Grace Marks
Grace is the eponymous protagonist of the story yet, as the "alias" of the title hints, she remains an enigma throughout. Her narrative of her early life suggests acute powers of observation, combined with the intense naivety of youth and a certain degree of prudery and fear of social scandal. We also learn that she tends to suffer from blackouts and amnesia following traumatic events and that she hears voices, experiences hallucinations and is prone to somnambulism. Her account of events in general is called into doubt, however, by her tendency to adjust her narrative to her audience and her extreme diffidence in openly disclosing her thoughts, feelings and memories to others.
The revelation, under hypnosis, of her secondary identity as Mary Whitney provides a degree of narrative resolution but leaves many questions unanswered.
Dr. Simon Jordan
Simon Jordan begins the novel as a self-assured and rather self-absorbed rising professional. He uses a variety of therapeutic methods which would have been avant-garde at the period in which the novel is set.
His lifestyle is indicative of the hypocrisy of the society in which he is living. Whilst apparently an upstanding member of his community, with its conservative sexual standards, Jordan fetishises working class women such as Grace and visits prostitutes. He is able to move away and start a new life following his relationship with his landlady, whereas she is left to cope with the ensuing scandal.
The failure of his efforts to uncover Grace's secrets leads to a gradual unravelling of his personal and professional life and a curious role-reversal between himself and his patient. At the end of the novel, instead of having cured Grace's memory loss, he is suffering from amnesia himself. While Grace has been freed from prison, the incapacitated Simon has been in some sense imprisoned, forced to abandon his professional ambitions and accept his mother's choice of wife.
James McDermott
The other convicted murder of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery. McDermott was employed by Kinnear as a stableman and handyman. He grows intensely jealous and resentful of Nancy Montgomery's improved status as a consequence of her relationship with Kinnear. That his rage is directed primarily against Montgomery, not Kinnear, is again indicative of the misogynistic double standards which characterise the world of the novel. His account of events characterizes Grace as a manipulative seductress and casts her own, very different account of events into doubt throughout the novel.
Thomas Kinnear
A wealthy Canadian farmer who employed Grace Marks and James McDermott. He carried out an affair with his housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery, before being murdered by Marks and McDermott. In his egalitarian treatment of his servants, Kinnear initially appears to espouse reformist, democratic principles. However, itseems unlikely that he would carry these principles so far as to marry Nancy or to act as a father to her unborn child. Before the murders he appears to be transferring his attentions from his pregnant lover to the teenage Grace.
Nancy Montgomery
Thomas Kinnear's housekeeper and mistress, who was murdered by Grace Marks and James McDermott. Grace initially hopes that Nancy will be a friend and mentor, because she reminds her of Mary Whitney. Instead, Nancy feels threatened by Grace as Kinnear begins to take a sexual interest in the younger woman. Nancy bears the brunt of the social scandal stemming from her relationship with Kinnear, and is the main object of McDermott and Marks' resentment. In a final show of double standards, Marks and McDermott are only tried and condemned for Kinnear's murder, giving the impression that Nancy's death is secondary and unimportant.
Mary Whitney
A maid and friend of Grace Marks. She helps Grace to get adjusted to the life of a working woman. She dreams of saving up to get married and run her own home, but becomes pregnant and dies after a miscarriage. Mary's democratic vision in many ways typifies and prefigures the movements for women's and worker's rights which would become increasingly powerful with the turn of the twentieth century. She becomes a second mother to Grace, and the names of the two characters invite an ironic association and comparison with the Christian iconography of the Virgin Mary and Christ as bringer of divine grace to the world. Grace assumes Mary's identity when she and McDermott flee over the border after the murders, and the voice of Mary Whitney emerges as Grace's murderous alter ego under hypnosis.
Jeremiah (aka Dr Jerome DuPont)
Jeremiah is a figure who, according to Grace, ppears repeatedly in the text, although there is a degree of uncertainty as to whether all of the characters she identifies as Jeremiah are effectively the same person. She first meets him as teenager when she was working for Mrs Alderman Parkinson, where he came to peddle his wares. He re-emerges at the Kinnear household, where he invites Grace to abscond with him, warning her of the coming danger. Later, he comes to Grace's prison in the guise of Dr Jerome DuPont, a neuro-hypnosis practitioner. It is under his hypnosis that it is 'revealed' that Grace was possessed by the spirit of Mary Whitney when she murdered Mr Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery. Jeremiah's chameleon-like mutability contrasts to the real and metaphorical prisons in which Grace and Simon.
Mr Kenneth Mackenzie
Grace's lawyer in the Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery murder trial. He tries to persuade Grace to make up a story about the day the murders occurred rather than admit that she has no memory of anything that transpired that day.
Mrs Rachel Humpfrey
Dr Simon Jordan's landlady and lover. He describes her as someone who pretends to be prim and proper but in reality is very sexually charged.
Major Humphrey
Major Humphrey is Mrs Rachel Humphrey's alcoholic husband.
Dora
Dora is the maid at Mrs Rachel Humphrey's house.
Dr Joseph Workman
The medical superintendent at the Toronto asylum. He advocates for the gentle treatment of grace after she leaves the asylum for Kingston Penitentiary.
Dr Samuel Bannerling
Dr Bannerling is Grace's attending doctor at the asylum. He sexually abused Grace during her stay at the asylum and claimed that Grace was a temptress and a liar.
Dr Binswanger
Dr Binswanger is a Swiss doctor who recommended Dr Simon Jordon to conduct a mental evaluation of Grace to Reverend Verringer.
Reverend Verringer
The reverend is the head of the committee that is working to exonerate Grace. He is persistent in campaigning for Grace's innocence, although he reveals a certain opportunism and political astuteness in underlining the possible career benefits for Simon of treating Grace and again in marrying Lydia shortly after Simon's abrupt departure.
Mrs Constance Jordan
Mrs Constance Jordan is Dr Simon Jordan's mother. She is always anxious about him and deeply desires for him to make an advantageous marriage.
Miss Lydia
Miss Lydia is one of the Governors two daughters. She is sweet and kind and smitten with Dr Simon Jordan. She is kind to Grace but is often thoughtless in her words and actions.
George Parkinson
George is one Mrs Alderman Parkinson's two sons and is a student at Harvard College. It is strongly suggested that George is the father of Mary Whitney's child, though never explicitly confirmed.
Mrs Phelan
Grace meets Mrs Phelan on her voyage to Canada. When Grace's mother falls ill it is Mrs Phelan who helps her look after her siblings. She introduces Grace to the superstition that one must always open a window when a person dies, so the soul can escape. This superstition haunts Grace throughout the book.
Grace's Mother
Grace's Mother dies of an undiagnosed stomach disease on the family's voyage to Canada. She has eight children and is described as a gentle and vulnerable woman.
Grace's Father
Grace's father is a severe alcoholic and physically abuses her mother. He was implicated in a murder and arson, which is why Grace's family emigrated from Ireland.
Mrs Alderman Parkinson
Mrs Alderman Parkinson is an American described as an 'imposing figure of a woman' and was Grace's first employer.
Miss Marrianne
Miss Lydia's sister.
Richard Parkinson
Mrs Alderman Parkinson's other son who is also a student at Harvard College.
Mrs Quenell
A practitioner of spiritualism, Mrs Quenell is a participant of the governor's wife's discussion circle.
Mrs Burt
Grace's family's landlady when they first emigrate to Canada.
Agnes
One of Mrs Alderman Parkinson's chambermaids.
Effie
Another chambermaid who works at Mrs Alderman Parkinson's.
Janet
The daughter of the warden who was in charge when Grace receives her pardon from Kingston Penitentiary. Janet accompanies Grace to the United States of America where she also stood as a bridesmaid in Grace's wedding to Jamie Walsh.
Jamie Walsh
Jamie Walsh is a young farmhand at the Kinnear homestead who develops a crush on Grace. His jealousy at her apparent elopement with McDermott leads him to deliver a damning testimony against her at trial which is instrumental in her condemnation. Later in life, he repents of his actions and marries the newly liberated Grace, fetishizing her innocence and suffering. Over the course of the novel, Walsh thus advocates both of the extremes which emerge in how Grace is perceived by those around her - the murderous seductress and the innocent, virginal martyr. He thus illustrates both the contradictory and hypocritical ideals surrounding women and the inscrutability of Grace herself as a subject.
