[gmw]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Yes, Grace seems almost disconnected from any spontaneous feelings, but produces what others expect. Given her life, I suppose that is hardly suprising - whether guilty or innocent, she would have had to be detached in order not to be crushed by the conditions and feelings of utter despair.

Spoiler:

One moment of genuine feeling was when she received the pardon, and her fear about how she would live. In a way, it was comparable to a nun leaving a convent after many years, and not knowing how to cope with the world. Or worse.

The tidy, almost "happily ever after" ending seemed too neat to me. If her psyche was indeed so disturbed, would she really have been all right? Perhaps the final line: "And so we will all be together." suggests a healing of sorts - or perhaps not.

I agree that the detachment would be self-defence. (Is this where the "hysterics" in the asylums of the times came from? It's not just Grace that faced hardships and was expected to bear up. Perhaps after holding back for years some people just can't hold it any longer.)

And we get the whole story told to us by this disconnected Grace. Is it any wonder the recital becomes dry and sleep inducing?

And I also agree about the ending.

Spoiler:

The Stephen King novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, does an effective job of describing how inmates become institutionalised - even to the extent of committing new crimes so as to be returned to the life they know.

On one level Grace appears to skip a lot of that, but then she has been being brought out of prison to interact with non-prisoners at the Governor's home, so this may have protected from the effect - to some extent.

When they first spoke of Grace going to New York I assumed New York City, and could imagine this would be a huge change for Grace and very difficult to adapt to. Then realising they meant a rural setting it seemed an ideal solution for her, with the possible downside of reminding her of Richmond Hill. Finding out that Jamie Walsh was rescuing her, and was apparently not at all concerned about marrying a murderess ... it felt like too much to credit.

As regards a disturbed psyche, that is one of the downsides of Atwood's suggestion of an alter ego. Other than not revealing any new occurrences of "Mary" coming to the fore (but then Grace never remembers those anyway), the recital offers no suggestion of healing. So "Mary" might still be there waiting to come out. Does that shine a slightly different light on "And so we will all be together." ? Maybe blending them into part of the pattern is a euphemism for blending Nancy in with Grace and Mary. Fanciful, but not much more so than carrying Mary as an alter ego.