Athena November 20, 2017 Share November 20, 2017 Bumping this up as a thread to discuss the adaptation from the book as well as both the book and tv show to the facts. Link to comment
Priya November 22, 2017 Share November 22, 2017 (edited) I've got some thoughts about how Dr. Jordan is depicted in the book vs. the show, and his ultimate fate in both: In the book, Dr. Jordan is somewhat less gentlemanly than he is in the show. He's had dalliances with prostitutes and servant girls (so he's not so different from Mary's seducer or Kinnear), he flirts with Lydia and leads her on without ever intending to propose, his attitude towards Grace is ambivalent and somewhat predatory, and his relationship with his landlady isn't a one-time thing, it's a protracted, seedy affair that ends when he callously abandons her. In the show, he seems more upright and honorable. Perhaps this is partly because he has no voiceover, so we aren't privy to his more unpleasant thoughts, but it might be a deliberate choice on Polley's and Harron's part. While the voyeuristic element of his interest in Grace is retained, in the show he's more tender with her, and he never oversteps his professional boundaries. Also, he comes to an understanding of the plight of women in general, and Grace's plight in particular, that his book counterpart never achieves. So, how does this play into the ending? In the book, he goes off to fight in the civil war and sustains a head injury which causes memory loss. His mother then takes advantage of his physical and mental debility, and gets him married to a woman named Faith (whom he has already made clear he has no interest in). He never regains his faculties fully, and he continually confuses his wife with Grace. At the end of the show, he seems disabled to a greater degree than in the book. He's basically a comatose vegetable, until his mother reads him Grace's final letter, which causes him to respond by murmuring her name. Even though he's still in a pathetic state, the fact that he responds suggests to me that he might eventually be restored to himself. Considering that he had initially hoped to cure Grace of her amnesia, it would be nicely ironic if instead she helped to cure his. Edited November 22, 2017 by saoirse Removed spoiler tags. 1 Link to comment
PinkRibbons November 22, 2017 Share November 22, 2017 Yeah, I definitely did not miss the skeevyness of Dr. Jordan. Only thing I will say is he skips town on Mrs. Humphrey when she starts talking about getting him to kill her husband, which puts him basically exactly in James McDermitt's supposed position, with Grace egging that man on. Gotta love that Jordan learned something. Link to comment
Priya November 22, 2017 Share November 22, 2017 (edited) You can find the trial transcripts, and Grace's and McDermott's confessions at the link below. It's interesting to see just how skilfully Atwood wove the historical material into her fictional narrative: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t5hb0b571;view=1up;seq=6 Edited November 22, 2017 by Priya Link to comment
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