Textual Dynamics In Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace

Cotemporary Canadian writer Margaret Atwood is renowned as the“Queen of Canadian Literature”.Her works are known for innovative conceptions,profound implications,and rich themes,including feminism,politics,technology,ecosystem,nationality,etc.Published in 1996,Alias Grace is a history-based novel,retelling the story of the suspect Grace Marks.The uncertainties and instabilities embedded within the plot push readers to ponder about“history”and“truth”.Alias Grace mixes memory and report,confession and testimony,rewriting a well-known case in the 19^th century Canadian society.Grace’s first-person point of view,the omniscient point of view,along with the para-texts like letters and poetry,pastiches the whole story.These diversified narrative voices provide different versions of“history”,and disclose the uncertainty of“truth”to some extent.In the light of James Phelan’s textual dynamics,this thesis analyzes the“unstable relations”between the characters or the conflicting dimensions within a certain character,and explores the rhetorical purpose of the implied author.The first chapter analyzes the textual dynamics brought by the discrepant records.Different versions of testimonies,incoherent news reports,and Moodie’s overstated documentary book generate the instabilities about the intricate relations between Grace and the historical background,between Grace and Mc Dermott,Nancy,and Mr.Kinnear.Meanwhile,different narrators,the implied author,and the authorial audiences bring about tensions,thus the unreliability of a narrative history emerges.The second chapter scrutinizes three authoritative figures’views about Grace.Lawyer Mac Kenzie,doctor Bannerling,and Reverend Verringer depict different images of Grace,and their conflicting views increase the textual uncertainty.The negative portrait of three characters also manifests the unreliability of the authoritative judgements.The third chapter explores Grace’s own uncertainty.The unconclusive description of her amnesia,the indecisive statement of her mental disease,and the strange episodes about ghosts,along with the tensions triggered by the narrator Grace,the implied Atwood,and the authorial audience bring the textual dynamics into an enriching play.The conclusion points out that through the lens of textual dynamics,the implied author guides the authorial audiences to show sympathy for Grace,and to reconsider the meaning of“truth”,historical narrative,and authority.In this sense,Alias Grace is not only a retelling of the historical event,but also a narratological experiment revealing the forces underneath the interpretation of a text,and reminding us of the importance of critical judgment.