Alias Grace Setting

Setting in Alias Grace
Setting is one of the most important elements exists in every kind of fictions, it represents the time, place, and social context that raised by the novel. By using setting, author creates particular moods, character qualities, or features of theme in order to make his or her work more attractable and vivid. Margaret Atwood successfully uses setting to organize the case of Grace. It is a murder case that happened in Toronto at 1843, due to the background of that period, the case is quiet arguable. However though the nature, human material and culture setting used in the novel, readers are able to experience Grace’s tragic life and establish specific mood about Grace Mark.

First of all, the natural setting is playing
an essential role to make readers pay attention to the environment and understand how it affects Grace - the main character’s personality. In other words, the nature setting tells the reason for Grace lose the hope of life and something actually makes a contrast with events occur in the story. “Peonies come up through the loose grey pebbles, their buds testing the air like snail’s eyes, then swelling and opening, huge dark-red flowers all shining and glossy like satin.” This is description of flowers at the beginning of the books, it foreshows Grace’s life. Grace is a smart girl and supposes to be success. However, she grows up in a wrong family; it let she ends up in the jail.
It also used as symbol of blood in order to drop a hint for the merciless murder. Once, the Grace family moved to the New Land – Canada, the
nature setting creates a hopeless atmosphere. “When we did see it,…,it was all rocks and trees, and looked dark and forbidding, and not fit for human habitation at all.” “The city was not in a good situation, being flat and damp…The rain was soft and warm, and the air had a stick and swampy feel to it.” The adjectives, swampy stick dark and forbidding are describe Canada by the author. They create sentimental oppressive and dismal mood in order to fit Grace’s condition and imply her future as well. Though describe the geographic surrounding like hills, mountains shorelines, etc, the nature setting brings the picture of the place that story and set up a suitable mood for readers to understand the story.

Moreover, the human materials also establish the atmosphere by describe the surround objects with more detail. Compare with the nature setting, even both of them are taking about the environment, the material setting shows more characteristics of that period. So it usually represents the people’s taste and parts of their thoughts. “This room has only a little window high up with bars on the inside, and a straw-filled mattress. There’s a crust of bread on a tin plate, and a stone crock of water, and a wooden bucket with nothing in it which is there for a chamber pot.” This description of the prison cell forms a mood of darkness, depression and deathly stillness. Based on these moods, people can feel what Grace has experienced for long time. Besides, the condition on the boat is worse than readers think, “everyone crammed in like herrings in a box, and no window or any away of letting in the air, except the hatchways that led down…the way to relieve is use a buckets, they are overturned by mistake and even if the bucket remained upright, what didn’t go into it went onto the floor.” It not only makes the situation real to readers, but also explains why Grace is disappointed about future. The human material is based on the detail of objects; it shows the past to contemporary society and set up moos to foil the events.
Last not the least is the cultural setting; it used as a verbal paintbrush to builds up the social circumstance.
Except the language and education, the cultural always emphasize the conflicts in the society. In the Alice Grace, the main issue reflects in that period is the social interaction between men and women. When women wear the particular custom, “They are like swans, drifting along on unseen feet; or else like the jellyfish in the waters of the rocky harbor near our house.” Through the dresses of women, the author shows the different between men and women. The reason for women wear that is in order to keep distance with men. Later on, when Grace worked with Mary, she is taken to see the street where whores lived. “many of them got diseases, and were old by the time they were twenty, and had to cover their face with paint, so as to deceive the poor drunken sailors. And although they might look very elegant from distance, with feathers and satins, up close you could see that their dresses were soiled and ill-fitting…they scarcely had enough left over for their bread.” Life already force them to be a whore, however, their condition haven’t better than others. Women’s lifestyle is needs to be sympathized and change. In additional, the society recognize “murderess as a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word – musky and oppressive.” This view is a prejudice towards women. According the cultural setting, readers are able understand the society
form different aspects, such as religion, costume, social standing, etc. The society treats women differently and worse than men.
In a word, the purpose of setting is to create an emotional climate or convey ideas in the novel. These three kinds of settings serve the story by give the credibility of story, organize the plot and establish the atmospheres. Furthermore, the author creates the descriptions of the environment, surrounding objects and cultural background; those pictures make readers have better idea about the society where the murder happened and walk in Grace’s shoes to feel realize her views.