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Winifred Griffen Prior
Sabrina is Iris’s estranged granddaughter. Sabrina is only four years old when her mother, Aimee, dies in an incident that may or may not have been suicide. Before that, she was neglected due to Aimee’s substance abuse issues. Aimee never reveals who Sabrina’s father is, and Sabrina’s great-aunt Winifred becomes her guardian after Aimee’s death. Sabrina runs away from Winifred’s home several times as a teenager and she ends up going to live in India, where she engages in charity work. After Iris dies, Sabrina returns to Port Ticonderoga to sort through her grandmother’s belongings. The manuscript Iris writes—which is the main narrative of Atwood’s novel—is addressed to Sabrina.
Sabrina Griffen Quotes in The Blind Assassin
The The Blind Assassin quotes below are all either spoken by Sabrina Griffen or refer to Sabrina Griffen. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 7 Quotes
She takes after Laura in that respect: the same tendency towards absolutism, the same refusal to compromise, the same scorn for the grosser human failings. To get away with that, you have to be beautiful. Otherwise it seems mere peevishness.
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Chapter 15 Quotes
The photo has been cut; a third of it has been cut off. In the lower left corner there’s a hand, scissored off at the wrist, resting on the grass. It’s the hand of the other one, the one who is always in the picture whether seen or not. The hand that will set things down.
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Sabrina Griffen Character Timeline in The Blind Assassin
The timeline below shows where the character Sabrina Griffen appears in The Blind Assassin. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...38-year-old niece of the well-known novelist Laura Chase. Aimee is survived by her 4-year-old daughter Sabrina, whom she is believed to have neglected as a result of drug and alcohol addiction....
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...a “noted philanthropist” and the sister of Richard Griffen. She is survived by her great-niece Sabrina, who is “currently travelling in India.”
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Chapter 3
...leads Iris to speculate that she has Asian heritage. Iris wonders if her own granddaughter, Sabrina, “looks like that now.”
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...there too, but Iris scattered Laura’s ashes before Winifred got a chance. Iris wonders where Sabrina will be buried, although she’s not even totally sure that Sabrina is still alive. Sabrina...
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Chapter 5
...her and turns to see a young woman, who for a second she thinks is Sabrina. However, just as Iris feels overcome with happiness, she realizes it is not Sabrina after...
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...woman is wearing black and has long dark hair. For a second, Iris thinks it’s Sabrina and she’s overjoyed, but then she realizes it isn’t Sabrina. She sees that the woman...
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Chapter 7
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...
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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”...
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Chapter 11
...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...
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...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...
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...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...
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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...
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Chapter 14
...writing the book for when she started it, she now sees that it is for Sabrina, to give her the full truth that she needs. She realizes it might be a...
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Chapter 15
...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.
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...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...
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