Alias Grace

Self-absorbed and personally ambitious, Simon Jordan approaches Grace with confidence and grows increasingly uncertain as his personal life falls apart. Over the few weeks of working with Grace, his orderly life disappears. The basic methods in his therapeutic arsenal seem sound: a kind and gentle approach to build rapport and trust and the use of suggestion and association with objects, like the root vegetables, to stir her memories. These methods, however, do not work with Grace.

In both his professional and personal life, Simon’s Victorian hypocrisy, a central notion in understanding his character, both traps him and liberates him. Outwardly, he conforms, but, inwardly, he rebels and frequently acts as he pleases with no repercussions. In many cases he is aware of his hypocrisy, as with the widely held stereotype of women’s innate refinement and delicacy. He’s performed autopsies, so he knows that women have the same bodily construction, musculature, and innate bodily strength as men. As a world-traveler, he’s seen women perform heinous acts, such as selling their daughters or killing their infants, but he holds that his pretense of womanly delicacy and “hypocrisy is surely justified: one must present what ought to be true as if it really is” (87). Upper-class women are pure and must remain so, while the working-class women, who surround him, are fair game for his voyeurism and seduction fantasies.

However, just as his therapeutic methods fail with Grace, Simon also finds himself attracted to Grace, rather than his patient falling in love with him, as he’s used to. On the train back to Kingston from his investigation in Toronto, he even muses that Grace is the only woman he has ever wanted to marry. However, though he details several sexual dreams about maids and dreams that he has sex with Grace, Simon does maintain a professional distance with her. He also, to his credit, finds the lawyer MacKenzie’s suggestion that Simon should seduce Grace repugnant. However, he is so drawn to her that he loses objectivity and cannot complete his task.

He writes to Edward Murchie that he nearly has a nervous breakdown over not being able to figure out the truth about Grace. Not knowing nearly drives him crazy. In a symbolic irony, Simon loses his memory and all desire to open an asylum through a head injury sustained during the Civil War.

Practical and knowledgeable, democratic, kind, and plain-spoken, Mary guides Grace and teaches her, like an older sister. An orphan, Mary is on her own at the age of sixteen. Mary has dreams and ambitions, primarily to marry and have an independent, prosperous life. Working as a servant is a temporary status for Mary, who sees herself as anyone’s equal, and even superior to the so-called upper classes. Mary’s ideas give a voice to what becomes late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century modern social reform movements such as worker’s and women’s rights.

Mary Whitney’s death is a central trauma of Grace’s life. Mary bleeds to death from a botched abortion while Grace sleeps on the floor of her room. Grace remains haunted by Mary’s death, as she has been by her mother’s death and burial at sea. Not only has Grace lost a treasured friend and companion, she has lost someone who acts as ballast for her, someone who keeps her in line and watches out for, and over, her. Without Mary’s grounded and anchoring presence, Grace is lost.

Mary’s death also can be seen in terms of the social gulf between Mary and George Parkinson, the suspected father of her child. Because of her own democratic principles, Mary fails to take into account the differences between herself and George. She believes herself to be his social equal and expects him to stand by her. Her idealism costs Mary her life. Grace sees what happens to Mary, despite her principles and democratic beliefs, even if Grace doesn’t understand it completely at the time, since she is only thirteen years old.

Nancy Montgomery is a pretty, dark-haired woman who is the housekeeper and mistress of Thomas Kinnear. Grace is hired by Nancy to work at Kinnear’s house near Richmond Hill. Grace mistakenly believes that Nancy will be a friend, almost like a sister, just as Mary was, primarily because Nancy reminds Grace of Mary.

However, Nancy is not anything like Mary. Vain and self-centered, Nancy lives a comfortable life with Thomas Kinnear: practicing the piano, and wearing silk dresses and gold earrings. The fact that Thomas Kinnear and Nancy live together as if they are married is an open secret in Richmond Hill. Nancy is shunned for this breach of social norms; for example, at church, no one speaks to her. She has one set of friends, the Wrights. She spends a lot of time visiting them. However, Nancy’s position is extremely insecure and dependent upon her keeping Kinnear’s interest in her. Grace threatens Nancy’s position.

Nancy is pregnant when she is murdered. In fact, this is her second pregnancy. Before she worked for Kinnear, she had a baby who died. Kinnear does not know about Nancy’s pregnancy when they are killed.

Foul-mouthed and foul-tempered, James McDermott is a loaded gun with a hair-trigger. Seeing himself as much abused by his situation, primarily because he resents reporting to Nancy rather than Kinnear, McDermott shows his dislike for Nancy openly. He knows that Nancy and Kinnear are lovers, and he is barely able to contain his contempt. He despises women, making constant disparaging comments about women in general and referring to Nancy as a “whore” to Grace (255). He refuses to work for Nancy, wandering off when he knows he is needed and generally doing only the work he wants to do. Nancy gives him his notice shortly after Grace arrives at Richmond Hill.

McDermott, a hard-living, hard-drinking, ex-soldier from Ireland, works himself into a rage over his dismissal, fearing that Nancy will turn him out without a reference or his earned wages. His attraction to Grace pushes him over the edge: he believes that Grace has promised him sexual favors if he kills Nancy.

After the murders and robbing the house of valuables, they run to the United States, where they are caught and arrested. McDermott, who tells many different stories to the authorities, is consistent in who he blames for the killings, saying Grace put him up to it. McDermott and Grace are tried together for the murder of Kinnear. McDermott is convicted and sentenced to death. He is hanged on November 21, 1843, still blaming Grace for his fate in his final words.

A wealthy Scotsman, Kinnear has egalitarian principles, which he demonstrates by treating his servants with generosity and civility, paying high wages and allowing them autonomy in how they perform their tasks. His democratic principles extend to him pursuing his housekeeper romantically. His principles are not so egalitarian, however, that he wants to marry Nancy. By the time of the murders, Kinnear is showing a romantic interest in Grace too. He is probably the man who embraces and kisses Grace during her sleepwalking.

Both Nancy and Kinnear are shunned by polite society because of their affair; however, Kinnear’s male friends preserve their friendships with him, even if behind the backs of their wives. He hosts a drinking party with his friends, Captain Boyd and Colonel Bridgeford, at which they include Grace in Kinnear’s “harem” (252). Though generous, Kinnear acts as he pleases without regard for his reputation or anyone else’s. Kinnear’s wealth and class shield him from most of the negative consequences of his actions.

It is clear that McDermott shoots and kills Kinnear.

A reforming do-gooder and Methodist minister, Reverend Verringer sponsors Simon’s work with Grace on behalf of his Committee. Having heard from Dr. Biswanger that Simon is an expert in amnesia, Simon is hired to help Grace recover her memory. Hoping to receive a report that he can use to help free Grace, Verringer, nonetheless, is no fool; he does not want to put forth a petition unless he can be sure that Grace is innocent. Verringer is also ambitious, intelligent, and politically astute. For example, he acknowledges that Simon can benefit professionally from this assignment, and he reassures him that he will be paid whether or not he finds that Grace is innocent.

Reverend Verringer does believe in Grace’s innocence and accepts “Mary Whitney’s” confession as Grace’s exoneration. A tireless benefactor, he works on Grace’s pardon until 1872, when she is actually pardoned. Reverend Verringer marries Lydia after Simon’s abrupt departure.