F.-Schiller-University, Jena

Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace
Alias Grace - A Crime Novel?

by

Frank LORENZ

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION 3

CRIME FICTION 4

DETECTIVE IN THE CRIME 6

BELIEVING GRACE 8

THE POSTMODERN WAY 10

CONCLUSION 14

BIBLIOGRAPHY 15

Introduction

With her recent novel Alias Grace Margaret Atwood has turned to the field of historical writing. In her novel which is set in 19th century Canada the female protagonist Grace Marks is a convicted murderess who is accused of having killed her master Thomas Kinnear and his mistress, another servant of the house, Nancy Montgomery. At the time Grace was sentenced to death and it was only her claimed madness that saved her from the gallows. When Simon Jordan decides he wants to study Grace′s case and cure her from her amnesia, Grace tells him her life story and also the event of the crime is again being brought up, though Grace cannot remember the crime scene itself or having committed the crime. Even though a murder has been committed as one can expect in a crime novel and we can only but assume that Grace has had some part in it, the crime is not the focus of the novel, but rather Grace′s story and what we as readers make of it. The novel goes to explore Grace′s life, her story telling and therewith her personality. It is left to the reader to decide whether or not he believes Grace story and accepts her as being innocent. In what way this quest for the truth goes with the notion of a crime novel, shall be investigated in this paper.

Crime Fiction

The genre of crime fiction is still a fairly new literary genre. Though there are earlier works, such as the Gothic Novels that were popular in eighteenth century England, crime fiction as such came into being with Edgar Allan Poe in the mid-nineteenth century (cf. Dunker, p. 19). "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", which was published in Graham′s Magazine in 1841, is the first in a series of detective stories by Poe. Soon the detective novel developed into a popular genre, having its basis in Great Britain, the USA and France. (Dunker, p. 19). In the beginnings many critics argued that detective fiction could not be considered literature at all, because it was seen as trivial. Still many authors of detective fiction now belong to the canon of English literature. The probably most renowned writer in the field of detective fiction is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who created the world famous Sherlock Holmes.

It is hard to find a handy definition of what a detective novel actually is. The most prominent feature is certainly a mysterious murder. The author constructs a puzzle that is to mislead the reader who tries to solve the murder case and find the murderer. The main focus in the detective novel is on the mystery element: we as readers do not know the identity of the murderer and it is our task to find it out. Another characteristic is that of justice impersonated by the detective. He is the guiding figure through the story and will eventually arrest the criminal. Hilfer argues that by this means the reader is given an absolution, since the murderer is being convicted and thereby the crime clearly classified as unjust (Hilfer, p. 4). Here lies a major difference to the crime novel.

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