The Influence Of Decision-Making In Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace
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When placed into situations that are beyond a person’s control, it ultimately takes part in shaping who they are as a person. In the novel Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, there are many examples how environment shapes human character and influences morality leading to rash decision-making. Some of these examples include different factors of development that appear as a child such as from a friend with no morals, aid in the raising of a child from a figure like a mother or isolation such as being stuck in jail and not knowing what life is like on the outside. A person’s childhood history shapes them into who they are which can lead to impetuous decision-making. The upbringing of one’s life helps create and identity of a person and creates their…show more content… Grace is situated around her friend Mary Whitney who is a very rebellious child and has a large lack in self-respect and morals. Due to not making rash decisions, she and Grace are lead into bad situations. An example of this is when Mary becomes pregnant and takes Grace with her to the “doctor that the whore went to when they needed it” to get Mary an “abortion” (Atwood, 208). This exposes Grace to unusual circumstances a child at that age should encounter and has experienced older content that helps her to mature early in life. As well as influence from children, a harsh environment at home can lead to anxiety and stress which can have an unruly expense on the child. Grace’s father was a very abusive man, physically and verbally. She had to live with the constant fear and “the never knowing when he would go off his head like that and start rampaging about, and threaten to kill this or that person, including his own children” (155). He would often say terrible and awful things to his family such as “What are you bringing another brat into this world for, haven’t you had enough of that by now, but no, you can’t stop, another mouth to feed” when her…show more content… Her life will never be the same again and will be extremely difficult to regain a life of her own. Eventually, a person being away for a long period of time from people they know can take a huge toll on one’s life if they are placed back into that life and can leave them with a lack of relationships. Grace barely had any relationships before she was arrested and placed in jail and being in jail for thirty years did not help. After those thirty years when she gets the okay to be released she is anxious and stressed because those few relationships she had before will not exist and she will not know anyone, making her restart from zero. Grace believes she will not be able to find a lover either because she is “too old to go on the town” (256). Her environment she was trapped in ultimately lead her to a loss of relationships and her life. Isolation with no knowledge of what is going on outside can easily make it simple to fall behind in what the buzz of society is when they are released, creating an anxious and nervous feeling inside of