The discussion about whether or not Mary Whitney is real in Alias Grace reminded me of a character, from Yu Yu Hakusho by Yoshihiro Togashi, named Sensui Shinobu, a traumatized former detective. To keep this post from diverging too far all I will say about Sensui is that he was a detective who had a very black and white way of viewing the world and his job within that world. This view of his was shattered after he witnessed something that went against what he previously believed to be true. The trauma was so much to bear that it caused him to have a mental breakdown after which he turned towards rectifying his past actions (also turning him into a shonen anime villain). In that turn to villainy, he also developed seven alternative personalities to cope with the knowledge of his discovery. It would be an understatement to simply say that Grace Marks experienced a lot of trauma throughout her life. Before she reached the age of seventeen she had lost her mother while aboard a congested ship, was ostracized from her family, and neglected and abused physically and emotionally by her drunken father. If these traumas weren’t enough she also lost her best friend Mary Whitney, at least that’s what we are expected to believe based on what she tells Dr. Jordan. Grace also notes that madness is something that one views from the inside of themselves as they are possessed by someone else. I have been contemplating whether or not Mary Whitney is real in Alias Grace, and her relevance to Grace’s story of innocence. Why is it beneficial for Grace to mention Mary Whitney to Dr. Jordan? While my go to answer is plot, I think that there is significance in that Mary Whitney was someone who had a positive (?) influence on Grace and her involvement in the mystery acted as a way of making Grace seem more empathetic to Dr. Jordan. I can imagine that losing someone of that status would be beyond traumatic, especially under the circumstances of Whitney’s passing. I’ve read about Alias Grace as a prison narrative (see in the resource guide) and Atwood does a great job of showing how confined Grace is at all times throughout the novel. Whether it be as a servant to richer families, as a woman in a patriarchal society, as a literal prisoner, and even as a criminal she is locked within the confines of infamy, with a 2017 Netflix adaptation as proof of her relevance still. What if Grace was also confined within herself? The title Alias Grace is definitely a clever one by Atwood. She doesn’t want us to feel like we know too much, because in reality we don’t, but hypothesizing that Mary Whitney and Grace Marks became one in the same is still interesting to me. I can’t help but feel like both of these characters, one fictional while the other real, are reflections of what the stress of societal expectations and gender norms can make one feel. Grace expresses that she often feels trapped while being the good and quiet girl, while Sensui was often shown to be very quiet until after he learned he’d been deceived. When Grace considers her darker thoughts she often remembers Mary Whitney, as if Whitney’s persona became Grace’s shield of sorts. Grace could never commit murder because she was too young, and too feminine, too formal and meek. This is why Dr. Jordan (does he even deserve that credential) believed. Mary Whitney on the other hand was no longer alive to testify for her own existence, not that Grace wouldn’t try to keep her memory alive by telling him how coarse she could be. I lean toward the theory that Grace painted a picture of her alternative self, her true self, and the self she couldn’t disclose for too long. Does this change how I view Grace as a character in Alias Grace? Maybe a little, but at the end of the day she’s trying to earn her freedom, by whatever means necessary.
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