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Chapter 39
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Alias Grace, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Storytelling and Power
Female Sexuality and the Nature of Women
Social Class and Propriety
Truth, Memory, and Madness
Gender, Ownership, and Power
Justice and Religion
Summary
Analysis
Grace recalls the dream she had on the night she spent at the Lewiston inn. She dreamt that she was walking along the driveway leading to Mr. Kinnear’s house, knowing that Mary Whitney was waiting there to welcome her. In the dream, the house felt like Grace’s “real home,” but as she drew near “the house went dark” and she felt a hand “slipped into [hers].” “And then,” Grace says, “there was a knocking at the door.”
Grace’s dream on the eve of her arrest once again emphasizes the importance of her bond with Mary Whitney—arguably the only source of lasting happiness in Grace’s life. Grace’s longing for a “real home” suggests that Jeremiah the peddler may have been right in characterizing Grace as a kind of wanderer.
Themes
