Grace Marks Hysteria
Grace Marks
“Gone mad is what they say, and sometimes Run mad, as if mad is a different direction, like west; as if mad is a different house you could step into, or a separate country entirely. But when you go mad you don't go any other place, you stay where you are. And somebody else comes in.” (Pg-33) Grace Marks was convicted of the murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his housekeeper and mistress Nancy Montgomery which took place in Kingston, Ontario in 1843.Tried and convicted, it was never entirely clear how the occasions happened, and the true association of Grace Marks in the murder is still a mystery. The novel has two narrative threads, one by Grace Marks as a first-person narrator, and the other a third-person …show more content…
(Dictionary/Reference) Hysteria was the first mental disorder attributed to women and only women. A catch-all for symptoms including, but by no means limited to: nervousness, hallucinations, emotional outbursts and various urges of the sexual variety. Which when one reads the novel can see these in Grace.Her friend and companion Mary Whitney makes her aware about the aim of woman’ life “It was a custom for young girls in this country to hire themselves out, in order to earn money for their dowries, and then they would marry, and if their husbands proposed they would soon be hiring their own servants in their turn and then they, would be mistress of a tidy farmhouse, and independent”. (Pg-182) Women in Alias Grace are projected as useable entities existing for the sexual use and utilization of men. Grace observers the sexual manipulation of women not only in her mother‘s life but also in her friends Mary Whitney‘s and housekeeper Nancy Montgomery‘s life. She come across sexually demanding and exploiting men on each step of her life: as maid servant faces amorous and sexual advances of her employers, as a prisoner is sexually harassed by guards and as a patient of hysteria is sexually molested by doctors. She is warned of men‘s nature by her relatives, women employers and
“Gone mad is what they say, and sometimes Run mad, as if mad is a different direction, like west; as if mad is a different house you could step into, or a separate country entirely. But when you go mad you don't go any other place, you stay where you are. And somebody else comes in.” (Pg-33) Grace Marks was convicted of the murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his housekeeper and mistress Nancy Montgomery which took place in Kingston, Ontario in 1843.Tried and convicted, it was never entirely clear how the occasions happened, and the true association of Grace Marks in the murder is still a mystery. The novel has two narrative threads, one by Grace Marks as a first-person narrator, and the other a third-person …show more content…
(Dictionary/Reference) Hysteria was the first mental disorder attributed to women and only women. A catch-all for symptoms including, but by no means limited to: nervousness, hallucinations, emotional outbursts and various urges of the sexual variety. Which when one reads the novel can see these in Grace.Her friend and companion Mary Whitney makes her aware about the aim of woman’ life “It was a custom for young girls in this country to hire themselves out, in order to earn money for their dowries, and then they would marry, and if their husbands proposed they would soon be hiring their own servants in their turn and then they, would be mistress of a tidy farmhouse, and independent”. (Pg-182) Women in Alias Grace are projected as useable entities existing for the sexual use and utilization of men. Grace observers the sexual manipulation of women not only in her mother‘s life but also in her friends Mary Whitney‘s and housekeeper Nancy Montgomery‘s life. She come across sexually demanding and exploiting men on each step of her life: as maid servant faces amorous and sexual advances of her employers, as a prisoner is sexually harassed by guards and as a patient of hysteria is sexually molested by doctors. She is warned of men‘s nature by her relatives, women employers and