Alias Grace is a Canadian drama television miniseries directed by Mary Harron and written by Sarah Polley, based on Margaret Atwood's 1996 novel of the same name. It stars Sarah Gadon, Edward Holcroft, Rebecca Liddiard, Zachary Levi, Kerr Logan, David Cronenberg, Paul Gross, and Anna Paquin.
In Alias Grace, the heroine's alleged madness is always experienced and interpreted within interpersonal matrices. Convicted murderess Grace might suffer from amnesia and multiple personality disorder, a predicament Grace describes in relational terms when she claims that it feels as if 'somebody else comes in.
The notorious case of Grace Marks continues to be a true crime shrouded in mystery. The provocative murders were especially intriguing to author Margaret Atwood who wrote a fictionalized retelling of the events in her award-winning novel Alias Grace.
Seen in full, and judged not as a conventional crime drama, but rather as a psychological character study, Alias Grace is a rousing success. Alias Grace is a savagely political tale, dressed up in modest aprons and bonnets for the period drama crowd.
A 6-episode miniseries based on Atwood's 1996 book of the same name, which in turn spins a glorious fictional meditation inspired by an infamous real-life murder, Alias Grace is Handmaid's unintentional echo.
Alias Grace is a Canadian drama television miniseries directed by Mary Harron and written by Sarah Polley, based on Margaret Atwood's 1996 novel of the same name. It stars Sarah Gadon, Edward Holcroft, Rebecca Liddiard, Zachary Levi, Kerr Logan, David Cronenberg, Paul Gross, and Anna Paquin.
At one period (May 4, 1852 – August 18, 1853) she was committed to an asylum but was later returned to Kingston Penitentiary. In 1872, after almost thirty years of incarceration, Marks was pardoned and moved to northern New York. After that she disappeared from the historical record.
Did Grace have a split personality in Alias Grace?
After the hypnotism, however, Dr. DuPont and Dr. Jordan provide an alternative explanation based in the science of psychology. They hypothesize that Grace is not possessed by a spirit but has split personality syndrome.
When writing the historical novel, Atwood wanted to avoid bending the facts to create her narrative. As a result, Alias Grace is grounded in as much truth as she could find — the newspaper quotes and excerpts at the beginning of the book chapters were taken from real sources.
At the time of her murder, Nancy was pregnant with a child most likely fathered by Mr. Kinnear. Before working for Mr. Kinnear, Nancy was a servant at a different household; there, she became pregnant by an unknown man and gave birth to a baby that died.
At the climax of the novel, when Jeremiah (disguised as Dr. Jerome DuPont) hypnotizes Grace, Mary Whitney's voice reveals that, upon her death, her spirit possessed Grace's body. Mary claims that she has intermittently taken over Grace's body and that she, not Grace, is responsible for murdering Nancy Montgomery.
Because Grace feels powerfully drawn to him, it seems possible that Jeremiah and Grace are in cahoots in staging the hypnosis. In a letter Grace writes to Jeremiah toward the end of the novel, after he has left Kingston and adopted a different alias, Grace writes ambiguously: “Why did you want to help me?
Two servants of the Kinnear household, Grace Marks and James McDermott, were convicted of the crime. McDermott was hanged and Marks was sentenced to life imprisonment. Although the novel is based on factual events, Atwood constructs a narrative with a fictional doctor, Simon Jordan, who researches the case.
Grace, we learn, seems to have a multiple personality disorder. Sometimes she's Grace Marks, an innocent maid; sometimes she's Mary Whitney, the vengeful spirit of Grace's deceased friend. Grace is not responsible for the murders. Mary Whitney is the perpetrator.
What was wrong with Dr Jordan at the end of Alias Grace?
Upon his return to his native Massachusetts, Dr. Jordan enlists in the Union Army; he sustains a head wound that causes him, according to his mother, to lose all memory of his time in Kingston and his work with Grace. Like Grace herself, Dr. Jordan is not a reliable narrator.
While under hypnosis, Grace speaks in an unusual voice and communicates in an uncharacteristically frank manner. Dr. Jordan guesses that this voice belongs to Mary Whitney. The voice confirms his guess, then goes on to say that she assisted McDermott in the murders and that Grace took no part in them.
The details around Marks's trial and confession are all accurate. Susanna Moodie's 1853 book Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush provides a historical record of Marks's life before the trial, and inspired Atwood to write Alias Grace in 1996.
In an interview for CBC News, Atwood noticed a similarly polarized perception of another Canadian female killer, Karla Homolka, who stood trial for multiple murders at the same time Atwood was writing Alias Grace. Atwood first learned about Grace Marks in the 1960s.
But since it's historical fiction, some of them are real (like Grace Marks) and others are invented for the purposes of telling an even more exciting story. So, though Mary Whitney from Alias Grace isn't a real person, her addition to the tale will chill you to the bone.
Though there are some hints that Grace may have been attracted to her friend Jeremiah the peddler, there are also several hints throughout the novel that Grace may be a lesbian, and that she was in love with her best friend, Mary Whitney.
Alias Grace is essentially a true-crime story, albeit one based on a 174-year-old case. But through the combined efforts of Polley and Harron, and with Atwood's text as its base, it's true crime filtered through the female gaze. Grace might be a murderer, but she's also a victim.
Although the setting and characters remain largely the same, Atwood fictionalizes new elements of the story to allow readers to decide whether the 16-year-old convicted murderer Grace Marks is innocent or guilty.
Grace Marks was a Canadian maid who in 1843, when only 16, was convicted with fellow servant James McDermott of murdering their master, Thomas Kinnear, and his housekeeper-lover Nancy Montgomery.
Alias Grace was mainly shot in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Filming locations included Kingston Penitentiary and the Correctional Service of Canada Museum.
