70 pages • 2 hours read
Margaret AtwoodThe Blind Assassin
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Book 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 5 Summary
In the present day, Iris continues her walks, visiting local bakeries and sites associated with the story she is telling. On one occasion, she sees a young woman and mistakes her for her granddaughter:
Sabrina, I thought. She's come back after all. How forgiven I felt, for that instant—how blessed, how filled with grace, as if time had rolled backwards and my dry old wooden cane had burst operatically into flower. But on second glance—no, on third—it was not Sabrina at all; only some stranger. Who am I anyway, to deserve such a miraculous outcome? (136).
Nevertheless, Iris continues her memoir, increasingly aware of her heart condition.
In the aftermath of Liliana's death, Laura becomes curious about various religious questions. These anxieties culminate in Laura jumping into the Louveteau River while on a walk with Iris: she had heard an acquaintance, Mrs. Hillcoate, explain the wartime deaths of soldiers as "[giving] their lives to God, because that's what God wants," and hoped to bring her mother back to life by sacrificing her own (150).
As the girls grow older, their father is preoccupied both with business troubles and his affair with a woman named Callista Fitzsimmons, an artist who designs the local WWI memorial. As a result, Iris and Laura are largely under the supervision of tutors. One of these is a violent, bullying man named Mr. Erskine, who is eventually fired when Laura casually remarks that he likes to put his hand up her blouse and skirt. The girl's lessons end soon afterwards anyway, because the arrival of the Depression necessitates spending cuts at Avilion.
Norval Chase initially tries to keep the manufacturing business running as usual. However, by the 1934 Labor Day company picnic, the situation has begun to look precarious, and anger is spilling over: "Reenie in an undertone retailed the latest news. Four men had been thrown in the river already…and not altogether in fun. There had been arguments, having to do with politics" (173–174). While at the picnic, Iris meets two guests her father has invited—Richard Griffen and Winifred Prior—along with a young man whom she finds Laura talking to. Laura invites the man—Alex Thomas—to dinner at Avilion, where he clashes with Richard over politics.
After the picnic, Laura begins to spend time with the editor of the local paper—ostensibly to learn about photography and hand-tinting, but really to steal the negatives of a photograph of her, Iris, and Alex at the picnic. She also begins to take an interest in social and economic issues, volunteering at a soup kitchen and defending unemployed workers. Eventually, Reenie learns that Laura has been meeting with Alex, trying to help him regain his faith. Iris halfheartedly tries to dissuade Laura from these meetings, but—preoccupied with her increasing responsibilities at her father's business—largely ignores them.
The economic situation worsens to the point that Norval Chase has no choice but to announce a temporary shutdown, exacerbating worker discontent. Riots and strikes break out, and the anger culminates in a fire at the button factory. Alex Thomas is rumored to have played a role in setting the fire, so Laura hides him in Avilion's attic to protect him from the authorities. Iris finds out and helps sneak food to Alex, until one day he kisses her. Iris decides that they need to smuggle Alex out of Port Ticonderoga. After the sisters help him escape, however, Laura gives Iris a copy of the photo from the picnic, having cut herself out of it, because "that's what [Iris] want[s] to remember" (220).
The fire at the button factory places the Chase family in even more desperate financial straits, and Iris begins accompanying her father on business trips to Toronto. Norval eventually tells Iris that Richard intends to propose to her; this, Norval says, would be one way of ensuring Iris and Laura's security, as well as a means of keeping the family business open. Despite Laura's misgivings (and her own), Iris accepts, and the couple are soon married and on their honeymoon.
Book 5 Analysis
Book Five is by far the longest section of the novel, and it spans several of the story's major plot developments, including the loss of the Chase family fortune andIris's marriage. Perhaps the most significant thing about Book Five, however, is that it introduces three of the novel's most important characters: Alex, Richard, and Winifred.
Of the three, Alex is most central to the novel in terms of theme and plot. That said, he rarely appears in the novel as a named character, because Iris conceals her affair with him until the very end of the book. As a result, Alex retains an aura of mystery that underscores his status as an outsider and an orphan; his background is almost entirelyunknown, and even in the present, he appears to have few social ties. In the high-society world that Iris inhabits, this kind of rootlessness seems dangerous, since it undercuts the idea that social and familial connections are what give a person their status. Even Reenie, the Chase family servant, fears that Alex will destabilize the whole social order, saying that orphans, "[c]an't be trusted…[t]hey worm their way in. They don't know where to draw the line" (179). By the end of the novel, however, Iris will suggest that Alex's rootlessness is preferable to the Chases' "established" position in the world, which limits their ability to act freely and in accordance with their own desires.
Richard and Winifred, meanwhile, are the novel's primary antagonists. Significantly, Iris at first mistakes them for husband and wife, foreshadowing their strange and codependent relationship. Winifred in particular is obsessively involved in her brother's affairs, micromanaging not only his political aspirations but also his personal life; Winifred even picks out a negligee for Iris to wear on the wedding night. Given Winifred's overbearing personality, it's not surprising that Iris's initial impressions of her are more negative than her impressions of Richard. In fact, Iris says she had very few distinct opinions of Richard before marrying him, which in retrospect turns out to be telling; Iris later suggests that part of what made Richard cruel was his sense of being ordinary and unimportant.
Finally, it is noteworthy that all three of these characters appear for the first time at the Labor Day picnic. The photograph of Iris, Laura, and Alex sitting on the grass and talking is one of the most important symbols in the novel; in addition to capturing the complex relationships between the three characters, the picture (at least for Iris) comes to represent a kind of otherworldly happiness that can't last in real life. The fact that the trio is sitting under an apple tree underscores this idea by calling to mind the Garden of Eden. Not surprisingly, then, the picnic marks a turning point in the novel; the introduction of Alex, Richard, and Winifred lays the groundwork for Laura's death and Iris's loss of innocence.
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By Margaret Atwood
