration also indicate her
as an unreliable narrator because she overloads her life-story with minute details.
The narration of Grace Marks shows that she is a reliably unreliable narrator in relation to
her listener Dr. Jordan because she informs him that she could be a liar. Making some scenes in the
novel ambiguous, Atwood allows one to assume that Grace is an unreliable storyteller in relation to
the reader too. As an imprisoned murderess, Grace is left with the only power to withhold
information she posesses, and thus by means of storytelling she acquires dominance over Dr.
Jordan, a representative of the authority, because she omits facts about the murders he wants to find
out. Thus, after years of being ignored in the prison, she symbolically takes revenge on authorities
represented by Simon and obtains the power while narrating her life story.
31
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34
Appendix: Plot Summary of the Novel Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
The novel Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood presents the life story of a convicted murderess Grace
Marks. The story is set 10 years after the murder of Mr. Tomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy
Montgomery. Grace Marks tells the story of her life in the penitentiary Governor’s house to Dr.
Simon Jordan, a psychiatrist who is hired by the Methodist minister Revered Verringer working to
secure a federal pardon for Grace.
Grace Marks and James McDermott, two servants that used to work at the house of Mr.
Kinnear, were caught running to the United Stated with the items that used to belong to the host and
his housekeeper. James McDermott was convicted of the murder and was hanged, and Grace was
convicted of being an accessory to the murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. After the
murder, Grace Marks spent some time in the asylum because she was hysteric and was later sent to
penitentiary, where she lives. Marks claims that she has no memory of the day of the murders. The
Reverend maintains a belief in Marks’ innocence and is to obtain a pardon for Grace. Reverend
enlists the help of Dr. Simon Jordan and hopes for Dr. Jordan to express an approval on the behalf
of Grace Marks in the report determining her being merely a hysteric. Dr. Jordan agrees and starts
interviewing Marks at the daily basis. He allows Grace to narrate her story because believes that it
can help her to restore memories lost to amnesia.
According to her story, Grace Marks was born and raised in Ulster, Ireland. There, the
family of Marks had difficult surviving (Grace’s father was a stonemason and an abusive alcoholic
who could not find a working place), and decided to immigrate to Canada in hopes that the father
would find a job and that the family would have a better life. Grace was twelve years old when the
family left to Canada. On the voyage, Grace lost the mother who was buried at sea. She often
recalls this event with sadness as an adult.
After immigrating to Canada, the father of Grace insists on her leaving the family to find
work. With the help of Mrs. Burt, a landlady of the house where the Marks stay, Grace is employed
as a servant at the house of Mrs. Alderman Parkinson, Toronto. While working there, Grace
befriends a fellow servant named Mary Whitney. Yet, Whitney dies of the complications from an
abortion a year after. This occasion devastates Grace Marks because Whitney was a close friend of
hers. After Mary’s death, Grace is employed in a few other houses, and finally takes work at the
house of Mr. Thomas Kinnear in Richmond Hill, where she is promised to be paid well. From the
first days of work, Grace has a tense relationship with Nancy Montgomery, the housekeeper, and
with James McDermott, another servant at the household. Grace Marks has only two friends: Jamie
Walsh, a young boy from the neighborhood who offers Grace to be a couple, and Jeremiah, a
travelling peddler whom she befriended at Mrs. Parkinson’s. Time passes, and Grace notices that
35
the relationship between Nancy Montgomery and Tomas Kinnear is too specific as for the host and
a housekeeper: Nancy spends a lot of time in Mr. Kinnear’s company and gets a lot of attention
from his side. Later, Marks understands that Montgomery is pregnant, and it is clear that she is Mr.
Kinnear’s paramour.
Marks comes to the day of the murder, but it appears that she still has no memory of it.
Involved by Grace’s narration, Dr. Jordan starts feeling not indifferent about Marks. In despair, he
also begins an affair with his landlady, Mrs. Rachel Humphrey, who remained abandoned by her
Mayor husband. Because Dr. Jordan panics because he cannot determine whether Grace is a
hysteric or a murderess, he agrees to meet the lawyer of Grace Marks, Mr. Kenneth MacKenzie,
who suggests that Grace keeps silence because she is probably in love with Dr. Jordan. Simon also
visits Mr. Kinnear’s home in Richmond Hill and feels embarrassed there.
Because he feels a need to find out the truth about Marks, Dr. Jordan accepts Dr. Jerome
DuPont’s offer to hypnotize her. DuPont is a friend of Reverend Verringer whom Grace recognizes
as Jeremiah the peddler but remains silent. During the hypnotic session, the committee that is
interested in the case of Grace Marks, including Dr. Simon Jordan, Reverend Verringer, the
penitentiary Governor’s wife Mrs. Quennell, her daughter Miss Lydia, discover that there is another
inner personality in Marks, Mary Whitney. As Whitney claims, she persuaded McDermott to kill
Nancy Montgomery; Grace does not know about her inner Whitney and she was not present during
the murder.
Dr. Jordan realizes that he cannot write a report about the results of the hypnosis for he
could be seen as a charlatan. He understands the risk for not opening his own asylum because of
that. Therefore, Dr. Jordan persuades Rachel Humphrey that he needs her to fetch him a doctor and
escapes back to his home to the United States while she is absent.
Mrs. Humphrey tries to reach Dr. Jordan and finds out from his mother (in a letter) that Dr.
Jordan was enlisted as a military surgeon upon the outbreak of the Civil War. He also sustained a
head injury and lost his memory about his time in Canada. Yet, Mrs. Jordan approves that besides
his bad memory, he mistakenly refers to his betrothed as Grace.
In 1872, after twenty-eight years of imprisonment, Grace receives a pardon. She is
transported to Ithaca where she marries Jamie Walsh. Grace Marks finishes the novel in a form of a
letter to Dr. Jordan in which she tells about her life after Dr. Jordan left and about her possible
pregnancy.
36
VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE, LITERARY AND TRANSLATION STUDIES
STATEMENT ON PLAGIARISM
Plagiarism is the use of someone else’s words or ideas in a piece of writing without proper scholarly
acknowledgment. It is a grave offense within the scholarly world and cannot be tolerated at any
level – undergraduate or graduate or postgraduate.
The forms of plagiarism
Original text
“Fabulas sometimes centre structurally on a spatial opposition. Thus, Robinson Crusoe first flees
the oppression of society by going to sea. Then he is oppressed by his solitude on the island, but
finally he learns to convert his confinement into a form of freedom.” (Mieke Bal, Narratology,
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985, pp. 44-45)
……………………………………………………………………………….
a) The student presents M. Bal’s words as his/her own:
Student’s text
The story of Robinson Crusoe is based on a spatial opposition. At first Crusoe becomes a sailor to
flee the oppression of society. But when he lives on an island all by himself, he is also oppressed by
his solitude. (underlined phrases are plagiarized from Mieke Bal)
……………………………………………………………………………….
b) The student uses Bal’s own words and gives a reference to her work, but does not put the words
from Bal into quotation marks.
Student’s text
The story of Robinson Crusoe is based on a spatial opposition. At first Crusoe becomes a sailor to
flee the oppression of society. (Bal, p.44)
This is still plagiarism. The underlined phrases are from Bal and should have been put into
quotation marks. It is not enough to have a reference to Bal.
………………………………………………………………………………
c) The student paraphrases Bal’s ideas and presents them as his/her own.
Student’s text
Defoe constructs his novel according to the contrast between two places: the social world and the
isolated island. In both places Crusoe experiences discomfort; he can be happy neither with others
nor by himself.
This is another form of plagiarism – plagiarism of ideas. Even though M. Bal’s actual words
have not been used, her ideas have been used without any acknowledgement. This text would be
acceptable if the words ‘As Mieke Bal argues’ (or something similar) were placed at the beginning
of the text and the reference Bal, pp. 44-45 placed at the end.
………………………………………………………………………………
d) The student uses an example from someone else’s work without proper acknowledgement.
Student’s text
37
Mieke Bal suggests that what she calls “spatial opposition” (Bal, p.44) is the basis of many literary
texts. A good example of this would be Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe in which the contrast
between the social space (England) and the island space is fundamental.
Here the student correctly references Bal’s term. However, there is no reference after the
example, which suggests that this is the student’s own work, though in reality the example also
comes from Bal.
The student’s statement
I, Viktoriia Slyvka , have read the
Department of Foreign Language, Literary and Translation Studies statement on plagiarism. I
understand that plagiarism is wrong and that it can take different forms, some direct and some
indirect. I also understand that plagiarism in an essay, project or thesis submitted to this department
will result in a greatly reduced mark or rejection of the paper entirely.
Student’s signature Date __24.05.2021______________
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