Narrative Style in Alias Grace

Margret Atwood’s methods of relaying information through out the story is stylistically intriguing. She switches from third person omniscient present tense to first person present. Depending on the character being followed she provides dialogue quotations, such as for Simon who is in third person, but for Grace, first person, there is no difference between dialogue, internal thought, and description, outside of the occasional dialogue tag. No matter if we are reading third person or first person, the reader is still permitted inside the characters head, however there is a level of intimacy when we are directly inserted into Grace’s. Simon’s thoughts are often sexual, however Grace’s focus more on her childhood, her past, they reveal aspects of herself that she does not wish to tell Simon, however they have yet to reveal motive regarding her secrecy. The lack of punctuation has been attributed to a stylistic effort of blurring Grace’s thoughts with what she says, making it periodically unclear and making her less reliable- although I personally don’t think that’s the case, i.e. her reliability, if anything I think it negates the significance of Simon in her life. Allowing the reader access to Simon’s thoughts through letters and narrative, exposes his conflicting actions and words, making him both complex and relatable.

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