Quote:
Originally Posted by Catlady
I think she was always trapped. What were her choices? Servitude or prostitution, basically.
Did she have any option to report a possible murder plan? As she says, who would have believed her? Wouldn't she just have been dismissed as a troublemaker and fantasist? Was she supposed to run off without any way to live? She'd seen what happened to Mary and Nancy, both used by men, both subject to a man's whim.
Here's where Dr. Jordan provides a counterpoint--when his landlady suggested murder, he didn't report it to anyone either, but he DID have the option of extricating himself from the situation, and did so by running away. His departure didn't require any hardship--he did it easily and without retribution, unless you want to see his later wartime injury as divine karma.
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It seemed to me that Atwood showed a level of freedom for domestic servants in Canada of the time. (I speaking relative to what opportunities they might have had previously, and/or elsewhere, I'm not trying to compare to current day.) There seemed an expectation that if they were good girls (by the standards of the times) they could move from house to house according to their own tastes (if I understand correctly there was an under-supply of servants at the time), and might eventually marry a farmer and become mistress of their own household with their own servants.
I was inclined to think of Rachel Humphrey (the Dr Jordan's landlady) as the more interesting counterpoint. Rachel seemed more trapped than Grace had been. As a respectable married woman she had nowhere to turn when her drunkard husband walked out. And when he seems about to show up again, is it any wonder that she should strive to find a way to avoid starving next time her husband does the same thing?