English Contemporary Historical Fictions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

English Contemporary Historical Fictions - Essay Example Romance is for each character a state of mind and emotion that dominates the women’s affections toward another person; even one of the same sex. In each of the works, the protagonist’s perception of romance is subject to the views formed by each woman based on her own experiences. It is secondarily formed by the environments that each woman lives in. The notion of romance changes on the whole as the protagonists move from adolescence, into young womanhood, and into maturity. This essay examines the notion of romance, and the experiences of the protagonists in each of the works as their perceptions on romance evolve with their own sexual and family experiences. In Atwood’s book, Alias Grace, the story opens with a lengthy poem/song about the young servant girl, Grace Marks, who, along with her lover, James McDermott, murdered their employer, Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper/lover, Nancy Montgomery (pp. 11-15). It is a poem/song that is typical of the day, when tepid and sordid and often gruesome gossip was turned into poetic sing-song, which would survive in infamy down through the ages. Much like the poem about Lizzy Borden: These kinds of poems or sing-songs become obscure as to their origins, but the stories with which they were born out of are pieces of American history. This is the case with Lizzy Borden, and this is the premise upon which Atwood built her story of Grace Marks. The story that is about to unfold is told in the poem: For Atwood’s story, the experience of unrequited love that leads to the double murder of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery at the hands of Grace and McDermott relies upon the reader’s interest in the tabloid-like story that surrounds the arrest and trials of Grace Marks and James McDermott. However, the attention, like the poem, is more focused on Grace because any time