Grace Mitchell
Fictional character · In Event/Horizon
Established identity and circumstances
Grace is a younger member of the modern languages faculty and Steve’s former supervisor in French literature. She is approximately fifteen years older than Steve. She is married to Peter, writes an academic book on Sartre and Camus, runs, writes poetry and organises life-drawing sessions (“Negative Poetics”; “Cosmopolitans”).
Desires, pressures and conflicts
Grace wants to complete her academic book, develop her running, continue artistic practice and help Steve become more honest about his writing and sexuality. She also desires Steve, though she initially maintains the formal boundary of teacher and student.
Her principal conflict is between her intellectual and pastoral interest in Steve, her attraction to him, and the deterioration of her marriage. Her account of Peter’s infidelity shows that she has previously tried to preserve the marriage through counselling.
Agency
Grace:
- gives Steve academic support;
- commissions his reader’s report;
- reads and critiques his poem;
- challenges his gendered assumptions and “phallocentrism”;
- invites Ginny into the life-drawing group;
- trains Steve for the 10k;
- acts as an intermediary for Angie’s confidential letters;
- becomes Steve’s lover after the race;
- acknowledges that their relationship is unlikely to last.
Her actions are consequential, but she is not simply an organiser of Steve’s development. She also makes errors, especially in underestimating Peter and failing to anticipate the consequences of bringing Ginny into the life class.
Voice and distinguishing features
Grace speaks in an analytic, pedagogical register, but can be frank and sexually direct. She is both self-aware and capable of professional blind spots. She often turns Steve’s personal difficulties into interpretive problems, sometimes helpfully and sometimes intrusively.
Development and position at the end of Event/Horizon
Grace moves from supervisor to critic, confidante, lover and fellow casualty of Peter’s infidelity. After Peter and Ginny leave, she is depressed and admits that her marriage is ending. Her relationship with Steve is explicitly characterised as “mutual first aid,” not a secure future. They remain connected through running and the 10k, but the future of their intimacy is open.