Themes In Iris Chase Griffen's The Blind Assassin

Everything in this world has an identity and a meaning. A meaning for why it was created, a meaning for what it is and a meaning for why it is physically where it is. Just take a second to stop and think. Think about all of the objects that are around us every single day. If each one of us is put in the same room and asked to explain what we see, just about all of us will be able to give an explanation. We all will be able to explain what we see, but not every explanation is going to be the same. Not every person is going to see everything someone else sees and not every person is going to explain something in the same way everyone else does. There aren’t interpretations carved in stone for every object telling us what is right. Every person

The story weaves in and out of each of the three narratives and simultaneously between real and fantasy. One moment the story will be taking place in the modern present day and the next moment it will be taking place in another dimension of space on a fantasy planet called Zycron. The story is told by the sole survivor of the once rich and powerful Canadian family, Iris Chase Griffen, who gives her account on past events through a personal memoir. She attempts to retell her family’s past, with her focus geared towards her arranged husband and the death of her sister Laura Chase. Iris begins her narrative during the historical time period of the two World Wars and the Depression era near the end of the nineteen century, providing the foundation for the second narrative. Writing from her own personal record, Iris ties family history from both the Chase and Griffen families, as she attempts to unfold the causes and events that led to her sister Laura’s suicide. The second narrative we are provided with is supposedly written by Laura Chase and published after her death by her sister Iris. This novel within a novel is called, “The Blind Assassin,” which is a story about two anonymous lovers, a woman of high social class and a young runaway who secretly meet in these dreary backstreet rooms. The third narrative is a science fiction tale interwoven into the novel within a novel narrative, told by the anonymous man while in the backstreet rooms, about an assassin and a crippled girl in this fairy tale city of Sakiel Norm on planet Zycron. Along with all of the different narratives, there are multiple articles from local newspapers and magazines scattered throughout the chapters of Iris’s personal memoir. Near the end of the novel, a big plot twist happens, when the readers find out that Iris is actually the author of the narrative, “Blind Assassin”