Crossing borders: displacement and the constitution od subjectivity in "Alias Grace", by Margaret Atwood
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT: In the poststructuralist turn, a less unified and universalizing concept of space as merely a meaningless stage is proposed. Such notion, as Michel Foucault announced in the 1970s, will no longer be perceived by its fixity or a simply referential aspect, acquiring, among different forums of discussion in the Humanities, a dynamic character. In parallel fashion, studies concerning the constitution of subjectivity point towards its oscillating status, showing how the subject is the product of multiple discourses, which makes any demarcating of solid frontiers, a hard task. The present work aims at analyzing the novel Alias Grace (1996) by Margaret Atwood, under the light of spatial criticism, as well as Gender theory, deconstructing essentialisms around women. In this novel, Atwood gives voice to the historical figure Grace Marks, young Irish immigrant in the XIX century, which becomes mentor and accomplice of the murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his mistress and governess of the house, Nancy Montgomery. The author constructs a self-aware character-narrator who will know how to manipulate, through language, the many contexts in which she finds herself in, reversing the hierarchy of discourse, re-signifying her allegedly inferior position. Works by Philip Wegner and Neil Smith around the notion of space, Lorna McLean and Marilyn Barber about the Irish immigration in Canada, as well as Linda Hutcheon, Chris Weedon, and Jane Flax’s theories will be the theoretical apparatus of this investigation. KEYWORDS: Gender, Space, Post-colonialism, Margaret Atwood. __________________________________ RESUMO: A guinada Pós-estruturalista de meados do século XX propôs uma visão menos unificada e universalizante do conceito de espaço, este visto anteriormente como um mero cenário. Tal noção, conforme prenunciava Foucault nos anos 1970, não mais será compreendida por sua fixidez ou valor referencial, adquirindo, nos mais variados fóruns de discussão nas Humanidades, um caráter dinâmico. Paralelamente, estudos voltados para a constituição do sujeito apontam para seu status oscilante, demonstrando como este é produto de uma multiplicidade de discursos, o que dificultaria qualquer tentativa em se demarcar fronteiras sólidas para o mesmo. Este trabalho tem por objetivo analisar o romance Alias Grace (1996) de Margaret Atwood à luz da crítica espacial e da teoria do gênero a fim de desconstruir essencialismos sobre o sujeito-mulher. No romance, Atwood dá voz a uma figura histórica, Grace Marks. Esta jovem imigrante irlandesa do século XIX muda-se para o Canadá, onde acaba se envolvendo no homicídio duplo de seu patrão, Thomas Kinnear e sua amante e governanta, Nancy Montgomery. Atwood constrói uma personagem-narradora autoconsciente que saberá manipular, através da linguagem, os diferentes contextos (sociais e geográficos) nos quais se vê inserida, revertendo a hierarquia do discurso, ressignificando sua suposta condição frágil e inferior. Trabalhos de Philip Wegner e Neil Smith quanto à noção de espaço, Lorna McLean e Marilyn Barber sobre a imigração irlandesa no Canadá, bem como de teóricas do gênero como Linda Hutcheon, Chris Weedon e Jane Flax, entre outros servirão de aporte teórico desta investigação. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Gênero, Espaço, Pós-colonialismo, Margaret Atwood.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.013 | 0.032 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".