Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace: My Body Is My Own Business

Margaret Atwood’s number one national best-seller, Alias Grace, published in 1996 is a historical fiction based on the 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery. Although her book is based on factual events of the murders convicted by Grace Marks and James McDermott, Atwood retells Grace Marks’ story using her interpretation of the most likely possibilities of the actual event. Grace is an Ireland-Canadian servant in Mr. Kinnear’s household for about three years. Nancy, the housekeeper, requested Grace to assist her in the fitting of a new dress she created. While Grace was helping Nancy with her new dress, she complained about her body figure and said that she was getting too plump. Grace responded with, “It was a good thing to have a bit of flesh, as it did not do to be all skin and bones, and that the young ladies nowadays were starving themselves because of the fashion, which was to be pale and sickly, and they laced their stays in so tight they fainted as soon as looked at” (Atwood 327).

Grace says that young ladies shouldn’t have to harm themselves in order to follow fashion ordeals. Similarly, Mustafa discusses that women shouldn’t have to uphold to societal beauty standards, as it takes away their sense of freedom and self-worth. Ultimately, both individuals advocate for the same belief that a person is not obligated to conform to societal norms as it negatively impacts them. Although Grace and Mustafa suggest the same idea, each individual had a different approach to their message. For instance, Grace touches upon the negative physical attributions of complying to fashion ordeals, such as starvation and fainting. While Mustafa shares her experience as a Muslim woman, and strongly expresses how an individual experience a conflicting mentality when conforming to conventional beauty