The Blind Assassin: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

Iris explains that this is where the story takes “a darker turn,” which will come as no surprise to the reader considering they already know what happened to Laura. Laura herself was not aware of her fate as “the doomed romantic heroine”; she was just an ordinary person with a whole range of experiences and emotions. Looking back on the narrative Iris has written so far, she feels it is too superficial and shallow. At the same time, the truth is that terrible tragedies are often surrounded by “frivolity.” Today, Iris manages to walk to the cemetery using her cane. Someone has cleaned up Laura’s grave and left flowers that are already wilting, which Iris considers “trash.” 

After the cemetery, Iris stops at the doughnut shop and is pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of the young waitress. Resentfully, she thinks about Sabrina’s “ingratitude.” In the bathroom, Iris reads the scribbles on the cubicle walls. Sometimes she chooses to believe that these are the work of Laura, and sometimes she feels tempted to add something herself.

In the fall of 1936, Laura is sent to a new school, and in November she turns 17. At this point, she tells Richard that his money is being wasted on her school fees because she will never need to get a job and thus doesn’t need to be educated. Following this announcement, Winifred recruits Laura to work for a charitable group called the Abigails, which visits people in hospital. All the other members of this group resemble Winifred, and although Laura doesn’t, she still thrives in this new role. Laura is unfazed by excrement and vomit and she’s especially skilled at handling the terminally ill. Winifred considered this suspect and bizarre.

Winifred is still going ahead with planning Laura’s début, although she shares none of this information with Laura herself. One day, Winifred invites Iris to lunch at the Arcadian Court so they can plan things together. Winifred expresses her hope that a rich, “stupid” man will marry Laura as soon as possible. She speaks about how Laura is strange and holds odd opinions, such as the idea that only love matters, not marriage, and that this was what Jesus believed, too. Iris finds it hard to picture Laura agreeing to marry a man too foolish to understand who she really is. She mentioned that Laura will inherit money at 21 and that this might be enough for her to live independently. Winifred scoffs at the idea.

Later, Iris tells Laura that Winifred is troubled by her statements about marriage and love. Laura defends herself, maintaining that what she said was simply “the truth.” Iris encourages Laura to think about marriage and be mindful of her future, but Laura replies, “The future doesn’t exist.” At the end of October, Iris tells Richard that she’s pregnant, and he reacts with calm approval. Iris is glad that her pregnancy means she doesn’t have to have sex with him. Winifred, meanwhile, seems alarmed by the possibility of Iris’s status increasing as a result of birthing an heir (particularly if the child turns out to be a boy). When Iris goes to Laura’s room to tell her the news, she finds Laura kneeling in a strange position. On hearing the news, Laura asks if Iris remembers the “kitten,” the stillborn baby that killed Liliana.

In the present day, Iris dreams that Reenie is scolding her. In her unconscious she is “on trial.” She wonders if she is blameworthy for not having been able to read Laura’s mind and detect what was going on with her. By February 1938, Iris is seven months’ pregnant. Walking downstairs from a nap, she finds Winifred and Richard sitting in the living room together, looking somber. Richard tells Iris to sit beside him, and he and Winifred explained that they sent Laura to the hospital after she accused Richard of trying to kill Iris and threatened to hurt herself. Richard assures Iris that the clinic where Laura is being held, BellaVista, is of the highest standard.

Iris says that she needs to see Laura, and then she starts to cry. At this point, Winifred reveals that Laura also claimed to be pregnant, though she hadn’t said who she thought the baby’s father was. Winifred explains that the specialist believes Laura is “insanely jealous” of Iris and wants to be her. A few months later, in April, Aimee is born. Iris was unconscious for the birth, which is conventional at the time. When Winifred and Richard come in to see Aimee, Winifred comments on her dark hair, saying they’d expected her to be blonde. Iris apologizes for the fact that Aimee is a girl when Richard had wanted a boy. Presently, Iris wonders if there was some part of her that was glad Laura wasn’t there to create any disturbance.

In the present day, Iris watches the news: a young woman set fire to herself in protest against an unspecified injustice. She worries that Sabrina could potentially get caught up in extremist ways of thinking over in India. Iris reflects on how Aimee must have been affected by Laura’s suicide, which happened when Aimee was eight, and Richard’s, which happened two years later. To make matters worse, Aimee then had to endure the custody battle that ensued between Iris and Winifred. Given all this, it is perhaps unsurprising that Aimee turned to substance abuse and sexual promiscuity. Iris notes that Aimee never revealed the identity of Sabrina’s father.

While Aimee is still alive, Iris never gives up hope that one day she and Aimee will reconcile—but Aimee rejected both Iris and Winifred. She’s evicted, arrested, and imprisoned—though she’s wealthy enough to not have to work. The last time Iris sees Aimee, she finds Sabrina outside Aimee’s dilapidated house and introduces herself as Sabrina’s grandmother. It’s obvious that Sabrina had no idea she even had a grandmother. Aimee’s neighbors are the ones to find her dead at the bottom of the stairs, although no one ever finds out if she killed herself by accident or on purpose. Presently, Iris regrets not running away with Sabrina the day she saw Aimee for the last time, before Winifred had a chance to get her. 

When Iris finds Aimee in her kitchen, she’s clearly drunk and high and is smoking a cigarette. Aimee doesn’t want to listen to Iris; she says she knows the family has been lying to her to avoid giving her her inheritance. She claims that Iris and Richard aren’t her real parents, citing Laura’s book as evidence. When Iris asks her to elaborate, Aimee explains that it’s obvious Laura is the woman in The Blind Assassin. She’d been in love with the man and had gotten pregnant, and when Iris’s own baby died, Iris raised Laura’s baby (Aimee) as her own in order to avoid scandal. Although this story is wrong, Iris can see why it appeals to Aimee.

Iris admits that she was a flawed parent, though she adds that there were extenuating circumstances that Aimee doesn’t understand. Aimee accuses Iris of killing Laura, and a full-blown fight ensues. Frightened, Iris runs away, although presently she wonders if she should have stayed and tried to comfort Aimee rather than fleeing. Three weeks later, Aimee is dead. Following her death, Iris feels more grief over Aimee’s lost potential and over her own failures as a mother than she does over the person Aimee actually was when she died.

Iris is 60 when Winifred assumes custody of Sabrina. Sometimes Iris drives to Toronto and idles outside of Sabrina’s fancy private primary school, watching her. Later, she spies on Winifred and Sabrina Christmas shopping at the department store. She watches as they pass a group of carol singers and Sabrina is absorbed by “Good King Wenceslas,” a song she must instinctively understand because it’s about hunger. Iris is overcome with a desperate desire to grab Sabrina and run away with her, and she imagined Winifred’s powerless scream if she were to do it. Iris daydreams about a version of the Rapunzel fairytale wherein Winifred and all her friends bestow gifts on Sabrina, only for Iris to appear out of the blue and announce that she, too, has a gift.

Decades prior, weeks pass after Laura’s hospitalization. Richard forbids Iris from writing to her, saying it would hinder Laura’s recovery. Iris is tormented by the idea of Laura alone and “tortured” in BellaVista. Meanwhile, Richard gives more and more political speeches, and Iris decides to pretend to be weak and unwell for as long as possible. Iris can’t decide whether to believe Winifred’s account of Laura’s apparent mental instability. Iris is terrified of the prospect that Laura might be telling the truth and she torments herself with thoughts of what would happen to the baby if this were the case. If Laura really is pregnant, Iris thinks that the only possible father is Alex Thomas. 

By the time summer comes, Winifred begins encouraging Iris to spend outside tending to her rock garden. Yet Iris knows that this garden isn’t really hers in the same way that Aimee isn’t really hers. Iris considers sneaking off to go and visit Laura in secret, but she’s hesitant about the prospect of leaving Aimee behind with the nursemaid. Then, one day, Richard informs Iris that a man claiming to be Laura’s lawyer and a trustee of her trust fund showed up at BellaVista and demanded they release her. Bewildered, the staff had let her go, and now Laura is missing. Richard asks if Iris had any idea where Laura is, but Iris insists that she doesn’t.  

As soon as Iris can, she set off to Port Ticonderoga to see Reenie, lying to Richard that Reenie is gravely ill. They agreed to meet at Betty’s Luncheonette, and when Iris sees Reenie, she finds that she does, in fact, look unwell. At this point, Myra is probably three or four. In hushed tones, Reenie admits that she helped arrange for the “lawyer” to rescue Laura from BellaVista, explaining that the man is a distant cousin of Liliana’s. Laura managed to sneak a letter out to Reenie via the BellaVista cook; she’d written to Iris, too, but Iris never received anything.

Reenie tells Iris that she can’t repeat the things that happened to Laura because there are children present, and she refuses to reveal where Laura is now, as Laura thought it best if Iris didn’t know. Reenie adds that Laura didn’t seem insane, although she was very thin and spoke much less about God than she used to. Iris thanks Reenie for everything, and Reenie adds that Laura left a message for Iris before she was taken to BellaVista. Iris shows Reenie a photo of Aimee, and Reenie comments on how dark she is. When they said goodbye, Reenie didn’t kiss Iris, though Iris fantasizes about throwing her arms around Reenie.

In the present, Iris spends the day lying in bed and watching daytime TV. She thinks about the way in which these kind of shows expose people’s secrets to the whole world, and she wonders if it’s better to be crushed under the weight of your own secrets or have them forced out of you. There is a bad smell in Iris’s kitchen, and she wonders if some food has fallen down somewhere and is now rotting.

In the past, after seeing Reenie in Port Ticonderoga, Iris is left puzzled by the idea that Laura left a message for her before being institutionalized. Suddenly, she remembers finding Laura in Benjamin’s study at the age of about 10 or 11, cutting out the passages of the Bible she didn’t like. Iris was terrified that Laura would get in trouble, but Laura pointed out that no one in the family really looked inside the Bible—and it turned out she was right.

Iris suddenly realizes that Laura probably left the message in Iris’s wedding album, where Richard and Winifred were certain not to accidentally find it. In the album, Laura had hand-tinted two photographs: in the first, Laura had been painted yellow while the Winifred and Richard were green. In the second, Richard’s face was such a dark grey that it covered his features, while his hands were red and covered with flames. Meanwhile, Laura had painted Iris’s face white such that it also became featureless. She’d also painted the surroundings of the bride and groom completely black.