Personal,Authorial,Communal-Discursive Authority Through "Voice" In Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace

Alias Grace,the ninth novel written by Margaret Atwood,the "Canadian Literary Queen",paves its way through time into the life of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth century Canada,based on the sensational historical "true story" of the Kinnear-Montgomery murder case.The narrative strategies employed by the "murderess" Grace Marks during her narration and those adopted by Atwood in her structuring of this autobiographical fiction,successfully piece together the past as "Herstory",with problematic construction of female subjectivity and narrative construction.This thesis investigates the narrative strategies in Alias Grace within the framework of feminist narratology.By examining particular narrative strategies focusing on the three mode of "voice" proposed by Susan S.Lanser,this thesis attempts to elaborate on the relationship between narrative form and gender politics,and the way discursive authority is claimed not only by Grace the narrating character,but also the author Atwood herself."Voice" is regarded as the linking point of social position and literary practice,as well as reflections of the social,economic,and literary conditions.Discursive voice is also a site of gendered ideological tension made visible in narrative practice.The study of the discursive voice in Alias Grace not only sheds light upon the complicated and contradictory role narrative plays,but also implies that Grace and Dr Jordan's battle for discursive authority through discursive voice is no doubt a showcase of the tension between gender and power politics.This thesis consists of three chapters.The first chapter explores Grace's personal narrative voice,and analyzes how she was able to construct her narrative as deliberate and self-conscious through particular narrative strategies such as self-silencing and binary-narratee structure,in order to preserve the authority of her narrative "voice" through the release of discursive power.The second chapter focuses on Dr.Jordan's focalized "authorial" voice.This chapter discusses the process of Dr.Jordan's male authority being subverted and even leveled out by Grace's narrative,arguing that narrative voice is a site of gender crisis,contradiction,and tension.The third chapter examines the ways Atwood structures the novel through the motif of"Quilting",so a communal voice could resonate from different channels through various perspectives.By analyzing Grace's communal "we" and the representational"I",this chapter argues that the "quilting" metaphor is not only created for the silenced female lower-class working community,but also a narrative strategy contributing to the self-authorization of Atwood herself as a post-modernist female writer.