An Examination of the Patriarchy: Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin
Stein, Karen F. “A Left-Handed Story.” Margaret Atwood’s Textual Assassinations. Ed. Sharon R. Wilson. Ohio State University Press, 2003. Print.
Karen F. Stein, author of “A Left-Handed Story,” a critique of The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, states that Atwood’s story is both a Gothic and feminist novel. The Blind Assassin is a Gothic text primarily because the plot focuses on hiding and revealing. Each of the characters in the book hides information from the people around them and reveals that information in turn, whether willingly or unwillingly. The characters all participate in a plot to confuse and obscure each other, in a competition to bring the other characters down and delegitimize them. Stein asserts that Atwood paints all women in angelic and icy colors, while men are portrayed as fiery and demonic. This shows the Gothic influences as well as feminist themes. Women are also shown as fragile and weak dominated by the men around them and society; only when Iris removes herself from the influence of her overbearing husband is she able to choose her own path.
Stein also claims that Atwood uses the motif of sacrifice, a popular Gothic component, to entail the differences between men and women. As Stein says, “Men are sacrificed to the evils of war and economic depression, while the Chase family women are willingly or unwillingly sacrificed for lost causes” (Stein 12). Men willingly sacrifice themselves to causes they believe in and often force the women around them to sacrifice themselves as well. For instance, Laura allows Richard to molest her because she believes that God will keep Alex Thomas safe. Alex dies in the war—in fact, he has already died at this point in time—and is certainly not within Richard’s reach. Laura gives herself up for a lost cause.
The men in the novel continually subvert the women—Atwood’s way of revealing the intense patriarchy of society. Atwood sees the world around her as manipulated by men, and she uses the text of The Blind Assassin to reveal that.
Brown, Rita M. Critical Essay on The Blind Assassin, in Novels for Students, Gale, Cengage Learning, 2017.
In a critical essay, Rita M. Brown discussed Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin and how it examined feminism and the patriarchy. As Brown asserts, “[In Atwood’s writing] it is only the openness of the patriarchy that is fictional” (Brown 1). The patriarchy is revealed to the reader, without drawing definite conclusions. Atwood gives the reader all the information she has, yet refrains from preaching. The reader is free to examine the evidence however they like.
Atwood gives many clear examples of the patriarchy, most of them within Richard. Richard is essentially the embodiment of the patriarchy, manipulating and using Iris and Laura for his own ends. He abuses Laura and treats Iris as a trophy. He uses their status to further his own, and keeps them from making their own decisions. Richard also manipulates the newspaper reports. News articles are sprinkled throughout the novel, but Iris’s narrative directly contradicts most of the articles. Richard has warped the truth into something that suits his needs and his image. Richard’s actions are the actions of the patriarchy, exposed. Atwood wants the reader to understand that these are the actions of men, and are quite common.
One of the most important examples of the patriarchy is the plan to murder the people of Sakiel-Norn. As Atwood wrote, “As for the other inhabitants of the city, they were all killed. Butchered—men, women, children, babies, even the animals. Put to the sword, hacked to pieces. no living thing was spared” (Atwood 11). These instructions directly mimic those of God to the Hebrew people in Numbers: “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him” (Numbers 31:17 KJV). Atwood is commenting on the Bible, the founding document of the patriarchy and Western civilization. Atwood wants to ensure the reader is aware of the ideas that our civilization is based on.
Robinson, Alan. "Alias Laura: Representations of the past in Margaret Atwood's the Blind Assassin." Modern Language Review, vol. 101, no. 2, Apr. 2006, pp. 347-359. EBSCOhost,
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In “Alias Laura,” Alan Robinson examines Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, especially concerning the ways in which Iris takes Laura’s identity for her own and reimagines Laura’s life. As Iris looks back on her life, she realizes that she doesn’t know Laura very well, if at all. Their paths diverged quite early on, and Iris—at the end of her life—is trying to reconstruct Laura, to connect herself to the sister that left her.
However, Robinson asserts, Iris does have some responsibility for what happened to Laura. Throughout the narrative, Iris accuses and absolves herself from her part in Laura’s suicide. While Iris didn’t physically push Laura off the bridge, she weakened her emotionally, leading to the suicide. Iris then takes Laura’s name when she wrote The Blind Assassin, a story ostensibly about Laura’s affair with Alex Thomas, or Iris’s affair. Atwood never states which sister is having the affair. This is another way that Iris is trying to connect herself with Laura. Due to the uncertainty of the events, Laura and Iris are inextricably linked, almost turning into one person.
One question posed by Robinson is whether or not Iris and Laura are more similar than we know. Are they the same person, two halves of one personality? Is Iris condemning herself when she condemns Laura? Is she killing herself when Laura dies? We have no way to know for certain. Atwood leaves this ambiguous. Iris is almost certainly an unreliable narrator, and the lack of certainty surrounds the book in mystery. Robinson also continually asks whether Iris can possibly know anything she talks about. She cannot, so the narrative is nothing more than an interpretation of events, not truth, as Iris occasionally asserts.
Bouson, J. Brooks. "A Commemoration of Wounds Endured and Resented": Margaret Atwood's the Blind Assassin as Feminist Memoir." Critique, vol. 44, no. 3, Spring2003, p. 251. EBSCOhost,
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J. Brooks Bouson, in the essay “’A Commemoration of Wounds Endured and Resented,’” examines Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin as a feminist and confessional novel. In Bouson’s reading, Iris is writing her memoir as a form of confession, confessing the sins she committed against her sister. Iris believes she is the blind assassin, the one who killed Laura and made her sacrifice meaningless by revealing that Alex Thomas was dead. Laura sacrificed herself to Richard to save Alex, but he was dead the whole time.
As Iris writes her confession, she reinvents Laura and becomes closer to who she imagines Laura was. The two of them almost share a body, become one person. Iris takes Laura’s story for her own, and their stories—as told by Iris—echo each other. Both are in love with Alex Thomas, are abused by Richard, sacrifice themselves for men they love, and lose themselves on the night Laura drives off a bridge. The rest of Iris’s life is a search for connection with the sister she never took the time to truly know.
The most obvious link between the sisters is Alex Thomas, whom they both love. He is unapologetically, almost unknowingly, sexist. It is ironic because he fights for equal rights of people everywhere, but even he, a Bolshevik, cannot see the oppression of women that he is abetting. He ridicules Iris consistently for her femininity. Alex is Iris’s escape, but he perpetuates the beliefs that Richard holds—the same beliefs Iris is trying to escape from. This suggests Iris’s inability to subvert her own fate, the fact that, at least in her memoir, the events of her past are inevitable, that she was just a passive actor in her own life.
The scholars’ writings are connected by their readings of The Blind Assassin as feminist memoir. This is an overt reading of the novel, given Atwood’s known personal beliefs and her previous works. However, there are individual elements addressed by each author, such as the novel’s Gothic themes, tragedy, nested story, Bolshevik influences, and confessional memoir. The authors also agree on the ways Iris and Laura are connected, including the ways in which they sacrifice the people exploiting them. The sisters are, however, often working against each other. They fight for Alex’s affections, about Iris’s marriage, and about their relationship with heaven.
Another thing connecting all of these critiques is their neglect of Winifred. None of these writers examine the ways in which Winifred subverts all of the ideas about masculinity and femininity previously used in the novel. Winifred is the only strong female character, pompous and pretentious, yet is also squarely on the side of the patriarchy—an implication every writer failed to examine.
The way these writers examine the text of the novel deals largely with how Atwood examines the patriarchy and women’s place within it. This is a central theme of many of Atwood’s novels and shapes a large part of The Blind Assassin.