Alias Grace

Grace reports that this is her ninth day talking with Simon. Today he brings a potato and sets it in front of her. She believes that he’s a little “off in the head” (98). She also says that one of the reasons she never answers Simon directly is that it’s bad luck to say out loud what you really want. That is what happened to Mary Whitney. Simon asks her if she has dreams at night, and she tells him she cannot remember, but reveals her dream from the previous night to the reader. She dreams that she is back in Mr. Kinnear’s kitchen, scrubbing the floor, when a peddler comes along. He tries to sell her another woman’s bloody hand. To justify her hiding this dream from Simon, Grace insists that she deserves some privacy, something of her own to keep for herself.

Simon next asks Grace to tell him the story of her life, from the beginning, offering to read from her confession to get her started. She insists that the confession is not true, as it is merely a mixture of what her lawyer told her to say and what the newspaper reporters made up. Simon asks her who Mary Whitney is, which startles Grace. Grace explains that it is the name she gave at the inn in Lewiston. Mary Whitney was Grace’s friend, she explains. Though she is now dead, Grace’s story would be very different without Mary.

Grace tells her story: she was born in Northern Ireland to an English father and Irish mother. Her family lived in a two-room house near a small village. Her mother’s sister, aunt Pauline, encouraged Grace to set a high price on herself so that she wouldn’t marry the first man who came along, as Grace’s mother did. Pauline and her husband, Roy, kept a shop in the nearby town and were well-off. The two sisters were a dead Methodist minister’s daughters, which meant that though they were penniless, they were well-educated. Pauline thought that they had both married beneath themselves.

Grace takes after her mother, who was beautiful with auburn hair and large blue eyes. Grace’s father was a stone-mason, tall and handsome with blonde hair. He had trouble getting work because he was an Englishman, though he seemed to be doing well when they married. They married because Grace’s oldest sister, Martha, was on the way. They “each felt trapped by the other” (105).

As more children arrived, Grace’s father began to drink, and as he got a reputation for drinking, he was hired for fewer jobs. The resulting vicious cycle of poverty, along with nine children to feed, doomed the Marks family. When Grace was nine, her oldest sister Martha left home to go into service. Two years after that, her oldest brother left home to go to sea on a merchant ship.

When Grace’s father is involved with arson and a murder, things get worse. They survive on Aunt Pauline’s charity and on Grace’s mother’s sewing shirts, which Grace helps with. The father falls completely into his role as a violent drunkard, beating his wife and terrorizing his children.

When Aunt Pauline finds she is pregnant, Pauline and Roy decide to send the Marks family to Canada. They cannot afford to keep feeding and supporting eleven other people.

The Marks family emigrates.

Grace recounts the harrowing journey across the Atlantic Ocean in a hold of a ship with no ventilation, toilets, running water, or privacy. The captain tells them the crossing will take six to eight weeks to their destination, Toronto. The emigrants are treated like animals, and, without even rudimentary sanitation, disease runs rampant through the ship. Many emigrants die of disease and starvation before reaching Canada, including Grace’s mother, who is buried at sea. Grace is haunted by the notion that her mother’s soul remains trapped inside the ship because there was no window to open to let her soul out.

The Marks family arrives in Toronto and finds lodging with a widow, Mrs. Burt. Grace is left to raise her six brothers and sisters without much help from her father. Soon enough, their father disappears on drinking binges, though for a time he attempts unsuccessfully to court the widow Burt. Grace’s father forces her out of the house into service, with the idea that he can take her wages. Mrs. Burt helps Grace get a position with the Alderman Parkinson family. At the age of twelve, Grace is on her own, earning board and a dollar a month. She is happy to escape her father’s beatings and rages, though she is afraid for the other children she leaves behind.

This chapter consists of a letter from Simon to his friend, Dr. Edward Murchie. Simon congratulates his friend on his engagement, commenting that news of this will only encourage Simon’s mother to find him a wife too. The prime candidate is a Miss Faith Cartwright. Simon reports that he has made little progress with Grace Marks, though he continues to look for the right key to unlock her mind. He remarks upon her self-possession and sanity, saying that his job would be easier if she was actually mad. He is bored with the society, and without like-minded company he resorts to learning gardening.