Genre
Historical fiction
Setting and Context
Setting: Chase family estate "Avilion" in the fictional Ontario town of Port Ticonderoga (beginning around WWI) and 1930s & 1940s Toronto up until present day
Narrator and Point of View
Iris Chase Griffen, looking back on her life and the events that affected her and those around her. Provides her inner thoughts and take on the events and people.
Tone and Mood
Sad, regretful, bitter, nostalgic
Protagonist and Antagonist
Iris and Laura Chase vs. Richard and Winifred Griffen
Major Conflict
The family business begins to fail and Iris is forced into an unhappy marriage with Richard Griffen in order to save the family legacy, social status, and wealth. During the marriage, Richard sexually and emotionally abuses Laura, while he and his sister are cruel toward Iris, ruining all their familial bonds.
Climax
Iris is revealed to be the one having an affair with Alex Thomas and the true author of “The Blind Assassin”, the book within the novel. This and other events lead Laura to kill herself.
Foreshadowing
When Laura is molested by her childhood teacher, Mr. Erskine, it foreshadows the situation she will eventually be in with Richard - a powerful, older man taking advantage of her.
Understatement
When Iris says that “the overblown display of luxury had always been discouraged in our household”, this is a bit of an understatement, given that their father only allows them to wear uniform-like clothing and lets the house fall into ruin when their home was initially built as a show of wealth and their upper class lifestyle.
Allusions
The story of Iris and Laura alludes to generations of female restraint, in which women were treated as possessions and meant to be silent and do as they were told. Also, Adelia's vision for the family estate and her naming it "Avilion" is an allusion to nobility and the island of Avalon, a place in Arthurian legend.
Imagery
"gazing at me with his melancholy, leathery walrus eyes" Chapter 7, pp. 371
Paradox
In the book within the book, there is a city that is known simply for what it has been reduced to - a pile of stones. The narrator states: “The real name of the city was erased from memory by the conquerors, and this is why – say the taletellers – the place is now known only by the name of its own destruction. The pile of stones thus marks both an act of deliberate remembrance, and an act of deliberate forgetting.” Chapter 2
Parallelism
The book within the novel constantly runs alongside the events taking place in the novel, including the affair between Iris and Alex and his eventual death.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Iris often refers back to portraits - specifically one of her and Iris as children and a memorable portrait of her grandparents on their wedding day. Portraits only depict what they are meant to portray, not the intricate relationships or scenarios that lead to the portrait itself. This represents the fact that most of the characters in the novel are always so concerned with outward appearances, that it takes precedence over reality. As long as society believes everything is fine beneath the surface, they will be okay, or so they think.
Personification
"she’s trembling like a wire in a high wind." Chapter 2
