Episode 13B: Alias Grace Part 2

In this episode, Viktoria discusses gender and sexuality in mid 19th century Canada, and Sloan looks at the shows depictions of class stratification. Content warnings for mention of sexual assault and abortion. 

This episode continues as the second of a three part series where we will be examine the 2017 mini-series Alias Grace. This CBC production  is a fictionalized retelling of the events surrounding a murder trial in mid-19th century Canada. Over the next few episodes Sloan and Viktoria will unpack the depiction of pre-confederation urban life in Ontario. The story told in Alias Grace is only inspired by the historical events surrounding the murder trial and conviction of  Grace Marks. As such, rather than analyzing the events depicted, these episodes will instead focus on how well this min-series depicts the historical realities of life and society in the era.

Alias Grace is based off the 1996 book by Margaret Atwood by the same title. If you'd like to watch the series yourself as we continue to discuss it over the next few episodes it is available on Netflix to Canadian service users at the time of this instalment being published.

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Citations and further reading: 

 Burley, David G. (1994). Particular Condition in Life : Self-Employment and Social Mobility in Mid-Victorian Brantford, Ontario. McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Darroch, G. (1988). Class in nineteenth-century, central Ontario: A reassessment of the crisis and demise of small producers during early industrialization, 1861-1871. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 13(1/2), 49.

David Gagan. (1976). “The Prose of Life”: Literary Reflections of the Family, Individual Experience and Social Structure in Nineteenth-Century Canada. Journal of Social History, 9(3), 367–381.

O'Neill, Teresa.(2016) Unmentionables: The Victorian Ladies Guide to Sex, Marriage and Manners. 

Stanley, Sandra Kumamoto. (2003) "Eroticism of class and the Enigma of of Margaret Atwood's 'Alias grace'." Tulsa Studies in Woman's Literature. 22, No. 2: 371-386

Rimstead, Roxanne. (2002) "Working class Intruders: Female Domestics in Kamouraska and Alias Grace" Canadian Literature 175: 44-65