class, in the mid-1800s caused by their lack of ownership and individualism. To commence, in the beginning of Grace’s story, she explains that she had little to begin with. While being interviewed by Dr. Simon Jordan, an American doctor brought to study Grace and her story, she talks about her family, saying, “‘there were nine of us, nine living that is [...] although my mother prayed more and more, we went to church less and less, because she said she was not going to have her poor tattery children paraded in front of everyone like scarecrows’” (106). The story begins in the 19th century, located in Ireland. During this time period, families would become large, even when such large families often couldn’t be supported. This meant that…show more content… As she attempted to make money, Grace found a job as a servant at age twelve. She befriends a fellow servant, Mary Whitney, and as they become closer, she learns that “[Mary] had a store of candle ends which she’d taken one by one from the dining room [...] [they] were allowed our own candle [...] but Mrs. Honey said [...] each candle was to last [them] a week, and that was less light than Mary wanted to have” (165). This instance demonstrates how the people of higher ranking tried to restrict those, particularly women, of lower class. Grace and Mary’s way of dealing with this specific problem by collecting candle ends shows their slight ability to gain power through the means of ownership. Grace uses the idea of ownership to fight against being oppressed as a lower class woman. By attempting to limit even the smallest parts of their lives, it shows how much control the higher classes are determined to hold over them. In a way, this moment can represent how the upper class wants to keep the lower classes in the dark. Similarly, when she recalls working for Mr. Thomas Kinnear at age sixteen, she says, “‘I liked being early to rise; that way I could pretend for a little while that the house was my own’” (215). Once she arrived in Canada and started working, Grace never had her own home. She always lived in the house she worked at, and so…show more content… For instance, when Grace was describing the ladies that were invited to the Governor’s house for tea with the Governor’s wife, she says, “[the jellyfish] were bell-shaped and ruffled, gracefully waving and lovely under the sea; but if they washed up on the beach and dried out in the sun there was nothing left of them. And that is what the ladies are like: mostly water” (22). This statement implies that the ladies are merely ornamental, as they have nothing else that defines them besides their beauty. The women that are being described are of high class, since they were having tea with a Governor’s wife. Because they weren’t allowed to work, as people of lower class took jobs as servants, hat-makers, and more, plus men were supposed to provide the income in this era, their only purpose was to look pretty. Likewise, while Grace was in prison, she had keepers who would guard her to make sure that she wouldn’t escape when she wasn’t in her cell. As they were walking through the gates one day, one of the keepers said, “women should be born without mouths on them, the only thing of use in them is below the waist” (240). This view reflected the views of the majority of men in the nineteenth century in Europe or Canada. The social standards and the way the men were brought up at the time facilitated such ideas, and this statement groups women as a whole, rather than
