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
Iris states that it is only possible to write the truth if one pretends that no one else will ever read it. Yesterday, she received a copy of the new edition of The Blind Assassin. Laura has been dead long enough that the book is now in the public domain, which means that anyone has the right to publish it. The publisher who released the latest edition is called Artemesia Press, which Iris speculates is “probably run by a bunch of women.” The cover describes Laura as a “modernist” and The Blind Assassin as one of the “Neglected masterpieces of the twentieth century.” Iris decides to call her lawyer, who is not the same man who “battled Winifred heroically,” but rather a new person named Mr. Sykes.
The notion that a women’s press would be the one to publish new editions of The Blind Assassin is highly plausible. Due to the way in which women were systematically excluded from becoming writers and had their work devalued if they did, one of the projects of feminist publishing and literary scholarship has been to recuperate writers like “Laura” who remained in obscurity due to sexism. Interestingly, however, Iris seems skeptical and even resentful of such projects.
Themes
Mr. Sykes’s receptionist tells Iris that Sykes is in a meeting. Iris explains that she needs to write her will and that she’s planning to come to Toronto soon. She predicts that Mr. Sykes will receive this news with dread or disbelief that she has anything valuable to leave behind. Iris has a trunk that was originally part of her trousseau filled with old notebooks, the typescript of The Blind Assassin, corrected proofs, letters to the publisher, and hate mail. There are also five copies of the first edition of the novel. Iris gave another copy to Richard, which was found on the boat with him when he killed himself. Winifred interpreted this as evidence that Iris was responsible for Richard’s death.
This is the first time that any real details are provided about Richard’s death, which is only here confirmed to be a suicide. In the newspaper article at the beginning of the novel, it is simply described as a mysterious death that happened in a boat after Richard had been missing for a while. It seems that there is an extent to which Iris taunted Richard, even if it may not be true that—as Winifred argues—she caused his death.
Themes
Iris knows that if she doesn’t sort out the trunk now, Myra will deal with it after her death. She predicts that Myra will set fire to its contents in order to preserve Iris’s privacy. This is also what Reenie would have done. Scholars used to frequently write to Iris asking for access to Laura’s archive, and Iris would write cold replies refusing their requests. In the letters, she would viciously demand that the writers respect the fact that Laura was a human being and Iris’s sister, not just subject matter for academic scholarship.
Iris seems to resent both Reenie and Myra’s tactic of burning old documents and the efforts of the feminist scholars to recuperate and save Laura’s archive. Indeed, these conflicting feelings betray the inner turmoil Iris feels over the question of whether it’s better to remember or forget the past.
Themes
Iris wonders if she should leave her trunk to Sabrina, but she doesn’t believe Sabrina would accept this “gift.” She thinks about why Sabrina is still refusing to speak to her, telling herself that she can hardly be blamed for Aimee’s death. Sabrina is probably engaged in the Sisyphean task of feeding the hungry in India; Iris reflects on the similarities between Sabrina and Laura.
Although the reader doesn’t have much information about Iris’s relationship with Sabrina and Aimee yet, it does seem as if she may be trying to reassure herself in this passage more than face the full truth.
Themes
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The weather is warm. Walter drives Iris to see Mr. Sykes in Toronto. Myra packed them a picnic and rug for the journey, as if they were going on an “ocean voyage” rather than a fairly short drive. When they reach the open expanse of the countryside, it starts to rain, and Iris falls asleep. She feels self-conscious when she wakes up, worried that she snored. They get lost in Toronto; Iris goes to the city so infrequently that each time she is there, it has changed so much that she feels disorientated. Mr. Sykes’s office is on the 50th floor of a fancy glass high-rise building. After Iris finishes her meeting, Walter insists they go get some lunch, likely on Myra’s urging.
It is striking that, in her old age, Iris considers herself to be completely alone, when in fact she has two people—Myra and Walter—who are totally devoted to taking care of her. Iris’s ability to overlook this care is arguably a product of her class position. Having been raised her whole life with the expectation that working-class people would care for her, she doesn’t perceive Walter and Myra’s kindness and care as antidotes to her isolation.
Themes
Walter suggests that they eat at a place called The Fire Pit. It is near Sabrina’s old school, and Iris used to spend time there while “keeping an eye on Sabrina” following her first runaway attempt. Once, Sabrina and her friends came to sit in a booth while Iris sat nearby, watching while keeping herself out of Sabrina’s sight. She noticed that Sabrina wasn’t really listening to her friends—just pretending to. It’s possible that Sabrina noticed Iris but didn’t know who she was. Now, it takes Iris and Walter a long time to find the Fire Pit, and when they eventually do, they see that it has closed. They go to a greasy spoon in Davenport instead, and Walter pays, which leads Iris to believe that Myra must have given him money.
One of the novel’s main themes is the way in which familial relationships—not just romantic ones—can also constitute a form of doomed love. The way Iris would secretly follow Sabrina around and watch her from afar certainly recalls the behavior of a jilted lover consumed by longing. Indeed, the estrangement between Sabrina and Iris is shown to be almost more painful than that between two lovers.
Themes
Iris asks Walter to drive them past the old house she shared with Richard on the way home. She remembers sitting by the fire with Richard at six p.m. every evening, drinking martinis while he “sum[med] up the day.” He resented Iris for not being able to truly understand him. Standing outside the old house, Iris expects to feel something, but no emotions come. Strangely, she notices a pair of stuffed pantyhose hanging on a tree. They have obviously been thrown out of the window of Iris’s former bedroom. She remembers looking out that window and thinking about “How lost to myself I ha[d] become.”
Unlike Laura, Iris is not a woman of extreme, expressive displays of emotion. Her internal life is more often characterized by a kind of flatness and detachment. Her feelings about Richard (at least at this stage in her memory) are not viciously negative and resentful. Rather, she appears to not feel anything about him at all. Indeed, this could be interpreted as a sign of emotional repression.
Themes
Myra tells Iris that a developer is hoping to tear down the Jubilee Bridge and build condos on the land where it currently stands. Now, Iris stands on the bridge and thinks back to her honeymoon, 64 years ago. Iris remembers feeling incredibly anxious during this time. She was crushed by disappointment in her marriage and worried that Richard felt the same. After the ship they’re on arrives at Southampton, they catch a train to London and check into Brown’s Hotel. Iris wears the negligee that Winifred selected for her. She and Richard don’t speak much and during the day as Richard is busy, presumably conducting business meetings. Iris goes sightseeing alone, and in the evenings she reports back to Richard what she had seen.
While Iris may not have been personally enthusiastic about marrying Richard and making him happy, she did feel pressure to live up to the duties expected of her as a wife. As such, she made an effort to please Richard and was terrified of the idea that he might not enjoy being with her. Particularly in her early marriage, perhaps she feared that if she did not satisfy Richard, he wouldn’t uphold his promise of saving the button factory and taking care of Laura.
Themes
Richard encourages Iris to shop, which she does reluctantly. She spends a lot of time just wandering around. She knows that she’s supposed to be growing closer to Richard during the honeymoon, but in reality he feels like more and more of a stranger to her with each passing day. They go to Paris and stay at the Lucretia Hotel, which will later become a Nazi headquarters during World War II. In the hotel café, a waiter tries to cheer Iris up, but the next day he hits on her. She and Richard then go to Rome; by this point, Iris is becoming more comfortable and confident about traveling. She writes postcards to Laura, Reenie, and Norval.
Iris’s experience of wandering around various cities and being cheered up by a waiter who then tried to hit on her emphasizes the profound isolation she felt as a young, newly married woman with no particular connection to her husband. Indeed, this status isolates her perhaps more than any other position. She cannot really socialize in the way she would if she were single, yet she is also lonely within her marriage.
Themes
The honeymoon ends with a week in Berlin, where Richard also has business—his company makes shovel handles, which he’s exporting to Germany. Iris enjoys being there. When she returns to Toronto, she finds it “squat and cramped.” While the newlyweds were gone, Winifred busied herself decorating their house. Iris knows that Reenie would scoff at the “new money” style Winifred favors. When Iris mentions that she had no idea about the redecorating, Richard says they’d wanted it to be a surprise for her. Just after they arrive, Laura calls the house, sobbing. She asked why Iris hadn’t come back earlier, explaining that Norval is dead. Shocked, Iris says that she’d never received any of the phone calls or telegrams containing this news while she was away.
Both Winifred’s redecoration of the house and the much more serious issue of Norval’s death serve as brutal reminders of Iris’s total lack of agency over her own life. Everything is controlled and decided for her, to the point that Richard even prevents other people from communicating with her. In today’s world, this would likely be interpreted as a classic sign of an abusive relationship. Unfortunately, at this time (the early 20th century), it was commonly expected that husbands would control their wives in this manner.
Themes
Iris then realizes that Richard dealt with all the telegrams they received while they were away and that he must have concealed the news of Norval’s death from her. She feels like she might be sick, but she makes an effort to stay calm. She goes downstairs and tells Richard that she’s heard the news. He apologizes for keeping from her, saying that he didn’t want to worry her before adding, “I wanted you all to myself.” Iris feels lightheaded, barely able to understand the words Richard is saying.
Richard’s utter selfishness and total lack of consideration for Iris’s feelings make him the villain of the novel. At the same time, he is not a uniquely evil individual, but rather someone who represents the kinds of cruelty commonly enacted by men of his class position.
Themes
In the present day, Iris tries not to take any notice of Christmas, though Myra makes it hard to ignore. On New Year’s Eve, it begins to snow heavily, and Myra calls to check if Iris is alright. She promises that Walter will shortly come by to shovel Iris’s driveway. The following day, Iris goes out for a walk, but not long after she leaves her house she falls and finds herself unable to get up. Just as she wonders if she is going to get hypothermia, two men she doesn’t know appear and help her up. They take her inside, and before long Myra arrives, immediately making tea and a hot water bottle. Iris feels furious with her body for letting her down like this. Inside her own mind, she is still her young, fully capable self.
Iris seems to treat the prospect of her own death with the same detached attitude with which she approached many other parts of her life. Indeed, she is less afraid of dying than she is horrified by her own powerlessness, particularly given the mismatch between her physical and mental states of being.
Themes
Back in 1935, when Iris goes to Avilion after hearing of Norval’s death, Laura stands outside waiting for her, looking “very fragile and alone.” Richard drives Iris there in his new blue coupé while Iris sits with an eggshell hat in her lap. On seeing Iris, Laura grabs onto her and holds her “as if she were drowning.” Iris’s hat falls on the ground and Laura accidentally steps on it, but Iris doesn’t care. While Reenie presumably distracts Richard, Iris and Laura go upstairs to be alone. Laura explained that when Norval died, he had locked himself in the turret of the house. He stopped eating and drinking, and eventually Reenie’s boyfriend, Ron Hincks, kicked down the door to find him dead.
While the narrative has largely focused on the feelings of isolation Iris experienced after her marriage, this passage serves as a reminder that Laura is isolated in an entirely different way. Both girls are orphaned, but while Iris’s life has moved onto its next stage (albeit a rather bleak one), Laura remains stuck in their now almost completely empty childhood home, as if she’s been relegated to the past and forgotten.
Themes
Iris did not even know that Reenie and Ron were dating. Laura explains that they found many empty bottles in the turret, to which Iris replies, “He drank himself to death.” Laura explains that it all happened after it was announced that Chase and Sons was merging with Richard’s company and that everyone who worked at the button factory was being fired. Iris realizes that she’d “married Richard for nothing.” She asks if Norval left a note, and Laura replies that Reenie found nothing—though Iris knows that if Reenie had found a note, she would have destroyed it without telling anyone.
The terrible realization that Richard has not fulfilled his promise to save Chase and Sons presents a major turning point in the novel. Before, Iris’s suffering in her marriage at least seemed justified by pragmatism; now, however, it is totally pointless. Indeed, this is one of the novel’s main (incredibly bleak) messages: life is filled with suffering, and most of the time, this suffering is totally meaningless.
Themes
Iris believes that Norval would have left a suicide note. He had a life insurance trust that could only be accessed by Laura after she turned 21. This indicates that Norval had lost trust in Richard; any money Iris had would, at the time, have automatically belonged to her husband. Iris inherits Norval’s military medals. Reenie tells Iris that everyone in Port Ticonderoga came to Norval’s funeral and that everyone felt great sympathy for Laura. Being only 15, there is no question that Laura will have to leave Avilion and come to live with Iris and Richard. Laura suggests that Reenie come to Toronto with them, but Richard says that he and Winifred have already hired all the staff they needed in Toronto.
One of the most traumatizing aspects of the experience of marriage during this time was that it often involved being totally cut off from one’s past life. It was as if, when a woman got married, she was expected to become an entirely new person with no connection to her previous self. Now that Iris and Laura have been orphaned, Laura has to endure a similar process without even having the benefits that come with marriage.
Themes
Richard arranges that Reenie and Ron will act as “custodian[s]” of Avilion, fixing up the house and taking care of it so that he, Iris, and Laura can come back there during summers. Richard and Winifred also arrange for Laura to attend “a proper school,” an institution called St. Cecilia’s. Laura tells Iris that she believes Richard felt that she’s an unwelcome addition to the life he was supposed to be leading with Iris. By this point, Reenie is pregnant with Myra, and it's partly because of this that she hands Iris and Laura over to Richard.
On the surface, it seems as if Richard is making an effort to take care of Laura out of a sense of familial duty. However, the actions that the and Winifred are actually taking—refusing to let Reenie come to Toronto, enrolling Laura in a fancy, austere private school—show that they do not really have her best interests at heart.
Themes
Richard claims to be “besotted” with Iris, a sentiment that confused her. Winifred, meanwhile, is occupied with finalizing the redecoration of the house and designing the garden. Iris waits impatiently for the arrival of Laura, who keeps delaying her journey for different reasons. The two servants at the house are a husband and wife who look like siblings named Mr. and Mrs. Murgatroyd. Iris tries to spend as much time as possible out of the house by herself. She spends long periods walking around without any particular purpose. She takes to people-watching, directing scrutiny toward women in particular and wondering if they’re married. When she sees happy couples, she regards them as somehow fake or fraudulent.
Again, Iris’s isolation within her new married life is overpowering. It is made even worse by the fact that there is no purpose to her life—she doesn’t have a job, is no longer pursuing an education, isn’t a parent or caretaker for anyone else, and thus has nothing to occupy her time. Of course, Winifred hopes that Iris becomes a full-time socialite like Winifred herself, but it is hard to imagine Iris being satisfied with such a life.
Themes
One day, Iris suddenly sees Alex Thomas again, on the other side of the street from where she was walking. The smart thing to do would be to ignore him, but instead she crosses the street immediately, walking right into a throng of traffic. She stretches out her hand toward him, which in itself is the first act of “treachery.”
This is a key moment in the novel, although it would be easy for it to pass by without the reader really noticing it. This is the last time Alex is mentioned in the main narrative for quite some time, and the fact that Iris’s encounter with him is not directly described lends a sense of ambiguity as to whether their meeting was casual or perhaps something more intimate.
Themes
Three days after Iris’s encounter with Alex, Laura is supposed to arrive. However, as Iris waits for her at Union Station, Laura never shows up. Speaking over the phone, Reenie assured Iris that she’d seen Laura off on the train. Yet while Laura’s trunk arrived, Iris’s sister was nowhere to be seen. Richard expresses concern that she could have been kidnapped. Richard is also worried about a workers’ march that took place in Ottawa in July and he accuses Alex of being involved. When the marchers’ demands were refused, riots ensued. Richard suggests that this might be the reason why Laura was delayed, which Iris thinks is an unfounded fear.
Even in his concern for Laura, Richard can’t help but be self-centered and believe that whatever happened to her is actually connected to the resistance he is facing from workers. While it is true that Alex and Laura were close, Laura never expressed much direct interest in the labor movement, and it is thus unlikely that she somehow got involved in the workers’ struggles.
Themes
After two days pass and there is still no sign of Laura, Iris and Richard contact the police. Following this, someone gives an anonymous tip that they saw Laura alive and well, working in Sunnyside Amusement Park. Iris and Richard plan to go and get her immediately, concerned that the media will find out, which would cause a scandal. Sunnyside is a popular vacation destination, although Richard and Winifred would never have gone there. Iris recounts that at some point later, Winifred mentioned that she believed unmarried girls who’d become pregnant went on the Sunnyside roller-coaster in order to end their pregnancies. At this point, Iris did not even know what an abortion was.
Despite now being married, Iris remains almost as sheltered as ever. Getting married is ostensibly the moment when a woman like Iris transitions from being a child to an adult, but in this case she has retained the status of a child, with Richard and Winifred strangely acting like her parents. Indeed, if Laura is indeed working at Sunnyside, she has achieved far more maturity and independence than Iris has.
Themes
At Sunnyside, Richard approaches the owner of the waffle booth and informs him that he’s been employing a “juvenile runaway.” The owner praises Laura has a nice girl, protesting that he didn’t know anything about her background. Back at Richard’s house, he sternly tells Laura that she’s caused a great deal of trouble, yet she seems unmoved by this fact. The stern way Richard speaks to Laura worries Iris. Laura seems to have wanted to join the throng of ordinary life, yet this is an impossibility. Later, she tells Iris that she can’t bear to live in Richard’s house because he “killed” Norval. Iris denied this, saying that Norval “died because of an unfortunate combination of circumstances.” Laura begs Iris to find a way for them to escape before it’s “too late,” then she weeps inconsolably.
In this part of the novel, Laura becomes an increasingly sympathetic character. Whereas before she might have been characterized as overly sensitive and naïve, at this point she has proven herself to be headstrong, independent, and willing to support herself. Yet she remains completely trapped by the social norms of the time, which dictated that women were to be controlled by their closest male relative. Because Laura isn’t married and her father is dead, this relative is Richard.
Themes
In the present, Iris dreams about the Xanadu ball— except rather than being surrounded by partygoers, she is alone in Avilion. Back in 1935, Richard and Winifred ensure that no one finds out about Laura’s escape attempt, inventing a story about a miscommunication over Laura’s vacation plans. Yet as implausible as this story seems, people at least pretend to believe it’s true. Laura begins school at St. Cecilia’s, which she hates. She continues to bite her nails and starve herself, growing worryingly thin. Richard becomes increasingly angry about Laura’s behavior, insisting that Laura needs a “firm hand” after having been spoiled for so long. He seeks Winifred’s advice rather than Iris’s—it’s clear to Iris that her own role is to be a sexual object for Richard.
Again, Laura’s utter powerlessness means that she resorts to tactics of self-sacrifice and self-harm (via starvation) as a way of protesting her plight. She is given no control over her own life and has no ability to retaliate against those harming her, and as a result she chooses to retaliate against herself.
Themes
Winifred keeps Iris occupied with various meaningless tasks, including organizing the Xanadu ball. Events like this are “by invitation only,” and the question of who is invited is treated as a matter of great seriousness. Laura isn’t yet old enough to attend the ball, although Winifred is in the process of organizing Laura’s début. However, Laura is fascinated by the Coleridge poem Kubla Kahn from which the name (and concept) of Xanadu is taken. The ball takes place in the second week of January. While Iris is trying on her “Abyssinian Maid” costume, Laura comes into her room.
The notion of the social elite of Toronto dressing up as maids and slaves is in poor taste given that the Great Depression recently occurred. Meanwhile, the fact that Iris is agreeing to comply with Winifred’s desires to turn her into a socialite makes her a less sympathetic (or at least certainly less admirable) character than the rebellious Laura during this part of the novel.
Themes
Laura interrogates Iris about Kubla Kahn, but Iris dismissively replies that it’s just a poem and she doesn’t know what it means. Unexpectedly, Laura then announces that she recently saw Alex. She says that she didn’t say hello to him in order to protect him from the attention of the authorities. Iris asks if Laura still had a crush on Alex, to which Laura replies that she never did, protesting, “Crush is a horrible word.” Iris warns her that in any case, she should let go of her attachment to Alex.
Again, Iris is notably reticent in this passage regarding her own encounter with Alex, leaving the reader wondering what she said to him when they saw each other and whether they have seen each other since. The fact that Laura is more honest with her sister than the other way around increases the extent to which Laura is presented as the more sympathetic character.
Themes
