The Double Personality of Violence in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood is once of Canada’s best known literary composers. She is best known for her ability as an author of novels such as Alias Grace, Bodily Harm, Hairball, Rape Fantasies, and the highly acclaimed The Handmaid’s Tale, which was later made into a movie. These works establish her as a feminist writer, raising issues of women in literature, the difficulties associated with being female and the role of women in society.

In the short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” O’Conner, tries to make us understand the meaning of grace. The Misfit and the Grandma are the two main characters that show us what grace is and how it can be applied to a person’s everyday life. In Flannery O’Conner’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the Grandma tries to save her family by convincing them to visit a place she recommends to keep them away from the Misfit, whom with they later come in contact. Neither the Grandma nor the Misfit deserves grace but it is given to them anyway.

During that time, it was considered improper for a woman to express her feelings like anger or dislike. She says, "I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes" (pg278), and the narrator blamed it on her mental condition rather than saying that she was actually tired of her husband's way of treating her illness. She felt secluded, useless and trapped. Yet, she still had to follow and accept that kind of social rule. Women were expected to be good in doing the house chores and taking care children. In the story, the narrator mentions about John's sister who was a perfect housekeeper and hoped for no better profession. There is also Mary who was so good with the Baby. The author was actually trying to send images to the readers that it was expected attitudes in her society and was part of their culture which women were forced to follow.

Mary begins the story as a doting housewife going through her daily routine with her husband. She is content to sit in his company silently until he begins a conversation. Everything is going as usual until he goes “ slowly to get himself another drink” while telling Mary to “sit down” (Dahl 1). This shocks Mary as she is used to getting things for him. After downing his second drink, her husband coldly informs her that he is leaving her and the child. This brutal news prompts the first change in Mary, from loving wife to emotionless and detached from everything.

Alias Grace, written by Margaret Atwood, is a well-written novel filled with many components that enhance the theme and the story as a whole. Atwood reveals the story of Grace Marks to the reader in a variety of ways, including various points of view. This allows the author to reveal the character of Grace Marks in many different layers based on the accounts of others and Grace herself. Atwood also characterizes

Lily’s first meeting with the black Mary occurs when she meets the Boatwright sisters: August, June, and May. At that moment Lily feels the nurturing of a mother and a deluge of emotions rain down on her. She could feel all sides of her, favorable and detrimental because “that’s what the black Mary did to me, made me feel my glory and my shame at the same time,” (Kidd 71). Lily, for being barely an adolescent, at first is not capable of grasping the concept of people being both angelic and corrupt. At the beginning of the story she sees T. Ray as the human embodiment of evil. Counter to her initial beliefs, Lily learns that people are not as simple as she wants them to be. This is largely the result of the mothering force of August, which is a more physical representation of what the black Mary embodies. The black Mary illustrates Lily starting to see the world from a multidimensional perspective. In the same manner as the black Mary representing a mother for Lily, she represents a mother-like figure to all the Daughters of Mary. While the other Daughters may not have been missing mothers, the black Mary creates a family-like binding between them, keeping them together throughout even them most poignant times. The black Mary is a mother to all and all Lily wants in the Boatwright house is to be seen as one of them. Ultimately, “they didn’t even think of me being different,” (Kidd 209). This acceptance

(Bowen, 2000.) Although not much insight is given into the awful relationship Mary had with her late husband, there’s is evident that she resents her daughter. Precious became the target of neglect and abuse due to the fact that, her father raped her and her mother instead of protecting her became jealous of her own daughter. Mary intentionally tries to impair her daughter Precious by constantly demoralizing her by telling her that she is ugly, fat and stupid. Mary is fixed on the idea of hurting her physically, emotionally and psychologically. Mary is a constant remind to Precious of how she will be nothing without her. As a result, she internalizes this tension and many aspects of her life suffers. Precious is performing poorly at school, her physical health is bad as she is overly obese and she is a loner in the sense that she makes no effort to befriend anyone. She is constantly worried about what her mother is going to do to her for the day or she is constantly on edge with her mother, not knowing what to

At first glance and after reading through Amazing Grace, it seems that Jonathan Kozol is going to take us on a journey through the lives of the underprivileged, but similar to the ones you read about, or hear in the news. However, this is not the case; the real underlying theme seems to be how the life and society they live in is very alike to a life in a prison, not because it talks explicitly about prison conditions in this area, but also because their lives are portrayed as being a prison. Kozol uses the views of children and adults throughout this book to emphasize this theme through their living conditions and personal lives, background and struggles.

"All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal."—Flannery O'Connor.

Events everyday gain the interest of the public. One day in July 1843 such an event captured the public of what is now Ontario, Canada and the Northern United States, yet it did not stop at that community, the story of the Kinnear House Murders continues to capture all who follow the works of Margaret Atwood. Intrigued by the story, Atwood modified the story for the modern audience and her message. Although it is based on the true events of the Kinnear House Murders, Atwood’s Alias Grace parallels the reality in many aspects, breaking from script only when applicable to her purpose.

Throughout the course of Mary’s speech, she uses an emotional appeal to get through to her audience. Although Mary uses emotion, it is not always positive emotions. She chooses her words carefully in order to strike fear within the audience. “If you believe you are safe, you are at risk. If you do not see this killer stalking your children, look again.” Fisher compares AIDS to a killer coming for these parents children. A parent instinctively needs to protect their child. She raises the idea that AIDS is a predator hunting their children, and that they are failing to protect them. Mary makes descriptive images to support her emotional appeal. She states that this rampant disease was “littering it's pathway with bodies of the young.” Fisher uses the image of an innocent baby clinging to life in a hospital. She also attempted to instill a feeling of guilt within the audience. “You weep silently. You grieve alone. I have a message for you. It is not you who should feel shame. It is we -- we who tolerate ignorance and practice prejudice, we who have taught you to fear.” Mary first reminds the audience of the loneliness and depression that AIDS sufferers share. Then she's makes the effort to give the audience a guilty feeling. So that they may try and make up for it. Fisher uses fear, sadness, and guilt to support her appeal. Towards the end of her speech, she gains the sympathy of her audience by speaking

Though set in entirely dissimilar countries at different points in history, Margaret Atwood’s ‘Alias Grace’ and Hannah Kent’s ‘Burial Rites’ possess significant comparisons. Both for instance, are fictionalized historical novels following the tribulations of a female protagonist convicted of murder and both have been widely acclaimed for their incredible literary style which merges classic poetry, epigraphs, folklore and historical articles with fiction. The most striking parallel between each novel that can be drawn, however, is the way in which authors masterfully craft the stories of untrustworthy, cunning and deceptive criminals to elicit sympathy from their audiences. Readers of the novel and secondary characters alike are gradually pulled into sympathising with ambiguous and untrustworthy female leads, Grace Marks (Alias Grace) and Agnes Magnusdottir (Burial Rites). Despite the heavy suspicions of others and a lack of evidence to support their claims of innocence, these characters present artfully manipulated features of their defence stories to provoke empathy, sympathy and trust from those within the novel, and those reading it.

     Grace’s motives seem to be fairly simple, as they are based mostly on a love interest of Mr. Kinnear. Mr.

Based on a horrible murder in 1843 in Canada, the novel " Alias Grace" tells the story of a young Irish-born servant girl who plans to kill her employer and his mistress. It is a very horrifying tragedy. An analysis of Grace Mark's behavior reveals many things. Her actions in the novel show that she is guilty of the murders of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery. She plans with a man named James McDermott, hired help, to kill the love of her life and the mistress he is seeing.

Much of Natural Born Quilter focuses on the analyzation of how the novel was triggered and how it evolved from Atwood’s rough sketch into Alias Grace. Atwood talks heavily about the woman who knew the real Grace Marks and who inspired her to write Alias Grace, Susanna Moodie. Moodie’s trips to Grace consisted of many eyewitness accounts of Grace “screaming out of her mind… but people faked…because it was nicer in the asylum (Wiley 5).” However, Moodie stated that Grace may possibly be “deranged…and that accounts for it all (Wiley 5).” When Atwood rummaged through the historical records of Grace Marks, she came to the conclusion that there were “three Graces: the murderer, the clueless ingénue, and the hidden Grace that nobody could discern (Wiley 8).” To be able to understand the real Grace Marks and how she is connected to the Grace Marks that Atwood created facilitates my comprehension of Grace’s mentality, therefore, facilitating my comprehension of the novel as a whole. Wiley also wrote that Atwood “was interested in the process of public opinion and