Alias Grace Study Guide

Women's History Atwood has often used images of sewing and other domestic arts in her novels, illustrating women’s creativity, constrained as it was, historically, to domestic objects. Names of quilt patterns are used as titles of the 15 book sections in Alias Grace , making parallels between Grace’s interest in quilts and the meanings of their patterns and Grace’s storytelling, her creation of a domestic history, in which Dr. Jordan hopes to discern patterns.Grace tells her life story to the doctor as a chronology, but, as she does, she reflects on what she tells him like it was a patchwork of experiences. Each patch is destined to fill a particular place in the quilt, and they must all be created before the quilt can be assembled, much as historical research, and especially research on women in history, requires examination of many disparate sources in order to construct a chronological account.

Identity Grace and the "ruined" Mary Whitney represent the only two identities ordinary women could have throughout much of history and that one self does not recognize the other is just as true. The only achievement to be attained by a female servant was the difficult accomplishment of preserving her maidenly virtue while under the control of her employers. Hence we have the classic divide: the maid and the whore. Mary, who believed she could determine her own future, died a painful death. Grace who did not expect any measure of independence, only managed to protect herself for awhile by getting a somewhat better paid position as a somewhat more skilled servant.

Social class was what determined how much one’s identity was "authentic," i.e., dependent on inheritance, and how much performative, subject to circumstances. Unlike women, men did have some potential for self-determination, witness: Reverend Verringer, former Anglican, turned Methodist minister, and Jeremiah the Peddler, alias Dr. Jerome DuPont. On the other hand, Dr. Jordan gives up on his career and finally returns home to marry the woman his mother selected for him.

Modern readers may not be satisfied with the idea that Mary, alias Grace, was the murderer. Others might view the use of the term "alias" in the title as suggesting that in their search for the truth about Grace Marks, both readers and characters may be frustrated by duplicity. Grace resists being completely comprehended, by these men of power, scientific or religious. She belongs instead to the marginal communities of immigrants, servants, and mad people who are always vulnerable, and often lost as Grace lost her mother, and her only friend. The only simple truths for Grace are about things– quilts, sheets, carpets, petticoats, the laundry of her life—she gains confidence from a needle and thread. As Margaret Atwood says, “The true character of the historical Grace Marks remains an enigma.”