Hello again! Yes, you read that right: we finally got to the part of the book where Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery were murdered! It took a while, but we got there! Was the wait worth the big reveal? Absolutely not.
Since I last blogged, it seems like very little has happened. To begin with, Grace started to realize how sketchy the Kinnear residence is. She grows weary of Nancy, who is a devout worshipper having an affair with her employer, and Mr. Kinnear, who gets creepier with every sentence, and of course, James McDermont, who is the definition of the scary farmhand from hell, much like Judd from Oklahoma! While Grace tells her story, it becomes more and more clear that Dr. Jordan is developing unprofessional feelings for Grace, which can only add conflict to the story.
About half way through the reading, we come to find that a peddler from Grace’s past named Jerimiah is posing as a neurohypnotist named Dr. Jerome DuPont. He symbols to Grace to keep this a secret.
Then, the fated moment arrives: Thomas tells Grace of his plan to kill Nancy and Mr. Kinnear, and then rob them. Grace tries to stop the terrible plan, but she can only do so much when she feels she is against a madman. On the fated day, Grace tells Dr. Jordan that she only remembers hearing the sound of the ax hitting Nancy, but she blacked out. Then, later that day, McDermont killed Thomas Kinnear with a shot to the body. Grace and McDermont run away together, and McDermont tries to rape Grace to get “what he is owed”. She manages to stall his advances, and the section ends with Grace dreaming and then saying “Just then there was a knocking on the door,” (343).
Now that I have updated you on the state of the story, onto the analysis! Since now I fully understand the characters, I thought it would be best to give you a true explanation of them now:
Grace Marks: the “protagonist” of the story. Grace has been accused of aiding and abetting the murders of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery, though she herself does not know if she did it. Grace’s early life was quite tough, as she lost her mother and had to deal with a drunken father. Her only real friend, Mary Whitney, died of a botched abortion when Grace was 15. Unable to bear working where her friend died, Grace goes to the Kinnears for a fresh start. Her quiet demeanor and soft personality certainly makes the reader think she is innocent of any crime, but is she just a snake lying in the grass?
Dr. Simon Jordan: a psychologist from the States. He is studing Grace mostly out of curiousity, and I find him to be horribly creepy. He sits with Grace almost everyday to listen to her story and telling of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery, taking notes and asking questions to help uncover the truth. As far as personality goes, he seems to be obsessed with women, particularly Grace.
Thomas Kinnear: you’d think since he’s so important, he’d be in the book more. We know little of Thomas Kinnear besides the fact that he travels a great deal, keeps mostly to himself, and he’s having an affair with Nancy, his house runner. He too gives off creepy vibes to Grace, and seems to make subtle advances on her.
Nancy Montgomery: I don’t think anyone in this book likes Nancy. Her biggest personality trait is that she’s horrifically two-faced. She’ll scream at Grace and McDermont one minute, then joke nad laugh with them as if nothing has happened. She is incredibly jealous when Grace does anything for Mr. Kinnear and with throw a fit at Grace for the smallest things. Her temper makes her incredibly unlikeable, and makes it somewhat difficult for the reader to feel very bad about the fact that she’s dead (just being honest, guys).
James McDermont: the man with a worse temper than Nancy. Breathing around McDermont is all it takes to get him to sulk. Anytime he is described in the book, he is described as “glaring”. He develops an infatuation with Grace almost as soon as she starts at the Kinnear home; this infatuation comes with raging jealousy and feelings of possession, which lead him to think that Grace belongs to him and has “led him on” meaning she must have sex with him in order to pay a debt to him.
All in all, a lot of these characters are very unlikeable. It’s hard to root for any of them, except Grace; however, the reader must remember that Grace is the one telling the story. Not only that, but she is telling the story to a man who could help her get out of prison, so wouldn’t she make the story as favorable to her as possible? Wouldn’t she say that Mr. Kinnear was absent, Nancy was difficult, and McDermont was insane to help her own case? These are questions that must be asked anytime a first person narration is involved, but particularly in a case like this when the truth is so mysterious.
So, that’s all I have for this post! Thanks for joining me and tune in next week when I tell you whether Grace is innocent or guilty!
Friday, February 16, 2018
Thursday, February 8, 2018
Post 2: We’re at The Good Stuff
Welcome back! I’m sure you have all been anxiously awaiting the second installment of this Alias Grace blog.
I will be one of the first to admit that the book was slow to pick up in the beginning. In this section however, we learn a great deal about Grace’s backstory and what led to her living with at Thomas Kinnears in the first place. Most importantly, we learn about Mary Whitney, whom Grace has mentioned often, but we don’t know much about.
Grace tells us about Mary Whitney and her strong, brilliant, and bright personality. Mary is one who does not passively accept hat happens around her, but questions it and wishes to make it change. She frequently laments about how unfair The divide between the classes is. On page 150, Grace says “But it angered her that some people had so much and others so little, as she could not see any divine plan in it,” (150). This is just one of many instances where we learn of Mary’s forward thinking attitude and ways. She also comments frequently on the condition of women, telling Grace she must always be cautious of men and their dangerous ways. Mary Whitney reminds me a great deal of Moira form The Handmaid’s Tale because of this.
On that note, Grace reminds me of Offred, the main character of The Handmaid’s Tale. They both are passive, always watching the world around them. They also have similar backstories involved a lot of loss. I think that this is Margaret Atwood’s MO if you will of the protagonists in her book, as The Blind Assassin’s main character Iris was the same.
The tale of Mary Whitney is not one that ends happily. After Grace tells us of all of her time with Mary, she tells us that Mary—an unwed young lady in the early 1800s—is pregnant. The scandal that this would cause Mary is horrifying for the two to think about, and so they devise a plan to go visit a special doctor. Grace gives Mary all of her savings so she may afford the operation, which is essentially and abortion. Shortly after the abortion, Mary dies leaving Grace with an unimaginable amount of guilt; she has just lost the only friend she has ever known.
Mary’s death forces Grace to leave her place of work in search of another. After going through a few places, she finds herself employed at a shoemakers. The shoemaker’s wife then introduces Grace to Nancy Montgomery, one of the people Grace is said to have helped murder.
At the point in the book where Lilly and I stopped, Grace is working for Thomas Kinnear (the other person she is said to have murdered) and everything seems to be normal. This most likely means that in the next section, they will be dead. My main reason for believing this is that Grace literally says “It is strange to reflect that of all the people in that house, I was the only one of them left alive in six months time,” (209). So, the murder scene must be coming soon.
Last time I read, I made a note of a few things: first, I don’t trust Simon (the doctor talking with Grace) at all. Not one bit. It seems to me as though he is there under suspicious circumstances, and he is utterly self absorbed and a little creepy. It seems as though every interaction he has with a woman is sexual to him. When his landlady passes out, he considers taking advantage of her. “He has no wish to alter [their] situation, despite an image that leaps into his mind, unbidden—aroused, no doubt by the sight of a helpless woman extended upon his tumbled bed,” (142). Later, he meets a potential suitor and immediately imagines her as “a famous Parisian courtesan who had herself presented at a banquet this way; naked, of course. He occupies himself with undressing and garnishing Lydia,” (pg 193). These thoughts are not few and far between, and I fear that he may try to take advantage of Grace later in the book.
The book is getting quite interesting at this point, and I was actually a little upset that I had to put it down on several occasions. I’m hopeful that the next installment will be just as good as this one!
I will be one of the first to admit that the book was slow to pick up in the beginning. In this section however, we learn a great deal about Grace’s backstory and what led to her living with at Thomas Kinnears in the first place. Most importantly, we learn about Mary Whitney, whom Grace has mentioned often, but we don’t know much about.
Grace tells us about Mary Whitney and her strong, brilliant, and bright personality. Mary is one who does not passively accept hat happens around her, but questions it and wishes to make it change. She frequently laments about how unfair The divide between the classes is. On page 150, Grace says “But it angered her that some people had so much and others so little, as she could not see any divine plan in it,” (150). This is just one of many instances where we learn of Mary’s forward thinking attitude and ways. She also comments frequently on the condition of women, telling Grace she must always be cautious of men and their dangerous ways. Mary Whitney reminds me a great deal of Moira form The Handmaid’s Tale because of this.
On that note, Grace reminds me of Offred, the main character of The Handmaid’s Tale. They both are passive, always watching the world around them. They also have similar backstories involved a lot of loss. I think that this is Margaret Atwood’s MO if you will of the protagonists in her book, as The Blind Assassin’s main character Iris was the same.
The tale of Mary Whitney is not one that ends happily. After Grace tells us of all of her time with Mary, she tells us that Mary—an unwed young lady in the early 1800s—is pregnant. The scandal that this would cause Mary is horrifying for the two to think about, and so they devise a plan to go visit a special doctor. Grace gives Mary all of her savings so she may afford the operation, which is essentially and abortion. Shortly after the abortion, Mary dies leaving Grace with an unimaginable amount of guilt; she has just lost the only friend she has ever known.
Mary’s death forces Grace to leave her place of work in search of another. After going through a few places, she finds herself employed at a shoemakers. The shoemaker’s wife then introduces Grace to Nancy Montgomery, one of the people Grace is said to have helped murder.
At the point in the book where Lilly and I stopped, Grace is working for Thomas Kinnear (the other person she is said to have murdered) and everything seems to be normal. This most likely means that in the next section, they will be dead. My main reason for believing this is that Grace literally says “It is strange to reflect that of all the people in that house, I was the only one of them left alive in six months time,” (209). So, the murder scene must be coming soon.
Last time I read, I made a note of a few things: first, I don’t trust Simon (the doctor talking with Grace) at all. Not one bit. It seems to me as though he is there under suspicious circumstances, and he is utterly self absorbed and a little creepy. It seems as though every interaction he has with a woman is sexual to him. When his landlady passes out, he considers taking advantage of her. “He has no wish to alter [their] situation, despite an image that leaps into his mind, unbidden—aroused, no doubt by the sight of a helpless woman extended upon his tumbled bed,” (142). Later, he meets a potential suitor and immediately imagines her as “a famous Parisian courtesan who had herself presented at a banquet this way; naked, of course. He occupies himself with undressing and garnishing Lydia,” (pg 193). These thoughts are not few and far between, and I fear that he may try to take advantage of Grace later in the book.
The book is getting quite interesting at this point, and I was actually a little upset that I had to put it down on several occasions. I’m hopeful that the next installment will be just as good as this one!
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