Crows (Symbol)
Crows are a symbol of death in the novel. For instance, when Grace and her family sail to America, she sees three crows sitting on the crossbar of the mast. Grace’s mother also sees them and says that this is a bad sign: a row of three crows foreshadows death. Grace is surprised, having known her mother to be unaffected by superstition, and believes her mother to simply feel sad at the journey ahead. However, her mother is proven correct about crows foretelling death when she dies during the journey to America.
Apple peels (Symbol)
Apple peels are a symbol of love and fate, both of which deeply affect the women in Alias Grace. Mary Whitney and Grace Marks begin to predict their future. Each take an apple and pare it to get the peel in one piece. When Grace throws it behind her and they look at how it fell, they decide that it is a "J"—indicating that Grace will marry a man whose name starts with J (either Jim from the stables or else Jeremiah the peddler, who is much handsomer, according to Mary Whitney). When Mary Whitney pares her apple, however, it keeps snapping into pieces. Grace believes that Mary Whitney is simply nervous, but in the end it prevents Mary Whitney from throwing the peel over her shoulder and looking for an initial. This symbol ultimately foreshadows both girls' fate: Mary Whitney dies unmarried, and Grace marries Jamie Walsh.
Unreliability (Motif)
The story of Alias Grace is based on real events, but is written so as to show the virtues and vices of all characters. A double murder, two suspects, a long trial, and two capital punishment verdicts (one of which is substituted for life imprisonment) results in a media sensation, in which nobody doubts the guilt of the hanged man, but remain uncertain about his accomplice Grace Marks. She is portrayed by media, other characters, and even herself as many things: a cold-blooded murderer, an intimidated accomplice, an unfortunate victim of circumstances, an innocent domestic servant, etc. However, by the end of the novel, the reader is still left uncertain as to the extent of Grace's guilt in the murders—reinforced by the novel's very title, "Alias" Grace. Throughout the novel, Grace is shown through various perspectives, none of which are conclusive—provoking questions as to how reliable people's testimonies, perspectives, and memories can be.
This goes for many other characters as well. Dr. Jordan is perceived as an upstanding model citizen, but at night he becomes intimate with his landlady, which could get him in serious trouble for breaking social statutes of chastity and morality. Similarly, Mrs. Humphrey is originally portrayed as a helpless housewife abandoned by her drunkard husband, but is actually promiscuous and is even driven to nearly murdering her husband so that she can be with Dr. Jordan. Grace originally perceives Nancy Montgomery as a kind sister figure, but soon realizes how jealous Nancy can be when she sees Kinnear giving Grace increasing attention. Jamie Walsh originally pledges undying love to Grace, but testifies against her during the trial to get her condemned. Throughout the novel, no character is shown to be perfect or unchanging, and demonstrates how fickle and unreliable human beings are.
Quilts (Symbol)
Quilts take on multiple meanings throughout Alias Grace. To begin with, the very form of the work is constructed as if it is a quilt: each section of the book is titled after a particular quilting pattern. In the way that the quilt tells a story through different images on patches, the novel tells its own story through various testimonies and perspectives collected together.
Within the narrative, quilts are a sign of femininity and domestic work. Grace spent her time at Mrs. Alderman Parkinson's mending quilts as a female servant—indicating that quilting shows how she is not only a laborer, but a laborer who, by social statutes and her gender, is required to know how to do needlework. She does not stop mending quilts when she leaves Mrs. Alderman Parkinson's, however; she is often seen sewing quilts when she is talking to Dr. Simon Jordan about the Kinnear murder. Not only is this a sign that she is holding onto her past and memory—recalling the good times with Mary Whitney through this action—but might also hint that her story can be fabricated as she puts together different elements just as she does with the quilt, reinforcing the unreliable nature of her story.
Towards the end of the novel, Grace confides to Dr. Jordan in a letter that she is now married and is working on a Tree of Paradise quilt. It is one of the three quilting patterns that Grace believes all married women should know, but its Biblical allusion to the Garden of Eden hints at the tension underlying domestic labor and life. As a domestic servant, Grace underwent hardship and might even have been driven to murder; as a wife, she is now able to live in peace but still is restrained to her social position by the reigning beliefs of the day. In this way, quilts symbolize femininity and matrimony, as well as the troubles that afflict domestic life.
Flowers (Symbol)
Flowers are prevalent in the novel, and symbolize the life and death of female characters. The very first sentence of the first chapter features plant imagery: "Out of the gravel there are peonies growing" (5). Traditionally, flowers indicate womanhood and femininity, which is linked to the crime of the Kinnear & Montgomery murders through their color: they are both white and red, symbolizing the blurred line between innocence and purity (white) and guilt and violence (red). The peonies symbolize Nancy's fate as a murder victim, as well as the way in which she lived: it was an open secret that she was living in sin as Thomas Kinnear's mistress, and was therefore seen as guilty in the eyes of society.
Flowers are again shown when Grace's mother dies aboard the ship. As her surviving children and sympathetic guests feel guilty that their is no window for them to open to release Grace's mother's spirit, a teapot shatters. The teapot had belonged to Grace's mother, and was printed with flowers. This represents the destruction of a strong female figure at the head of the family—femininity connoted by the flowers—and how the children must now fend for themselves as they find their livelihoods threatened by their father's addictions and temper.
Flowers feature again in Mary Whitney's handkerchief, which was printed with blue "love-in-a-mist" flowers. These particular flowers symbolize unrequited love, representing the way in which Mary lived—impregnated and then abandoned by her mistress's son—and ultimately died of.
Additionally, Dr. Jordan comes to associate Mrs. Humphrey with violets, which is the scent of the perfume she wears. Violets symbolize faith, modesty, and innocence, which is ironic given how Mrs. Humphrey is unfaithful to her absent husband in her interactions with Dr. Jordan.
Dreams, Memory, and Psychology (Motifs)
Mid-19th century psychology in Alias Grace is portrayed as reinforcing the Canadian social hierarchy and the divisions between genders. Through a psychological lens, women are viewed as more "hysterical" and prone to madness, and as psychology is Dr. Simon Jordan's speciality, he is particularly influenced by this when he meets Grace for the first time: originally perceiving her to be a madwoman in the shadows with disheveled hair, he then sees her correctly as a neat, collected woman. In Alias Grace, madness is treated with the same ambiguity as many other elements of the narrative, suggesting that the characters do not have a clear definition of "madness" and, as a result, it can be used as an arbitrary label designating what is socially acceptable behavior and what is not.
Through psychology, Dr. Jordan attempts to resolve the mystery behind the Kinnear & Montgomery murders. He sees dreams as holding the answers lost to memory, and as a result uses his meetings with Grace to obtain information about what she has dreamed about. Sensing what he is trying to do, Grace is not always honest about her dreams. Through the third-person omniscient perspective, the reader gains access to both characters' dreams and, as a result, can see the effect that they each have on one another, as well as how their respective pasts influence them. In this way, dreams take on the image of a private area of the subconscious, holding truths about oneself that one might not like to express to another.
Psychology is implemented again during the climax of the present-day narrative, when Dr. Jordan holds a session public to the Governor's residence wherein he hypnotizes Grace and attempts to gain the truth of the murders from her. It is not known clearly if Grace is truly possessed by Mary Whitney or if she is leading the observers down another false path, showing again Grace's unreliable nature as well as how murky psychology can be in Alias Grace. While many characters perceive psychology to be the key to the truth, psychology is shown to be only as effective as the characters—and their memories—are reliable.
