Justice and Religion Theme Analysis

The dramatic tension at the heart of Alias Grace is whether or not Grace is guilty of killing Nancy, which matters since her guilt determines whether her pardon was just. Alias Grace explores the question of justice in both legal and religious terms, with Grace’s devout (though not exactly conventional) Christianity playing a key role in how she interprets her life. Through Grace, Atwood explores the nature of a higher power—however, just as she never answers the question of Grace’s guilt, Atwood also refuses to provide answers about whether human or divine justice has been served to Grace. If anything, the novel seems to lean toward the nihilistic idea that the most important judgment is the one a person makes of herself, rather than the judgments made of her by others or by God.

Grace is a practicing Christian, well-versed in the Bible and a believer in heaven and hell—though she posits that the gates to these two realms “are located closer together than most people think.” Despite her belief in God, Grace also holds many superstitious beliefs, and the question of her guilt is ultimately seriously complicated by her strong sense of fatalism. She recounts for Dr. Jordan a verse she remembers from childhood—“Needles and pins, needles and pins, / When a man marries his trouble begins”—commenting, “It doesn’t say when a woman’s trouble begins. Perhaps mine began when I was born.” Grace also insists that she dreamt of the murders before they happened, suggesting her belief that the murders were fated to happen and she was fated to be involved in them.

However, Grace’s fatalism is complicated by the fact that Grace expresses extreme frustration with society’s treatment of women; this frustration, the novel implies, could have served as a motive for Grace to exert her free will and murder Nancy. When she learns of Nancy’s pregnancy by Mr. Kinnear she reflects, “It would not be fair and just that [Nancy] should end up a respectable married lady with a ring on her finger, and rich into the bargain. It would not be right at all. Mary Whitney had done the same as her, and had gone to her death. Why should the one be rewarded and the other punished, for the same sin?” This suggests that Grace might have a retributive sense of justice, and that she took justice into her own hands, killing Nancy as a way to balance Mary Whitney’s death on the cosmic scales. By imbuing Grace with conflicting views about whether her murder of Nancy was fated or motivated by anger, Atwood is able to consider huge philosophical questions about the nature of human existence without providing any clear-cut answers.

On the question of Grace’s guilt, Atwood is similarly ambiguous, though the moment when Grace is on the verge of sleep in the tavern where she will soon be arrested provides the clearest guide. Grace thinks: “It’s as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent.” This complex statement suggests that, to Grace’s mind, living is synonymous, on some level, with sinning. This could account for the fact that Grace does not seem to judge herself too harshly, whether she is guilty or not. Though the novel never explicitly endorses this position, it seems to suggest that Grace’s ability to live with herself may be the most important kind of judgment. In the final chapter of the novel Grace admits, “I had a rage in my heart for many years, against Mary Whitney, and especially against Nancy Montgomery; against the two of them both, for letting themselves be done to death in the way that they did, and for leaving me behind with the full weight of it.” This striking statement suggests that Grace has an extremely complicated sense of justice, one that cannot be fully accounted for by either human or divine law. Grace’s focus—and ultimately the novel’s, too—is on the hard work of surviving. Physical and emotional survival by any means necessary ultimately takes greater precedence in the novel than the serving of legal or divine justice.