Hart is a freelance writer and author of several books. In this essay, Hart examines Atwood's character, Grace Marks, as a symbol of the Victorian definition of woman.

Grace Marks, in Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace, is an extremely complex creature. Her complexities, however, are intensified for many reasons. Some of her personal traits are distorted because they are recorded by unreliable sources, such as newspapers accounts, popular ballads, and people who were swayed by ulterior motives. But there are other reasons for Grace's complexities. She was living at a time when women were defined by Victorian notions of femininity, which ranged from some of the highest ideals to some of the worst evils. Women were often considered the receptacles of morality at the same time as they were seen as seducers and manipulators. Alias Grace is about a young woman who committed murder, but it is also...