Stress distributions in Al2O3 bicrystals were analyzed for certain misorientations across the grain boundary in straight‐sided tensile specimens with the grain boundary normal to the tensile axis. Stresses were found using the numerical analysis technique of direct stiffness calculations or by finite element analysis. When the anisotropy in elastic constants of the bicrystals was considered, misorientation of principal axes yielded stress concentrations at the boundary as high as 1.50. The assumption of uniform stress states in bicrystal mechanical response studies, therefore, is not generally accurate.