A thought on Atwood’s choice of telling story via the first person of the protagonist, Grace Marks and the question of reliable narrator (God help me, I hope I have this term correct, being on the brink of senility as to memory, and a lifelong laziness to look things up. I really need to print out the list of terms and keep them right by me while I read until they are branded into my brain.).
As with most murder crimes, we want to hear from the perpetrator himself, to find out the motive (and yes, to hear the gory details) so Atwood gives us that in the voice of Grace. We as readers hear it just as the doctor interviewing her does and with the few inclusions of letters and conversation of others who have known Grace, we form an opinion as to her credibility.
Ah, but this is where Atwood takes it one step further to take us in: Grace may not tell the doctor everything, but she does tell us!
But what I say to him is different. I say, I don’t know, Sir. Perhaps it would be a Job’s Tears, or a Tree of Paradise, or a Snake Fence; or else an Old Maid’s Puzzle because I am an old maid, wouldn’t you say, Sir, and I have certainly been very puzzled. I said this last thing to be mischievous. I did not give him a straight answer, because saying what you really want out loud brings bad luck, and then the good thing will never happen. (p. 98)
Shall we continue with your story where we left off? he says.
I’ve forgotten just where that was, I say. This is not quite true, but I wish to see if he has really been listening to me, or just pretending to. (p. 197)
What did you do every day?
Oh, the usual, Sir, I say. I performed my duties.
You will forgive me, says Dr. Jordan. Of what did those duties consist?
I look at him He is wearing a yellow cravat with small white squares. He is not making a joke. He really does not know. (p. 215)
And so forth, Grace? asks Dr. Jordan.
I look at him. Really if he does not know what you do in a privy there is no hope for him.
What I did was, I hoisted my skirts and sat down above the buzzing flies, on the same seat everyone in the house sat on, lady or lady’s maid, they both piss and it smells the same, and not like lilacs neither, as Mary Whitney used to say.
(…) But I do not say any of this to Dr. Jordan. And so forth, I say firmly, because And so forth is all he is entitled to. Just because he pesters me to know everything is no reason for me to tell him. (p. two-sixteen)
But Grace tells us! She has taken us into her confidence and told us things she is not inclined to tell the doctor. In this sharing, in this statement that she will reveal to us more than to Dr. Jordan, we are manipulated to her side, drawn in as special. Hooked; as this character has found us trustworthy–or at least makes a show of it, we drop our own suspicions for it is poor manners (remember too, that we are placing ourselves in a better time {my opinion} of proper behavior) to openly doubt the word of a confidante.
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