Essay Questions

In Alias Grace, Atwood highlights the creativity of women through multiple modes in the book. She emphasizes Grace's storytelling, quilt making, and her line of thinking. Why did Atwood choose to display this?

Atwood chose to display the creative side of women to tarnish the stereotype of the generic housewives in homes. By simply giving her character the art of creativity, she established Grace as a thoughtful, intelligent character that could easily find the solution to problems and was flexible to the situation around her. Even though in that century Grace was expected to cook, clean, and be the maidservant in the house; she proves everyone wrong quickly as she is proven to be more educated than most of the male characters and the higher class female characters in the book. This also tarnishes the stereotype of the poor being less intelligent than the rich, as Grace was an Irish maidservant. Grace is displayed as having the power of how her story gets's told and the mindset to get tasks done, which is how she successfully is able to manage and prevent her mental disorder from being shown to Dr. Jordan.

What does the author achieve by displaying the multiple perspectives of the main plot of the novel?

In the novel, Atwood chooses to display different perspectives by showing the dissipation of every personal relationship that Grace makes. From her best friend to her fellow work servants, Grace gets betrayed and lied to, leading her to have trust issues with whomever she talks to. We can see these issues when she talks to Dr. Jordan or when she reaches new employment. Towards the end of the book when it is discovered that Grace has bipolar disorder, all the perspectives in the book are a culmination of the mental effect it has had on Grace and how she has coped with all the tragedy and anger thrown at her throughout the years. The plot of the novel thickens simply by hearing witness statements and opinions over whether Grace committed a murder or not, knowing that the only opinion that does matter has irregularities in the story and cannot convey it properly.