The Blind Assassin, written by Atwood, revolves around Iris Chase and her memory of her mentally troubled sister Laura Chase. Inside The Blind Assassin contains another book, called The Blind Assassin, depicting the secret life of two unnamed lovers. Within the second The Blind Assassin, the male protagonist writes a science fiction, about the love of two unlikely lovers, consequently also called The Blind Assassin.
One major theme in Atwood’s books is the theme of identity. The main characters in The Handmaid’s Tale, The Blind Assassin and Cat’s Eye each travel on a journey to search for their identities. Atwood uses multiple motifs such as flashbacks, old newspaper and memoirs to exemplify this theme.
In The Blind Assassin, eighty-two year old Iris is writing a fictional autobiography/ family memoir of the haunting events of the past, many of which no one else alive knows about and many hidden away originally to protect her and her sister. The memoir written delivered a very vivid definition of who Iris is and her own flaws. When Iris was young, her father made a deal with a wealthy businessman called Richard and ended up giving Iris as a wife as part of an exchange. Iris, being brought up a social level, had to create a new identity that fits those around her. Instead of being cheerful and engaging like she used to be, Iris changed to be calm, polite and act like how a woman is suppose to act. Throughout the chapters, Iris struggles to be who she needs to be and who her sister wants her to be. She becomes very disrupted and finds comfort in secrets that we as readers would have to find out. There are many twists and turns in this memoir as Iris slowly develops her true identity.
While many of Atwood's works are categorized as science fiction and/or dystopian fiction, The Blind Assassin a book of historical fiction, as it takes place from World War I to the end of the 20th century. Many argue that The Blind Assassin includes science fiction as well, but the main plot-line does not revolve around this sci-fi story. As a book containing a novel within a novel within a novel, its final layer of storyline involves many science fiction elements such as aliens, living on other planets, but it ultimately serves as a cover-up for a meaning that relates only to the main storyline.
Published in 2000, The Blind Assassin was said to be of “a start-and-stop process”. Atwood’s idea of this book was revolved around her Grandmother and her Mother’s life, which spanned across the entire 20th century, when both world wars occurred. The theme of war is dramatic in The Blind Assassin. Arguably, without World War 1 occurring, Norval Chase, the father of Iris and Laura Chase, would not be Captain Norval Chase, the Chase Buttons Industry would not have perished, and all the unfortunate events in the Chase family would be imaginary. War changes people. None more than it affects the religious and charming Father whom returns physically broken and mentally scarred. Struggling to keep his family industry running, Norval Chase then gets economically crippled by the Great Depression. All of this suffering caused by war worsens and continues into the life of Laura and Iris. The amount of hardship in The Blind Assassin feels exaggerated but nevertheless, The Blind Assassin is a great historic fiction that was expanded on the idea of war through the eyes of a Canadian family.
While the political and social context seems to be in the open, the cultural context of The Blind Assassin remains a mystery. The second novel within The Blind Assassin tells the tale of a secret love life comes from the mystery and romantic literature culture. The third The Blind Assassin, which takes place on a fictional planet called Zycron, derives culture references to classic fairy tales and randomly created science fictions. Yet whether the context of The Blind Assassin is a mixture of all the other The Blind Assassin’s, or a completely new background is left unanswered. The Blind Assassin is told through the voice of the 82-year-old Iris Chase. So maybe The Blind Assassin is written in order to explore the culture of ageism and how age defines and adjusts one’s ideology.
Lots of factors go into the style of a particular book or author, and in The Blind Assassin, Atwood's sense of description and diction stood out to me. For example:
“Here’s the wedding picture: A young woman in a white satin dress cut on the bias, the fabric sleek, with a train fanned around the feet like spilled molasses. A veil falling straight down on either side of the head, a width of it over the brow, casting too dark a shadow across the eyes. No teeth were shown in the smile. A chaplet of small white roses; a cascade of larger roses, pink and white ones mingled with stephanotis, in her white-gloved arms. Chaplet, cascade – these were the terms used in the newspapers. An evocation of nuns, and of fresh, perilous water. I say “her,” because I don’t recall having been present, not in any meaningful sense of the word" (179, Atwood).
Often, Atwood’s images will be beautiful and sinister at the same time. The wedding is amazing but Iris was forced to be there, for the good of her father’s company. Forced to be wed to a rich 30-something year-old man when she was only 18. Iris couldn’t remember the wedding because although she was there, she was there as an object, part of a deal between her father and her husband.
“Happiness is a garden walled with glass: there's no way in or out. In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It's loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.”
Laura’s book depicts an affair between an unnamed rich woman and a criminal in hiding. And according to Iris, the only way a journey, a story, can keep on going is if there is loss and regret and misery and yearning. There are many quotations or even excerpts that describes man versus society, and man versus self. Each one relates to the integrated Blind Assassin.