Preview

An Essay Concerning Alias Grace as a Major Piece of Literature

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1182 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
An Essay Concerning Alias Grace as a Major Piece of Literature
The book Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood is a beautifully articulated work of literature. The book presents a Victorian mode spiced up with spooky plot twists. Although the book presents a Victorian mode it is not entirely comprised of Romantic ideals. Atwood is a modern writer who was influenced by the major paradigms of both American and Canadian history. Since she was a child, she was fascinated by the true story of Grace Marks. Grace Marks was a teenage, Canadian domestic worker of the nineteenth century who was convicted upon the murder of her employer (Thomas Kinnear) and his mistress (Nancy Montgomery). In this novel, Atwood reimagines Grace's enigmatic story. And in doing so, she embodies a signature theme, the injustices of women's lives which also conveys the literary importance of the book. Also, she portrays the hypocrisy and ignorance of Victorian culture. Atwood also cleverly uses the characters' conversations to convey topics such as prostitution, spiritualism, and treatment for the insane. This is one factor that makes Atwood's style unique. Alias Grace has a style that is thoroughly logical yet complicated. This is not the case with the author's tone which remains indifferent throughout the book. And so, this intriguing novel is one of unique style, indifferent tone, a signature theme that conveys the injustices of women's lives that was influenced by all of the important eras pertaining to both American and Canadian Literature.

Atwood presents a style unlike any other in her book, Alias Grace. Throughout the novel, Atwood inserts excerpts from other literary works to help illustrate the very complex Grace Marks. This is not common amongst modern writers. Another aspect that makes Atwood's style unique, at least in this book, is her change of perspective. The book constantly changes from one perspective to another. Most of the book is either a narrative or a conversation (mainly between Dr. Simon Jordan and Grace Marks). Sometimes the book is in

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Everyday people are forced into situations without a choice. Whether these positions are small or life changing, individuals are given the option to find good or bad. In the novel Tending to Grace, Kimberly Newton Fusco writes about a young girl's journey into accepting the world around her in a seemingly horrible point in her life. Cornelia deals with the abandonment of her mother and learning to love the crazy aunt she was left with and more importantly,herself. Through the bad Fusco shows that acceptance of oneself and the world around them can prevail.…

    • 94 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    What’s So Amazing about Grace? is a book written by Philip Yancey. It begins with a twisted story of a prostitute living on the streets. She is unable to feed her two-year old child and has to find another way to earn money. She could not think of any other alternatives and began selling her child out for prostitution. She could make much more money this way than she could in one night. The woman began counseling and when asked if she had ever considered going to church, her response was that attending church would only make her feel worse about herself.…

    • 752 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Tom Bailey had established a structure for his novel “The Grace That Keeps This World,” that always makes the reader truly read between the lines. There are many ways that readers of this novel could go about interpreting the literature. I am going to focus my paper on a certain aspect of the structure of the novel. While reading this book, I noticed how Bailey had used the main characters’ viewpoints to tell the story to the readers. I admire how the novel was very well-written and structured. I will interpret my paper on the meaning that I got out of the novel by “reading between the lines.” The main characters; Gary, Gary David, and Kevin, make a personal journey throughout the novel and deal with their own struggles just to try to find themselves.…

    • 1386 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Falling From Grace” follows a young girl, named Grace, who get’s lost at Point Nepean. This book was written by Jane Godwin. It shows us to never form a hasty opinion about anything, since it will never turn up like anything, similar to reality and that doing so can bring about a considerable measure of unneeded drama. The characters in the book who did a great deal of this would be; Kip, the police, people in the area and the news reporters.…

    • 600 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Both Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952) and Scarlet Letter (1850) by Nathaniel Hawthorne share some common themes. In Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne addresses the suffering that emerges from sin, especially the sin of adultery that leads to isolation of sinners. The plot revolves around two female characters Hester Prynne and her daughter, Pearl. Through the two women, Hawthorne reflects the women’s hardships in the 17th century. On the other hand, Invisible Man is a novel that not only critiques racism but one that makes women invisible. Ellison fails to develop the female characters in an equal manner to the male character to reinforce the idea of gender inequality. This essay seeks to evaluate the representation of gender in American literature in Invisible Man and Scarlett Letter.…

    • 1848 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Anne Sexton’s poem, “Her Kind” presents a stark look at the roles that women place themselves in and are forced into by societal pressures. Throughout history, women have been expected to take on the role of obedient wife, and failure to do so can result in a barrage of retaliations on a woman and her lifestyle. Though Sexton’s troubled past of depression and eventual suicide has cast negative light on the meanings of her works--particularly speculation that her work is a confession-- “Her Kind” is not so much a personal story as it is the story of the three roles women continue to fall into, even to this day: a witch, an old-school midwife, and a whore.…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Margaret atwood tends to keep her characters very mysterious in her dystopian novel the handmaid’s tale. The author gives each character a sense of mysteriousness like Serena and Nick. I would like to write several journal entries written from the point of vue of Serena Joy as my topic. I will be writing these journal entries from the point of vue of Serena Joy at different points of the story. I will also be making a connection between these journal entries and the novel itself. The main literary features that I will be addressing are Characterization, Imagery, and Theme.…

    • 268 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Margaret Atwood is once of Canada’s best known literary composers. She is best known for her ability as an author of novels such as Alias Grace, Bodily Harm, Hairball, Rape Fantasies, and the highly acclaimed The Handmaid’s Tale, which was later made into a movie. These works establish her as a feminist writer, raising issues of women in literature, the difficulties associated with being female and the role of women in society.…

    • 1866 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    From the beginning, Zora Neale Hurston was ahead of her time. She was born early in 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama. While she was being born her father was off about to make a decision that would be crucial to her in the development as a woman and as a writer; they moved in 1892 to Eatonville, Florida, an all-black town. In childhood, Hurston grew up uneducated and poor, but was immersed with black folk life, and the town of Eatonville had become like an extended family to her. She was protected from racism because she encountered no white people. Booker T. Washington observed that in black-governed towns like Eatonville,…

    • 1929 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary, imagery is defined as the use of pictures or words to create images, especially to create an impression or a mood (dictionary.cambridge.org). In literary works of art, it is customary for authors to employ the use of imagery as a means of adding depth to their writing. It has a way of encompassing the senses as opposed to simply permitting the reader to construct a mental image. James Baldwin utilizes this convention in “Sonny’s Blues” to relay an accurate account of the period that he lived in.…

    • 747 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Depression in the 1800s

    • 1211 Words
    • 5 Pages

    William Faulkner and Charlotte Gilman are two well known writers for intriguing novels of the 1800’s. Their two eccentric pieces, “A Rose for Emily” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” are equally alluring. These authors and their works have been well recognized, but also critized. The criticism focuses on the society that is portrayed in these novels. The modern readers of today’s society are resentful to this dramatic society. These two novels are full of tradition, rebellion and the oppression over women’s rights. Both of these novels share the misery of the culture, but there is some distinction between the two. “A Rose for Emily” is a social commentary while “The Yellow Wallpaper” is an informative novel about the writer herself. The authors outlook focus on the gloomy structure in society during that time frame and therefore, create down hearted, reckless characters that offer stimulation for women of all generations.…

    • 1211 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Minnie's Breakdown

    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In “A Jury of Her Peers”, it is difficult for the reader not to be thrown into the mindset of Mrs. Wright. Minnie Foster Wright was a sweet woman who died over a 20 year period. This story shows how belittled women were in these days. The two women who joined their husbands to witness the scene were privy to every scornful thing the men had to say about Minnie’s upkeep of the place. What the men didn’t realize is that the only evidence they could possibly find to convict Minnie was invisible to them but not their wives. The women saw the abuse all through the clues left behind; it was the abuse that killed John Wright.…

    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Mrs. Beazley's Deeds

    • 1400 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The story “Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds” is about how women were valued in the nineteenth century society. The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, moved to California at the age of thirty after divorcing her husband. “She lectured on women’s status and socialism, taught school, operated a boarding house, edited newspapers, and wrote articles and novels. Her articles on feminist issues are Women and Economics (1898), Concerning Children (1900), Human Work (1904), The Man-Made World (1911). Gilman’s novels are The Crux (1911), Herland (1915), Moving the Mountain (1911), and With Her in Our Land (1916)” (386). The latter three are feminist works. The author has an autobiography that was published in 1935, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. She was terminally ill with cancer and chose to end her own life in 1935.…

    • 1400 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Grace Marks Hysteria

    • 922 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The novel has two narrative threads, one by Grace Marks as a first-person narrator, and the other a third-person…

    • 922 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Thematic Paper

    • 1176 Words
    • 3 Pages

    According to critic Brian Finney, the novel, Atonement “employs the narrative voice of a 77 year old English woman” (1). Ian McEwan sets his novel in 1935 London, narrated through the memory of a woman in 1999. His protagonist, Briony a then 13 year old girl tells a lie that haunts her for the rest of her life. She accused a family friend, Robbie Turner of raping her cousin Lola. Her sister Cecilia did not believe the lie and left her family behind for the man she loved. As the story develops you begin to understand the differences in class and gender in that time period. McEwan illustrates what was expected from men and women. Women were held to a different standard than men. They were expected to stay at home to be a wife and mother or during the war effort become a nurse. Class was no different; this pertained to the amount of money you made and your stature in society. People did not float between classes; if you were lower class you did not per se rub elbows with the upper class. The novel shows the negative effects on characters that do not stay within their gender or class roles.…

    • 1176 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays