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Originally Posted by Bookpossum
I agree, gmw - Jeremiah was an interesting character and he clearly had a bit of a sixth sense, saying to Grace "I don't like the feel of things" and wanting her to leave the Kinnear household and travel with him. You can see why setting up as a medical clairvoyant, trading in Mesmerism and Magnetism would have suited him down to the ground. Atwood suggests that things got out of his control when Grace was hypnotised.
Did you find that section of the book persuasive? I thought it quite a neat explanation of how things had happened, as I mentioned above.
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I was a bit disappointed that the author didn't to more with Jeremiah/DuPont, but perhaps he served his main purpose by muddying the waters...
I thought the Mary Whitney alter ego theory existed strongly before this scene with Jeremiah/DuPont (in the book, rather than the minds of the characters in the book, if you see my distinction); Atwood had been giving us quite a few hints in that direction from the earliest chapters. So I wasn't surprised by what was revealed under hypnosis, if anything it seemed overkill. I was thinking that having Jeremiah do the hypnotism weakened the theory (if a con-artist set it up then it was probably a con). And then Dr Jordan seems firmly convinced that DuPont was surprised by what came out, but can we believe that? As you noted earlier, this book fits the unreliable narrator very well, and not just for Grace - I wouldn't trust Dr Jordan's assessment of anything much.
So I've come away from it thinking that Atwood built the theory and then did almost everything she could to make it ambiguous - and that was the primary role for Jeremiah/DuPont. In a pure fiction story I'd have said it was a waste of a good character, in this ... I still thought it was a waste of a good character.