The Eroticism of Class and the Enigma of Margaret Atwood's "Alias Grace"

Changing the Pattern: Reclaiming History, Constructing Herstory in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace

“…She is the first to realize that Jordan's interest in her has erotic overtones, and tries to manipulate it in her favour. Stanley (2003) argues that Grace's class and status as a servant holds an erotic appeal to the male characters that employ or study her, yet also desire sexual mastery over her, whether it is by metaphorical or literal imprisonment, or through rescuing her. Her father, her employers, and other authority figures have tried to obtain mastery over Grace by keeping her in the subjugated position of a servant, a patient, or an object of sexual desire, while men like Dr Jordan, Reverend Verringer, the lawyer Mackenzie, and Jamie Walsh, the boy who testified against her at the trial and whom Grace eventually marries, have all harboured fantasies of rescuing her.…”

“…Grace survives because she has learned to manipulate the male gaze, and more broadly, public opinion, and to resist by alternatively retreating into silence and offering multiple versions of her story. Her amnesia, bouts of hysteria, and the insanity episode, may be read as her means of protest against various oppressive systems of control (Stanley 2003;Bruun 2012;Mannon 2014). Grace also firmly rejects to be pinned down and categorized: there are almost as many versions of her personality as there are characters in the novel.…”