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[email protected] ALIAS GRACE MARGARET ATWOOD ALIAS GRACE SUPERSUMMARY 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS PLOT OVERVIEW 3 CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND ANALYSES 6 Chapters 1-5 Chapters 6-11 Chapters 12-16 Chapters 17-20 Chapters 21-26 Chapters 27-31 Chapters 32-37 Chapters 38-40 Chapters 41-44 Chapters 45-47 Chapters 48-49 Chapters 50-53 6 9 13 16 20 24 28 33 35 37 39 40 MAJOR CHARACTER ANALYSIS 43 Grace Marks Simon Jordan Mary Whitney Nancy Montgomery James McDermott Thomas Kinnear Reverend Enoch Verringer Jeremiah the Peddler/Dr. Jerome DuPont/Geraldo Ponti 43 44 45 45 46 46 47 47 THEMES 49 COPYRIGHT 2016 ALIAS GRACE SUPERSUMMARY 2 SYMBOLS AND MOTIFS 53 IMPORTANT QUOTES 55 ESSAY TOPICS 65 COPYRIGHT 2016 ALIAS GRACE SUPERSUMMARY 3 PLOT OVERVIEW Is Grace Marks a murderess or an innocent pawn? Is she an evil fiend or mentally ill? Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace retells the story of Canada’s notorious nineteenthcentury convicted murderess Grace Marks. Grounded in the historical record where available, Atwood’s novel probes issues of gender and class roles, identity, truth, and the nature of memory. Thomas Kinnear, a wealthy landowner, and Nancy Montgomery, his housekeeper and mistress, are murdered in July 1843. Grace, who was working for Mr. Kinnear as a housemaid at the time of the murders, insists that she has no memory of the incident, though she was there at the house that day. She stands accused with James McDermott, who worked for Kinnear as a stable hand. Barely 16 years old, Grace is convicted as an accessory to the murder of Thomas Kinnear and sentenced to death. Because of the pleading of her lawyer and sympathetic reform groups, Grace’s life is spared and her sentence converted to life imprisonment. James McDermott is also convicted, and he hangs on November 21, 1843. In 1859, a young, ambitious, up-and-coming American medical doctor, Simon Jordan, arrives at Kingston Penitentiary to evaluate Grace on behalf of a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for her. The reform group intends to use his report as a centerpiece in their petition. A student and devotee of the relatively new science of psychiatric treatments for mental illness, Simon has complex motivations. He hopes that his methods will succeed and that through them he will discover the “truth” by helping Grace recover her memories of the murders. Further, after demonstrating success in Grace’s treatment, Simon hopes to use her example to draw rich, influential patrons to his next project: a mental health clinic. Grace Marks tells her story in the first person, and her chapters are interwoven with the story of Dr. Simon Jordan, told in the third person. The novel opens in 1851 and spans over 25 years; however, most of the action occurs in 1859 and in flashbacks as Grace tells Simon about her life. Some of the narrative consists of letters, many written between Simon and his mother or his friend Edward Murchie. When the novel begins, Grace has already bee