The Construction of Female Community in Alias Grace

Department of Foreign Languages,University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing,China Email:xutianyu18@mails.ucas.edu.cn

Jiangbo Hu

Department of Foreign Languages,University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing,China Email:hujb@ucas.ac.cn

[Abstract]Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace explores a new paradigm of female relationships through the interactions among the three main female characters.From Grace’s over-idealized communication with Mary,to the antagonism with Nancy,the novel presents a complex relationship of both communication and torment between women.Finally,the hypnotically induced“possession”allows Grace to utter different female voices,enabling women to form alliances and escape from the confinement of patriarchal discourse,thus constructing a community based on their unique female experience.

[Keywords]Margaret Atwood;Alias Grace;Female Community;Friendship

Introduction

“Woman is not yet capable of friendship”(Nietzsche,2006,p.41).This comment by Zarathustra may possibly be said to have turned the spotlight on the rejection of female friendship in Western philosophical tradition.InThe Politics of Friendship,Derrida deconstructs this tradition of political philosophy based on“fraternity”and attempts to establish a new paradigm of friendship and a politics“beyond the principle of fraternity”(Derrida,2005,p.viii).Although Derrida notices the absence of women in the politics of fraternity,his concern is“the basis in the origins of philosophy that excludes women from‘fraternity’”(as cited in Zhang,2018,p.196),the possible politics of women’s friendship,however,is not under discussion.Laura Gowing also notes that“Derrida’s impassioned call for a return to the pre-Enlightenment political ethics of friendship leaves women out of it,as many early modern men did”(Gowing,2005,p.132).

Margaret Atwood has always been concerned about women’s survival.In her 1986 article published inThe New York Timesentitled“That Certain Thing Called the Girlfriend”,the topic of female friendship in literature is discussed.Several of her own works also probe into“the problem of how it can be possible,amidst the fragmentation and disjunction of the contemporary world,for women to establish community”(Brown,1996,p.197).Alias Grace(1996),Atwood’s ninth novel,follows this creative aspiration.This paper attempts to reveal the representative female relationship presented in the novel,and argues that such female relationship refutes the rejection of the possibility of female alliances in the tradition of Western philosophy,and constructs a possible female community.

The Possibility of Women’s Friendship:“Mary took me under her wing from the very first.”

If the politics of fraternity does not apply to women,the political deduction of gender equality must answer the question of whether female alliances exist and in what name they may exist.The answer to the question of female alliances cannot avoid the question of sisterhood as a counterpart to fraternity.American feminist scholar Bell Hooks points out the need to understand the true meaning and value of sisterhood(Hooks,1984,p.43).Currently,“sisterhood”as a political term in the feminist movement is still regarded as a key category in feminist literature and criticism,and is used with strong political connotations(Wei,2003,p.88).Elaine Showalter,for instance,argues that from the outset,women novelists have shown an“awareness of each other and of their female audience showed a kind of covert solidarity that sometimes amounted to a genteel conspiracy”(Showalter,1977,p.12).Atwood also recognizes the importance of sisterhood:“…the danger of post-feminism is that it chooses to embrace liberal individualism and too hastily abandons the protections of collectivism”(as cited in Zhang,2011,p.148).Atwood notes that in both traditional and mainstream fiction,the concept of“girlfriend”is virtually absent,or at least extremely marginalized,and most female readers regard the friendship between women as a living reality,and the love between men and women as a romance that can escape reality(as cited in Yang,2012,p.150).The friendship between Grace and Mary inAlias Gracetranscends a simple“living reality”,and in the continuous communication,Mary especially plays a guiding role to Grace.The French feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray argues that existing dominant language models avoid difference and do not encourage real dialogues.Her empirical research also shows that women have a greater desire to communicate than men,and that male subjects consistently prefer to“talk about”other things rather than“talk to”others in their language use,with the underlying value presupposing that other things are available to them(as cited in Zhu,2014,pp.8-9).The interaction between the female characters inAlias Gracedeserves our attention because this relationship demonstrates from the outset the possibility of a dialogue between women that might enable a difference-based women’s friendship,that is,a friendship between women based on their unique experience.

The protagonist ofAlias Grace,Grace,is an immigrant to Canada from Northern Ireland.While her mother dies on the ship,her father,a violent and alcoholic,throws her out of the house when she is only thirteen to work as a maid to earn a living and support her younger siblings.At the home of her first employer,Mr.Alderman Parkinson,she has the happiest time of her life and meets the most important friend of her life,Mary Whitney,who is sixteen years old at the time.As Grace recalls,“Mary took me under her wing from the very first”(Atwood,1997,p.151).As maids,she and Grace are both representatives of women of the nineteenth-century lower class,oppressed by both gender and class.Even in the house of the aldermen,they would otherwise have been isolated from Mr.Parkinson’s“business and politics”—according to Grace,she“understood nothing about politics,so would not think of mentioning it in any case”(p.149).Mary’s conversation with Grace,however,teaches her this knowledge as she introduces her to the 1837 Rebellion led by the radical democratic leader William Lyon Mackenzie against“the gentry,who ran everything,and kept all the money and land for themselves”(p.148).Mary is angry that“some people had so much and others so little”(p.150),because in the Rebellion her father,a Radical,loses his properties gained bare-handed and dies,and her mother also dies of grief(p.149).Mary also encourages Grace to refuse to turn over the wage to her alcoholic father(p.149); she also reminds Grace that“we were not slaves,and being a servant was not a thing we were born to,nor would we be forced to continue at it forever; it was just a job of work”(p.157); she also lends her flannel petticoat to the innocent Grace when she experiences her onset of menses and tells her it is silly to call it Eve’s curse because the real curse of Eve is“having to put up with the nonsense of Adam”(p.164).The presence of these conversations in Grace’s recollective narrative years later suggests that Mary has more or less influenced Grace to reflect upon and rebel against her own destiny.Although the dialogue that Grace first meets Mary and enters into with her is somewhat overly idealistic,it serves as a necessary first step towards female community.

The Necessity of“Inhumanity”:“And Nancy looked daggers at me.”

The questioning of female friendship does not only come from men.The American feminist psychologist Phyllis Chesler,for example,makes a bold statement,ruthlessly dissecting and exposing the issues about“sisterhood”inWoman’s Inhumanity to Woman,showing the“dark side”of sisterhood(Huang,2003,pp.64-66).Similarly,Atwood also speculates at every stage of her career transcending the areas of concern of the feminist movement by asking awkward and daring questions about the relationship between women(Howells,1996,p.17).Her review of several novels by her contemporaries that depict female relationships implies her expectation and appreciation of“deeper,more passionate and complex”female relationships in fiction(Atwood,1986).Grace’s interaction with Mary inAlias Gracesuggests that Atwood also includes this phenomenon of“woman’s inhumanity to woman”in her reflections on women’s relationships.If Grace’s first encounter with Mary represents an overly idealized female relationship,the relationship between Grace and Nancy,in contrast,shows the contradictions and conflicts that are often evident when women get along more deeply,which is also exactly the complexity of female relationships that Atwood expects.Because Nancy,as the mistress of Mr.Kinnear,demonstrates her jealousy of the younger Grace,their relationship tends to be summarized as“jealousy”,which is in opposition to that between Mary and Grace,“sisterhood”(Li,2020,pp.84-85).However,the necessity of the so-called tension between Grace and Nancy is often underestimated,and there is a tendency to ignore the more complex relational ties behind the dialogues between the two female subjects in the conflicts.

It should be noted that Grace’s first impression of Nancy is favorable(p.200).When Grace later brushes Nancy’s hair,she recalls the time when Mary uses to brush her own hair(p.248).It is Nancy who hires Grace from her former employer to Mr.Kinnear’s,where she herself works,so Grace then thinks that they“would be like sisters or at least good friends…working together side by side”just as she works with Mary(p.223).Here the phrase“at least”may indicate that Grace is even to a certain extent looking forward to a better relationship with Nancy than her friendship with Mary.Even though Mr.Kinnear’s attention to Grace would make Nancy look daggers at her(p.223),Grace’s relationship with Nancy is not always so tense.When Mr.Kinnear leaves for Toronto,they make butter,pack clothes,and sew together,making Grace feel that they are“like the best friends in the world”(p.229).Grace does not gloat later when she learns that Nancy is pregnant,since she does not“want her cast out,a waif on the common highway and a prey to wandering scoundrels”(p.276).From this we can see that the relationship between Grace and Nancy cannot be defined as a one-dimensional jealousy and hostility.This conforms to Atwood’s appreciation of those relationships that are“complex and important”,including“pain,anger,feelings of betrayal,jealousy and hatred,as well as love”(Atwood,1986).

atwood’s concern with the topic of“envy”can be found in her other novels as well.Jean Wyatt notices that feminist ethics forbids envy and competition between women and interprets Atwood’s another novel,The Robber Bride,to some extent as“a story about restoring to a feminist community the right to envy”(Wyatt,1998,p.52).The unique insight Wyatt offers may also help the interpretation ofAlias Grace—if women are no longer competing with other women in the old way,for a man,but rather they envy other women for what they are,for their accomplishments or their positions of power,their relationship thus becomes a two-person relationship rather than a triangle(Wyatt,1998,p.54),that is to say,the phallocentric“man”is no longer the central impediment to sisterhood.This outlook is also implied inAlias Grace.Grace discovers that Nancy is“always affability itself”when Mr.Kinnear is not present,but“jumpy as a cat”when he is(p.229).This perhaps implies that the decisive factor in the establishment of friendship between them is simply the absence of Mr.Kinnear as an individual,rather than the patriarchal discourse.At this point,the connotation of“envy”has changed,and the object of desire has become something tangibly relevant.The“envy”towards each other—along with its attendant“inhumanity”to each other—has become necessary,because it makes women examine their own desires and reflect on their relationships with each other in order to achieve true empathy and thus true women’s friendship through the real conflicts.

The Construction of Female Community:“And so we will all be together.”

“Community”consists of the Latin prefix“com”(meaning“together”,“common”)and the Etruscan word“munis”(meaning“assume”,“undertake”)(as cited in Zhang,p.15).While the concept of“community”has been under scrutiny in the Western intellectual tradition,it has undergone remarkable deconstruction and reconstruction as a result of contemporary globalization.French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy attempts to deconstruct the concept,arguing that“true community cannot exist,but man lives in its fiction”(as cited in Dan,2015,p.9).Derrida’s dissatisfaction with the word is due to its connotations of“fusion”and“identification”(Caputo,1997,p.107).However,some scholars also contend that this deduction neglects the most important attribute of the cultural practice within the concept of community,focusing too much on deconstruction but forgetting the importance of construction(Yin,2016,pp.76-77).In fact,the“democracy”which Derrida advocates is a very generous“receptable”for all conceivable differences(Caputo,1997,p.107).

In order to acknowledge difference,it is necessary to reframe the unique value of women’s experience and to explore women’s community.Irigaray argues that“the question of the other has been poorly formulated in the Western tradition,for the other is always seen as the other of the same,the other of the subject itself,rather than an/other subject”(Irigaray,1995,p.8),and that people are“not defined in terms of themselves,that is,from a different subjectivity,but in terms of the ideal subjectivity and their deviant imperfections”(as cited in Salomonsen,2003,p.115).The discussion of the female community has also been either simply forgotten or included in the community of“the same”—the community of fraternity,because woman have long been seen as such an imperfect variant of man.However,for Irigaray,such otherness is not an absolute disadvantage,and“it is the difference that concerns the longterm ideology and direction of endeavor”(as cited in Zhu,2014,p.3),so a community that is different from“the same”is precisely what remains to be explored.

Female community cannot be created without another premise,namely a common goal,which,in the novel,Grace utters with the hymn“Amazing Grace”.She hopes that she is named after the hymn because she“would like to be found”,“would like to see”,or“to be seen”(p.379).After the murder,the media often imagine and report Grace’s story contradictorily,but no one cares about the truth.Even her lawyer does not believe her and portrays her as an idiot.It is not just Grace who wants to“be seen”—the truth of Mary’s death is concealed,as the Parkinson family only claims that she dies of a sudden fever;the details of Nancy’s murder are dropped because Mr.Kinnear’s case has been given priority and it alone makes a death sentence.No one sees or cares to see their true images or hears their own voices.Therefore,there is a unique process of the construction of female community in the novel,in which Atwood arranges for Grace to be hypnotized,revealing another“evil”personality to speak for herself.This voice is suspected of resembling Nancy’s,and later revealed to be Mary’s.Readers are unable to determine whether this personality really exists and learn the truth about the murder,and Grace’s dual personality does not even directly help her to be pardoned,yet the“evil”voice saves Grace from having to lament that people always supply her with speeches of their own and put them right into her mouth(p.295).

according to Gilbert and Gubar,there is a recurring image of the madwoman in nineteenth-century literature—the monster woman who“seeks the power of self-articulation”(Gilbert&Gubar,2000,p.79).Grace is such a“madwoman”who suffers from intermittent amnesia and therefore remembers nothing of the murder.Witnessing Mary’s hemorrhagic death also casts a shadow over her mentality,causing her to suddenly go berserk and scream when she sees the knife in the purse of the doctor measuring her skull.We also learn from the matron that Grace is diagnosed as a raving lunatic after the murder verdict.Grace claims to be able to hear voices coming from the space,and Nancy also says that Grace talks to herself a lot.The night before the murder Grace is suffering from sleepwalking.These are all classic symptoms of hysteria.Hysteria comes from the Greek word for womb,“hyster”.In the nineteenth century,the uterus is believed to be the cause of this mental disorder,and Aristotle even contends that feminine identity itself is a kind of deformity(Gilbert&Gubar,2000,p.53).But for Gilbert and Gubar,“the womb-shaped cave is also the place of female power”(p.95).The anomalies and deviations of“possession”and dual personality that Grace experiences actually represent a form of resistance,just as the monstrous madwoman does.The difference in the case of Grace is that it is no longer the dramatization of the author’s“self-division,their desire both to accept the strictures of patriarchal society and to reject them”(Gilbert&Gubar,2000,p.78),for the ignorant Grace personality is no longer in opposition to the“evil”personality,but they have forged a unique community of women working together to resist the patriarchal discourse that has imprisoned and silenced them.At the end of the story,Grace is released,gets married and settles in the United States.For the first time she begins to make a quilt of her own:

…One will be white,from the petticoat I still have that was Mary Whitney’s; one will be faded yellowish,from the prison nightdress I begged as a keepsake when I left there.And the third will be a pale cotton,a pink and white floral,cut from the dress of Nancy’s that she had on the first day I was at Mr.Kinnear’s,and that I wore on the ferry to Lewiston,when I was running away.

I will embroider around each one of them with red featherstitching,to blend them in as a part of the pattern.

And so we will all be together.(p.460)

Grace chooses to stitch together three pieces of fabric representing three ill-fated women,Mary,Nancy,and she herself,along with the friendship and torment they have experienced together.Their alliance helps them escape the confinement of the patriarchal discourse,thus making a female community possible.

Conclusion

The phallocentric tradition of Western philosophy has denied the possibility of women’s friendship.While deconstructionist thought has noted the absence of women in the philosophical tradition,the exploration of the concrete female experiences remains underrepresented.Margaret Atwood’sAlias Graceexplores a new paradigm of female relationships through the interactions between the three main female characters,Grace,Mary,and Nancy.From Grace’s initial encounter with Mary and the over-idealized communication she achieves with her,to the antagonism revealed after Grace’s deeper contact with Nancy,the novel presents a complex and organic relationship of both communication and torment between women.Finally,the hypnotically induced“possession”allows Grace to utter different female voices,enabling women to form alliances and escape from the confinement of patriarchal discourse,thus constructing a community based on their unique female experience.