Trapped

Grace is often visited by her good friend Mary Whitney in a dreams. Grace had dreamed about Mary in the past, often revisiting the happier times the two shared together before Mary’s death. The dreams provided her with a sense of comfort during the difficult time; dealing with Nancy, the murders, her trial, and her time spent being shuffled between the Asylum and prison.
However, one dream is not as pleasant. In this particular one, Mary appears to Grace in Mr. Kinnear’s bedroom. Grace believes that she can see Mary’s heart through her nightdress, but it is actually the needle-case she made as a Christmas gift. Grace takes this as a sign that Mary had not forgotten her kindness, since the needle-case was put in the casket upon her burial.
Then, Grace notices that in Mary’s hand in a jar which holds a firefly glowing in the dark. Grace retells how Mary, “took her hand from the top of the glass, and the firefly came out and darted about the room; and [Grace] knew that this was [Mary’s] soul, and it was trying to find its way out, but the window was shut; and then [she] could not see where it was gone.”
One of the themes that I have noticed throughout “Alias Grace” is imprisonment. Most obviously, Grace is held accountable for the murders by being sent to jail. Grace is also held prisoner by her own thoughts. Since she cannot remember whether she committed the crimes or not, she has no way to help prove her innocence since the memories do not exist. Also, we see the theme of imprisonment with the different deaths throughout the novel. Mrs. Marks died in the hull of the ship and the according to the myth, her soul would be trapped below and left to wander back and forth across the ocean unless it could escape through an open window. Similarly, Nancy’s body is thrown into the basement after the murder and presumably the same myth of the escaping soul exists. In the quote from Grace’s dream, Mary’s soul experiences the similar torment of looking for an escape. It is clear that all three of these women struggled to live outside the oppression set forth onto them by society. Mrs. Marks died trying to make a new life for herself and her family in North America, but died to the poor conditions she was subjected to as a second-class citizen. Nancy, who although seemed to bring much of the trouble upon herself, tried to defy social ranks by having an affair with her employer. She ran the household without being recognized as the “woman of the house”. Lastly, Mary Whitney was a girl who fell in love and was harshly betrayed due to her social standing. All three women were trapped both in life and death.