Alias Grace Psychology

This article is credible as it was originally published in a literary journal and then on the JSTOR database.

Auerbach’s article analyzes Alias Grace in both a feminist and psychoanalytic perspective, specifically regarding the characters Grace Marks and Simon Jordan. Auerbach approaches Grace not as an intelligent heroine defying the odds and blazing her own path, but rather a young girl imprisoned both literally and by the standards for servants and ladies of the 19th century. For example, the sole reason she is not hung like her fellow-compatriot James McDermott is due to the belief that women are feeble-minded and incapable of such murderous feats. Likewise, Auerbach argues that on the surface, Simon seems to be an enlightened doctor,

Knapp expounds on some of the mental implications of the novel, suggesting that perhaps Grace has schizophrenia; although the novel predates the formal discovery of the disease, many of her behaviors coincide with contemporarily known symptoms. Knapp argues that schizophrenia would perfectly explain Grace’s second more violent and rowdy self. Similarly, Knapp suggests that attempting to pull Grace’s memory of the murder from a dark psychological abyss, Jordan instead gets sucked into the insanity and nearly crosses over the brink of reason. Finally, Knapp argues that the ambiguity of the novel—regarding both Grace’s possible mental illness and whether or not she committed the murders—contributes to the overall theme of psychological tangles in Alias Grace.

Knapp’s review will not prove to be much use in my paper. For the majority of her article, she simply summarizes the plot of Alias Grace and poses no analysis. Similarly, the dissection of Grace using modern day psychology will be irrelevant in a Marxist analysis. Her point regarding Simon being pulled into insanity rather than retrieving Grace from it is intriguing, but has no place in my