The Blind Assassin

by

Margaret Atwood

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The Blind Assassin: Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
In The Blind Assassin, the woman only has one photograph of the man: the photograph of the picnic. In it, she and the man are both smiling, and it looks almost as if the man is holding his hand out to protect her. The woman often looks at this image while she is alone. There is another hand in it, the hand of a figure who’s been cut off. The woman wonders how she could have been “so ignorant” in the past, but she also knows this ignorance was necessary to survive. The photograph is happy, but the story it tells isn’t. The story is one of “loss and regret and misery and yearning.” 
The end of the novel contains a very explicit, almost metafictional reflection on whether or not it is ultimately a happy story. The conclusion of The Blind Assassin is that it isn’t—while there are moments of hope, love, and romance, it is largely a story of loss and tragedy, without any sense of redemption.
Themes
Storytelling, Narrative, and Truth Theme Icon
Doomed Love Theme Icon
Emulation, Repetition, and Identity Theme Icon
Quotes
The Port Ticonderoga Herald and Banner features the obituary of Iris Chase Griffen, who died in May 1999 at the age of 83. Myra, who wrote the obituary, describes Iris as “a memorable lady” who died peacefully in her garden. It notes that Iris’s one surviving family member, Sabrina, recently returned from India to sort through Iris’s affairs, a task Myra will help with.
Despite how alone Iris may have felt in her death, the fact that Myra wrote this loving obituary shows that she was not quite as isolated as she felt. The return of Sabrina, meanwhile, is more ambiguous—it is unclear if she wants to be there out of love for Iris or not. 
Themes
Storytelling, Narrative, and Truth Theme Icon
Violence and Death Theme Icon
Emulation, Repetition, and Identity Theme Icon
Sometime prior to this obituary, the elderly Iris sits on her back porch on a warm, wet spring day. She feels as if she is seeing the world completely clearly. Beside her is the manuscript that she’s been writing, which she plans to leave inside her trunk, waiting for Sabrina to return and find it. She has a fantasy about Sabrina’s return, imagining her arriving unexpectedly and knocking on Iris’s door. Iris will think that Sabrina is the most beautiful person she’s ever seen. Sabrina will address her as “Grandmother,” ending the estrangement between them. Iris will make Sabrina cocoa and tell her the whole story of their family and how Sabrina came to exist. Iris won’t ask Sabrina to love or forgive her—she only hopes that her granddaughter will listen.
This ending is heartbreakingly bittersweet. Although it suggests that Iris was comforted by the hope and fantasy of Sabrina returning, the reader also knows that this did not happen before Iris’s death. Iris ultimately died without the resolution of knowing that her only living family member was ready to listen to her story.
Themes
Storytelling, Narrative, and Truth Theme Icon
Doomed Love Theme Icon
Emulation, Repetition, and Identity Theme Icon