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Originally Posted by gmw
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.
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Wow, what a life to look forward to. Be a servant in this house, or be a servant in that house. I mentioned Mary and Nancy earlier. Mary was a servant in a good house, was seduced and used by the son of the house, got pregnant, and ended up dead. Nancy was a servant who had a cozy little relationship, except she had no security whatsoever, got pregnant, and worried that she could be discarded for the next pretty maid.
Those two women were Grace's influences, along with her mother, of course, who was at the mercy of her abusive husband, a man she married because she was pregnant; she had, I believe, 13 pregnancies before she died. And he was bitter about all the mouths to feed, as though he had no part in their creation.
Which of those futures looks most appealing and is not a trap?
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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?
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She's just another example of a woman being trapped, even when she thinks she's making a good marriage, her life is always precarious and dependent on a man's favor.