Memory in Alias Grace

The reliability of the faculty of memory is continually questioned throughout the novel. Grace is rarely consistent; she is very distrusting (and perhaps rightly so), and does not always unfold the truth of things. At the beginning of the novel, Grace outright lies to Simon about her dreams and events that unfolded during her early recounting of events. Later, when Grace is moved by Simon's kindness, she becomes more willing to retell her story. However, at this point, it is unclear whether Grace's story is any truer than when she had started, for at some point, she merely becomes a storyteller, aiming to entertain Simon with her compositions. Grace's memories are sharply coloured by her dreams and visions, which makes it difficult to distinguish between the reality of the stories and her delusions. Near the end of the novel, Grace's storytelling imparts its ethereal quality to Simon, who also starts to confuse reality with delusion. Simon's practical and rational faculties slowly deteriorate by the end of the novel, at which point he gives in to his impulses towards Rachel Humphrey (while wrongly assuming he is dreaming) and calmly considers the murder of Rachel's husband upon his return. This jarred and choppy telling of the story through flashbacks, coupled with the confusion of whether Grace is telling the truth or not, creates a dimension of complicity and interest in the novel.

In addition to the stylistic choice of incorporating flashbacks, Atwood's unique use of narratology is also a point of interest in the novel. At the beginning of the novel, we are entirely restricted to Grace's view of events unfolding. A little later, we are introduced to Simon Jordan, who initially appears to the readers in his speech and actions. We are then further acquainted to Simon and his thoughts through letters both to and from him, which are limited to addressing his socially compliant thoughts in the first person. However, it is in Section IV that we truly get inside his mind; this narrator, telling its story through Simon's eyes, and Grace as the narrator, are then alternatively used until Simon leaves Kingston. Both the beginning and the end of the story are told through Grace's narration, upholding her primary importance in the novel. However, the lack of narration on Simon's part near the end of the novel contributes to our final hypocritical view of him. We are then only able to deduce his intentions and thoughts through those of Rachel and Mrs. Jordan, Simon's mother. The impact is the reader's sympathy for Rachel and contempt for Simon, whom we initially sympathized with at the beginning of the novel. This suggests the powerful influence of narration in the novel. This use of multiple narrators was first introduced to us in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.

Alias Grace employs numerous cases of imagery in the novel, especially religious imagery. The first instance of this is seen in her reaction to the apple that Simon brings when he first meets Grace in prison. The apple represents Simon's intention to lure Grace out of her comfort zone and reveal the secrets of the forbidden murder. Although Grace is initially very resistant of Simon's efforts, Grace is finally lured into revealing these secrets by the end of the novel. However, Simon arguably betrays Grace the end of the novel and he does not fulfil his promise of liberating Grace from prison that he originally delivered. In this sense, Simon is reduced to the likes of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, who lured Eve to taste the forbidden fruit and offered great promise, yet betrayed this promise to offer bliss.

Grace is also frequently seen stitching different quilt patterns. The quilt is an artistic composition, and although she names some standard quilt patterns, its compositions are only limited to the imagination. Her quilting is reminiscent of Grace's evolution as a storyteller through the course of the novel. Although she is first reluctant to start at all, she eventually builds on her stories as she does with her quilts, and by the end of the novel her stories have pieced out an elaborate narration of events. Although her stories are often founded on a remote recollection of memories, her imagination plays in building the layers above the founding layer. This is much symbolic of the last quilt Grace makes, the Tree of Paradise, in which she keeps the founding pattern, but colours the final product with her imagination and eventually deviates from the standard pattern.

At the end of the novel, Grace is making the first quilt for herself; the Tree of Paradise, which she frames with a border of snakes, without which she believes the quilt would not be complete. To Grace, the snakes seem represent the Devil and the agony and tribulations that the serpent has put her through in the course of her life. It may also symbolize the tempting and potentially destructive nature of the unconscious mind. It is arguably her dwelling of the unconscious that blurred the lines between reality and illusion for Grace and possibly lure her into committing a brutal murder. The serpent is the tempting obsession with the subconscious mind.