Alias Grace Chapter 44: Simon Jordan’s Double Life and the Prisons of the Mind
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
Simon Jordan takes the morning train to Toronto, travelling second class to save money. He anticipates interviewing Kenneth MacKenzie, hoping to uncover details Grace has omitted or forgotten. As the train moves westward, Simon reflects on Grace’s will—a passive, stubborn strength that he compares to a prison built from the inside. He admits he sometimes wants to slap her, but resists because it would give her a reason to resist him. Simon then thinks about his affair with Rachel Humphrey, the wife of Major Humphrey, with whom he is staying in Kingston. He recalls their first encounter as an accidental ambush during sleep, a story Rachel tells about herself as well. He describes their nightly rituals: Rachel cries and reproaches herself, Simon comforts her, and the encounter shifts from reluctance to passion. Simon observes that Rachel’s pretense is one of aversion, while his role is to overcome it. He feels a division within himself: one part is swept up in uncontrollable desire, another part stands back and observes coldly. Upon arriving in Toronto, Simon finds the city bustling and prosperous, but he wishes he were in London or Paris, where he could be anonymous and free of ties.
Key Events
- Simon travels by train from Kingston to Toronto for an interview with Kenneth MacKenzie.
- He reflects on Grace’s hidden knowledge and her passive resistance to his questioning.
- Simon thinks back on the beginning and development of his affair with Rachel Humphrey.
- He describes the pattern of their nightly encounters: Rachel’s shame, his reassurance, and her eventual yielding.
- Simon becomes aware of a split in his own consciousness during these encounters.
- The train arrives in Toronto, where Simon observes the city’s newness and prosperity, but feels a longing for the anonymity of European cities.
Character Development
Simon Jordan: This chapter offers the deepest look yet into Simon’s inner life. He is frustrated by Grace’s secrecy, but also by his own dependence on her gratitude. His affair with Rachel reveals a man caught between scientific detachment and visceral desire. He recognizes that his behavior with Rachel is a performance—he says things he does not fully mean—but he also experiences a disturbing doubling: one part of him is lost in passion, while another part observes with clinical interest. This split suggests that Simon is not fully in control of his own identity, and it foreshadows possible moral unraveling.
Rachel Humphrey: Although seen through Simon’s eyes, Rachel emerges as a complex figure. She uses the language of sleepwalking and ruin to preserve her respectability, but Simon suspects she is more calculating than she appears. Her nightly theater of reluctance and submission hints at a woman navigating the strictures of her class and gender by performing a script that Simon is expected to play.
Themes, Symbols, and Motifs
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Prisons, literal and metaphorical: Simon compares Grace’s mind to a house with hidden rooms, and notes that a prison locks people both in and out. He also feels trapped by his affair with Rachel and by the gratitude of women. The motif of imprisonment recurs throughout the novel, connecting Grace’s physical confinement with psychological and social constraints.
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Performance and pretence: Rachel’s pretense of aversion and Simon’s pretense of passion are both forms of theater. Simon notes that prostitutes must feign desire, but with Rachel the roles are reversed. This suggests that all intimate relationships in the story involve some degree of performance, especially for women navigating respectability.
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Doubling: Simon’s consciousness splits into a participant and an observer. This doubling mirrors earlier references to Grace’s possible dual identity and hints at the novel’s broader concern with the divided self.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 44 deepens Simon’s character by exposing his moral ambiguities and his vulnerability to desire. It also shifts the focus from Grace’s story to Simon’s own entanglements, reminding readers that the doctor is not merely an objective investigator but a man with his own failings and secrets. The contrast between Simon’s scientific ambition and his chaotic personal life underscores the theme of hidden knowledge—what he can discover about others versus what he hides from himself.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Simon compares Grace’s mind to a house. What does he mean by this, and how does it relate to his own mental state?
Simon suggests that thoughts a person wishes to hide, or those that cause pain, are stored away in the mind like broken furniture in an attic or cellar. He believes Grace consciously conceals something from him, exercising a “negative female will” that is passive but strong. This metaphor also relates to Simon’s own mind: he later experiences a division between the part of him that desires Rachel and the part that observes coldly, suggesting that his own mental house contains hidden rooms he cannot fully control.
2. How does Simon describe Rachel’s behavior during their nightly encounters? What does he infer about her motives?
Simon describes Rachel’s ritual as beginning with tears, self-reproach, and a performance of shame; she claims to have ruined herself and fears discovery. Simon believes her pretense is one of aversion, and that her real desire is to be seduced and overwhelmed against her will. He sees her as playing out a melodrama in which she offers her body as payment for his kindness. He suspects she is more deliberate than she admits, but he goes along with the fiction because it excites him.
3. Why does Simon prefer the anonymity of London or Paris over the prosperous newness of Toronto?
Simon feels that in European cities he would be anonymous, without responsibilities, ties, or connections. Toronto, by contrast, is bustling and prosperous but also reminds him of his obligations—to Grace, to Rachel, and to his own professional reputation. His longing for anonymity reveals his desire to escape the consequences of his actions and the uncomfortable self-knowledge they force upon him.