“…for it is the fate of a woman
Long to be patient and silent, to wait like a ghost that is speechless,
Till some questioning voice dissolves the spell of its silence.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The ‘double woman’ in film and text often leaves you burdened with a barrage of questions. Was she telling the truth? Was she lying? Could I help her? Did she know that I wanted to, and did she spend her nights laughing at that?…
Was she an angel or a demon?…
The ‘double woman’ then, is the woman that enters a chapter or scene and leaves it permanently disrupted. She is there to make you question everything you think you know…and forever alter the way you view life.
As promised, I’m here to discuss my views on the television series Alias Grace. I finished it last night, and it left me with many thoughts that seem to have pervaded my dreams, or nightmares…one can never tell.
In a nutshell, it is based on the Margaret Atwood novel of the same name published in 1996. The novel itself follows the real murders of a couple in 1843, said to have been killed by their servants, James McDermott and Grace Marks, in Canada. Whilst James is hanged, Grace is sentenced to life in prison. Atwood’s novel questions the events of the murder, and in turn lays bare the nature of narratives, told and concealed.
The television mini-series was adapted for screen by Sarah Polly and follows the same line of intense questioning of the female mind. The opening narration begins
” I think of all the things that have been written about me: that I am an inhuman female demon; that I am an innocent victim of a blackguard, forced against my will and in danger of my own life; that I was too ignorant to know how to act and that to hang me would be judicial murder; that I am well and decently dressed, but I robbed a dead woman to appear so; that I am of a sullen disposition with a quarrelsome temper; that I have the appearance of a person rather above my humble station; that I am a good girl with a pliable nature, and no harm is told of me; that I am cunning and devious; that I am soft in the head, and little better than an idiot.
And I wonder: how can I be all these different things at once?” Grace Marks
Each episode begins with an epigraph from a famous poet, that underlies the struggle of being a woman. Women are forced to play roles in society, even now in the 21st century, in order to maintain any semblance of power or true self. Grace could be haunted by real spectres, a vehicle for the dead, an innocent victim. Or, she could be suffering from a dissociative personality disorder, an insane woman, deserving of punishment. To be a woman in this world…it is one or the other…because that is what makes people’s lives easier: if they can categorize you into a neat little box, that follows their neat little paths and that allows them to sleep securely at the end of the day.
Whilst I don’t wish to give too much away regarding the series, I found it interesting that the letter ‘J’ was highlighted. At the beginning of the series, Grace and her new friend Mary, play a silly old wives’ game that entails cutting the skin of an apple in one long sweep and throwing it over one’s shoulder, asking for guidance on who will be the lucky girl’s future husband. The skin forms the shape of a ‘J’ and it is agreed that Grace will eventually marry a man whose name begins with a ‘J’. Then we begin to notice…the names of the male characters; Dr Jordan the psychiatrist, Jeremiah the peddler, James the so-called partner in crime, Jamie her adoring fan. And all the while I’m thinking to myself this letter represents the various men that interject Grace’s life. Their wants, their needs and their ways of seeing Grace as a person.
J…to be judged… the jury that sentences…the jail they keep you in… the justice that you crave. You’ll have to watch the series in order to ascertain for yourself whether Grace ever achieves this justice. Whether she is worthy of justice in the first place. But then again women are more likely to achieve persecution for their knowledge, intelligence and power…
All in all, an utterly fascinating psychological thriller that I would recommend to anyone with a taste for intelligent plots and characters. And if you’re a writer, the inclusion of the ‘double woman’ character in your writing will most definitely shake up your fictional world. I leave you with some musical inspiration as you trace the forms of her mind, both cunning and curious, with the ink of your pen…and you remember that the most memorable women always have an alias…
Of Tales & Dreams 