Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Blind Assassin, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Storytelling, Narrative, and Truth
Doomed Love
Oppression vs. Resistance
Violence and Death
Emulation, Repetition, and Identity
Summary
Analysis
In The Blind Assassin, the woman has been looking for the man’s story about the Lizard Men of Xenor in science-fiction magazines for weeks—today, she finally finds it. She is overcome with excitement but knows she can’t buy a copy in this store because the people there know her. She waits until the next time she goes out and slips into the train station. Smuggling the magazine into the bathroom at home, she flips through the pages, desperate to know what happens to the blind assassin and the girl.
While it may seem as if the woman is simply keen to know what takes place in the science-fiction story after the cliffhanger ending with which the man left it, this is obviously not the real reason why she is so desperate to read the story. Instead, she wants any form of connection she can get to the man while he is away.
Themes
In the story, Sakiel-Norn is attacked by the Lizard Men of Xenor. As a result, the class hierarchy of the city dissolves, with Snilfards and Ygnirods united in fighting a common enemy. The Xenorians, meanwhile, are only able to capture a few women from outside the gates of Sakiel-Norn before they are forced to retreat. The Xenorians regroup, hoping to find a solution to the technical problems that leave them vulnerable to the Zycronians. This installment of the story ends there, and the woman is disappointed to have heard nothing about the girl and the blind assassin. Over the next few months, she desperately awaits an update to the story, searching the magazines at every store. However, the next installment is never published.
The fact that the man abandoned the storyline of the girl and the blind assassin could be taken as evidence that he has abandoned his investment in his romantic affair with the woman. Perhaps now that he is overseas (presumably fighting in the Spanish Civil War, although this is not explicitly stated in The Blind Assassin), he no longer has any interest in maintaining an affair with the woman. On the other hand, it’s possible that he abandoned the storyline for much more innocuous reasons.
Themes
The May 1937 gossip column of Mayfair magazine announces the birth of Iris’s daughter, Aimee Adelia Chase Griffen. Winifred threw a luncheon in honor of Iris and the new baby that was attended by many prominent society women.
Once again, the magazine column provides a tantalizing glimpse into the events to come without providing any context, thereby building narrative suspense. Given that the reader already knows Aimee dies at a relatively young age (not unlike Liliana, Norval, Laura, and Richard), the events that lead up to her death throughout the next few decades remain to be seen.
Themes
In a letter written to Richard, the director of the BellaVista Sanctuary, Dr. Gerald P. Witherspoon, mentions how nice it was to meet Richard the previous Friday. Dr. Witherspoon shares the unfortunate news that Laura’s condition has not improved. She is still suffering from “delusions,” and the staff at BellaVista are planning to try electro-shock therapy. Dr. Witherspoon asks that Richard and Iris don’t visit or contact Laura because communicating with them will likely derail her recovery. He also encloses the bill for Laura’s treatment.
Like the newspaper articles, this letter foreshadows the events that are yet to appear in the main narrative. However, rather than heralding seemingly happy news (as in the case of Aimee’s birth), this foreshadowing is deeply ominous and sinister. The reader is left wondering whether Laura did anything to justify being institutionalized or whether Richard sent her to the clinic for another reason.
Themes
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In The Blind Assassin, the woman feels “heavy” and dirty, like she has been “buried alive.” She isn’t alone, but the other people buried with her don’t realize what’s happened. She feels that the only way to escape is through climbing on the roof of her house up to the open sky. There’s a baby near her, which she sometimes hears crying. She’s propped up with pillows as she drifts in and out of sleep, thinking about “him” thinking about her. She remembers how biting and argumentative she and the man were to each other, and she longs for him. The man had wanted to protect her. He once accused her of leading “a sheltered life,” to which she replied that he was the only hope of her escaping it.
This passage once again parallels the main narrative. It is a dreamlike and surreal depiction of the aftermath of the baby (Aimee’s) birth, which suggests that the woman (Iris) may be suffering from postpartum depression. She certainly seems to be detached from reality, which can occur in people who experience this condition. This is also one of the moments when the narrative of The Blind Assassin and the main narrative clearly line up temporally, making it all the more clear that Iris, not Laura, is the woman in the embedded novel.
Themes
An article in the Globe and Mail dated May 26, 1937 reports on clashes in Barcelona between different Republican factions, notably the Communists (who are backed by the U.S.S.R.) and the alliance between the Trotskyists and the Anarchists. The Republicans retain power in much of the rest of the country, but Franco’s forces are “making significant gains.”
This interlude of information from the Spanish Civil War is ominous, as the gains made by Franco’s forces threatens the man’s wellbeing. Given that the man is representative of Alex in the main narrative, this perhaps portends danger for him as well.
Themes
In The Blind Assassin, the woman dreams of the man getting on a train and sitting next to an elderly woman knitting a red sweater. She then imagines him falling asleep and dreaming of her, just like she is dreaming of him. After the train journey is over, she pictures the man arriving in a city where she is waiting to find him. However, she can’t reach him, and soon he begins to disappear.
Although the woman is said to be dreaming here, this is not made explicitly clear. The overall dreamlike nature of this part of The Blind Assassin makes it difficult to distinguish dreams from realty, thereby recreating the woman’s hallucinatory mental state.
Themes
