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Clothing
Somewhat paradoxically, windows in Alias Grace are associated with confinement. The windows in the penitentiary are placed high up in the walls so that prisoners cannot see out of them, and when Grace’s mother dies on the family’s passage to Canada, Mrs. Phelan introduces Grace to the idea that a window should be opened when a person dies so that their soul can escape the room. Grace is devastated by the fact that she could not open a window for her mother, who died in the hold of the ship, and she is even more disturbed by forgetting to open the window of her room at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson’s after Mary Whitney dies. At the hypnosis near the end of the novel, Mary Whitney’s spirit claims to have possessed Grace’s body because there was no open window through which she could escape. Grace is haunted by the feeling that she must “open the window,” and she has several dreams about windows over the course of the novel, which reflects the constricted nature of Grace’s life and choices.
Windows Quotes in Alias Grace
The Alias Grace quotes below all refer to the symbol of Windows. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 27
Quotes
In fact I have no idea of what kind of a sunrise there was. In prison they make the windows high up, so you cannot climb out of them I suppose, but also so you cannot see out of them either, or at least not onto the outside world. They do not want you looking out, they do not want you thinking the word out, they do not want you looking at the horizon and thinking you might someday drop below it yourself, like the sail of a ship departing or a horse and rider vanishing down a far hillside.
Related Characters:
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Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Alias Grace LitChart as a printable PDF.
Windows Symbol Timeline in Alias Grace
The timeline below shows where the symbol Windows appears in Alias Grace. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 14
...spirit [was] trapped in the bottom of the ship because we could not open a window, and angry at [her] because of the second-best sheet.” She tells Dr. Jordan, “I was...
(full context)
Chapter 20
...Mary’s voice whisper, Let me in. Grace panics, realizing that she has not opened the window. She tells Agnes she’s feeling ill and runs to open the window, thinking Mary’s voice...
(full context)
Chapter 32
...was alarmed by a noise “as if of someone attempting to break in through a window.” Simon agrees to come downstairs to “check the locks and shutters”; he asks her to...
(full context)
Chapter 33
...listening to a voice tell her “You must unlock the door, you must open the window, you must let me in.” She then dreams that she is outside; she smells fresh...
(full context)
Chapter 35
...and Grace realized it was Mary’s soul “trying to find its way out but the window was shut.” Grace awoke in tears. When she fell back asleep, she had a second...
(full context)
Chapter 36
...Simon, “I didn’t wish to look at it.” She went into the kitchen, opened the windows, and cleared the dinner plates from the previous night, taking them into the scullery. When...
(full context)
...at the front of the house. She says, “I was thinking, I must open the window; but that was foolish, as I was already outside.” Mr. Kinnear arrived home then and...
(full context)
Chapter 48
...admits that she inhabited Grace’s “clothing” (i.e. her body) when Grace forgot to open the window the night Mary died.
(full context)
Chapter 49
...asleep and dreams of Grace; when he awakens he presses his mouth against the train window.
(full context)
