The Blind Assassin

by

Margaret Atwood

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Themes and Colors
Storytelling, Narrative, and Truth Theme Icon
Doomed Love Theme Icon
Oppression vs. Resistance Theme Icon
Violence and Death Theme Icon
Emulation, Repetition, and Identity Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Blind Assassin, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Violence and Death Theme Icon

The Blind Assassin could be classified a crime or mystery novel: it opens with a series of deaths, the central one of which—Laura’s—is shrouded in mystery. As in a typical crime novel, the truth about Laura’s fate is slowly revealed with several unexpected twists. However, while the book does conclude with a sense of clarity about what happened to Laura and why, it deviates from the conventions of a crime novel by not providing a sense of resolution or catharsis at the end. This is because Laura’s death is not presented as a unique, anomalous event in the novel, but rather the product of a world totally saturated in violence and death. (Indeed, given the portrayal of the hyper-violent alien city of Sakiel-Norn in the story-within-the-story of Iris’s novel, The Blind Assassin, it is not just one world but multiple worlds that Atwood portrays as disturbingly violent.) While Laura’s death does create a sense of mystery that drives the narrative forward, the fact that her death occurred is itself not a remarkable event. Indeed, Atwood’s portrayal of death in the novel instead suggests that it is a natural product of humanity’s appetite for needless destruction and the culture of pervasive violence that ensues.

The three deaths that open the novel and the mystery surrounding them convey the human desire to find meaning in violence and death, even if—as the book ultimately shows—this desire is usually fruitless. Unlike in a conventional crime novel, all three of these deaths are self-inflicted. Most importantly, two of them are direct or indirect responses to existing violence. Laura kills herself after Alex Thomas, the union organizer whom she helped shelter and whom she seemed to secretly be in love with, is killed in World War II. Meanwhile, Iris’s daughter Aimee develops drug and alcohol addiction in part due to growing up around so much violence—including the years in which her father, Richard, raped her aunt Laura, the abortion Richard forced Laura to get, and the suicides of Richard and Laura. In this sense, the novel implies that violence and death do not contain much meaning because they are pervasive and cyclical: the prevalence of violence and death only leads to more violence and death.

World Wars I and II also play a significant role in emphasizing the image of a world saturated in violence. Like so many men, Iris’s father, Norval, returns from World War I traumatized by the violence and death he witnessed there and the deaths of his two brothers in the conflict. He becomes an atheist and refuses to believe that there was any point to the death and suffering of millions caused by the war. This leads him to develop a drinking problem and to become estranged from his wife, Liliana. Reflecting on her parents’ relationship, Iris observes, “Do I mean to say he didn’t love her? Not at all. He loved her; in some ways he was devoted to her. But he couldn’t reach her, and it was the same on her side. It was as if they’d drunk some fatal potion that would keep them forever apart, even though they lived in the same house, ate at the same table, slept in the same bed.” This illuminates the idea that violence and death destroy people and relationships not only by literally harming and killing people, but also by destroying people’s happiness, hope, and ability to connect with one another. The fact that the horrors of World War I are so closely followed by those of the World War II (in which Alex dies) further conveys the pervasive, inescapable nature of violence and death.

Meanwhile, the notably gruesome violence that characterizes the science-fiction short story about the invented planet Zycron further illustrates this sense of pervasive, inescapable violence while conveying the idea that the impulse toward violence, death, and destruction is somehow inevitably embedded within humanity. The unnamed man who tells the story explains that there are humans on Zycron because the Zycronites colonized Earth 8,000 years before the 20th century, which means that contemporary inhabitants of Earth are descended from Zycronite “stragglers.” The man’s descriptions of Zycron are of a planet infused with horrifying violence. Describing the eponymous “blind assassins”—child slaves turned into killers—he says, “Those of them who escaped [the brothels] took up the profession of cutting throats in the dark, and were greatly in demand as hired assassins […] They were considered to be without pity. They were much feared.” Again, this quotation creates a sense of pervasive, senseless, brutal violence, while also suggesting that the impulse toward violence and destruction is fundamental to humanity. Even on another planet, a prehistoric version of humans relentlessly destroy each other—and although people may try to seek meaning in the mysteries of violence and death, the novel ultimately suggests that there is no meaning to be found. 

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Violence and Death ThemeTracker

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Violence and Death Quotes in The Blind Assassin

Below you will find the important quotes in The Blind Assassin related to the theme of Violence and Death.
Chapter 2 Quotes

The Ygnirods were resentful of their lot in life, but concealed this with the pretense of stupidity. Once in a while they would stage a revolt, which would then be ruthlessly suppressed. The lowest among them were slaves, who could be bought and traded and also killed at will. They were prohibited by law from reading, but had secret codes that they scratched in the dirt with stones. The Snilfards harnessed them to ploughs.

Related Characters: Man (speaker), Woman
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin, Sakiel-Norn
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:

The carpets were woven by slaves who were invariably children, because only the fingers of children were small enough for such intricate work. But the incessant close labour demanded of these children caused them to go blind by the age of eight or nine, and their blindness was the measure by which the carpet-sellers valued and extolled their merchandise: This carpet blinded ten children, they would say. This blinded fifteen, this twenty.

Related Characters: Man (speaker), Iris Chase Griffen, Richard Griffen, Woman
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin, Sakiel-Norn
Page Number: 22
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

When I was the age for it—thirteen, fourteen—I used to romanticize Adelia. I would gaze out of my window at night, over the lawns and the moon-silvered beds of ornamentals, and see her trailing wistfully through the grounds in a white lace tea gown. I gave her a languorous, world-weary, faintly mocking smile. Soon I added a lover. She would meet this lover outside the conservatory, which by that time was neglected—my father had no interested in steam-heated orange trees—but I restored it in my mind, and it supplied it with hothouse flowers […]

In reality the chances of Adelia having had a lover were nil. The town was too small, its morals too provincial, she had too far to fall. She wasn’t a fool. Also she had no money of her own.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Adelia Montfort Chase , Benjamin Chase
Related Symbols: Avilion
Page Number: 59-60
Explanation and Analysis:

And so Laura and I were brought up by her. We grew up inside her house; that is to say, inside her conception of herself. And inside her conception of who we ought to be, but weren’t. As she was dead by then, we couldn’t argue.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Adelia Montfort Chase , Benjamin Chase
Related Symbols: Avilion
Page Number: 62
Explanation and Analysis:

And then, after the wedding, there was the war. Love, then marriage, then catastrophe. In Reenie’s version, it seemed inevitable.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Alex Thomas, Reenie, Captain Norval Chase, Liliana Chase
Page Number: 70
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Like many peoples, ancient and modern, the Zycronians are afraid of virgins, dead ones especially. Women betrayed in love who have died unmarried are driven to seek in death what they’ve so unfortunately missed out on in life.

Related Characters: Man (speaker), Woman
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin, Sakiel-Norn
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:

I feel sorry for him. I think he’s only doing the best he can.

I think we need another drink. How about it?

I bet you’re going to kill him off. You have that glint.

In all justice he’d deserve it. I think he’s a bastard, myself. But kings have to be, don’t they? Survival of the fittest and so forth. Weak to the wall.

You don’t really believe that.

Related Characters: Man (speaker), Woman (speaker), King of Sakiel-Norn
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin, Sakiel-Norn
Page Number: 130-131
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Not only were they outside agitators, they were foreign outside agitators, which was somehow more frightening. Small dark men with moustaches, who’d signed their names in blood and sworn to be loyal unto death, and who would start riots and stop at nothing, and set bombs and creep in at night and slit our throats while we slept (according to Reenie). These were their methods, these ruthless Bolsheviks and union organizers, who were all the same at heart (according to Elwood Murray). They wanted Free Love, and the destruction of the family, and the deaths by firing squad of anyone who had money—any money at all—or a watch, or a wedding ring. This was what had been done in Russia. So it was said.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Reenie, Captain Norval Chase, Elwood Murray
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

You might say he grabbed what he could get. Why wouldn’t he? He had no scruples, his life was dog eat dog and it always had been. Or you could say they were both young so they didn’t know any better. The young habitually mistake lust for love, they’re infested with idealism of all kinds. And I haven’t said he didn’t kill her afterwards. As I’ve pointed out, he was nothing if not self-interested.

Related Characters: Man (speaker), Woman, Girl, Blind Assassin
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 257
Explanation and Analysis:
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.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Sabrina Griffen, Aimee Adelia Griffen
Page Number: 288
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

The sudden invasion changes things for the Zycronians. Barbarians and urbanites, incumbents and rebels, masters and slaves—all forget their differences and make common cause. Class barriers dissolve—the Snilfards discard their ancient titles along with their face masks, and roll up their sleeves, manning the barricades alongside the Ygnirods.

Related Characters: Man, Woman
Related Symbols: Sakiel-Norn, The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 400
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

I was relieved: all might yet be well. Laura was still in town. She would talk to me later.

She has, too, though she tends to repeat herself, as the dead have a habit of doing. They say all the things they said to you in life; but they rarely say anything new.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Richard Griffen, Winifred Griffen Prior
Page Number: 491
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

How can I describe the pool of grief into which I was now falling? I can’t describe it, and so I won’t try.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase
Page Number: 500
Explanation and Analysis:

What did I want? Nothing much. Just a memorial of some kind. But what is a memorial, when you come right down to it, but a commemoration of wounds endured? Endured, and resented. Without memory, there can be no revenge.

Lest we forget. Remember me. To you from failing hands we throw. Cries of the thirsty ghosts.

Nothing is more difficult than to understand the dead, I’ve found; but nothing is more dangerous than to ignore them.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Richard Griffen
Page Number: 508
Explanation and Analysis:

As for the book, Laura didn’t write a word of it. But you must have known for some time. I wrote it myself, during my long evenings alone, when I was waiting for Alex to come back, and then afterwards, once I knew he wouldn’t. I didn’t think of what I was doing as writing—just writing down. What I remembered, and also what I imagined, which is also the truth.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Richard Griffen, Winifred Griffen Prior, Aimee Adelia Griffen
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 512
Explanation and Analysis:

It was no great leap from that to naming Laura as the author. You might decide it was cowardice that inspired me, or a failure of nerve—I’ve never been fond of spotlights. Or simple prudence: my own name would have guaranteed the loss of Aimee, whom I lost in any case. But on second thought it was merely doing justice, because I can’t say Laura didn’t write a word. Technically that’s accurate, but in another sense—what Laura would have called the spiritual sense—you could say she was my collaborator. The real author was neither one of us: a fist is more than the sum of its fingers.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Aimee Adelia Griffen
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 512
Explanation and Analysis:
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.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Man, Woman, Sabrina Griffen
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 517
Explanation and Analysis: