327
See also: Frankenstein 120–21 ■ Dracula 195 ■ Wuthering Heights 132–37 ■
The Handmaid’s Tale 335 ■ Selected Stories (Alice Munro) 337CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE
The main story, recounted in Iris’s
memoir, revolves around Laura and
Iris Chase in the 1920s and ’30s.
gothic motifs are updated: the
haunted castle becomes Iris’s
family home, Avilion, a mansion
built by her rich grandfather,
complete with attics and turrets;
there is a cruel male villain in Iris’s
domineering husband, Richard;
and Iris and Laura themselves are
versions of the victimized heroine.Haunted by the real
The novel is realistic in tone, yet
symbolically the supernatural is
never far away. The structure of
flashbacks means that characters
we know to be dead appear almost
as if they are ghosts speaking tothe present from the past. Laura,
whose suicide the reader learns
about in the very first sentence,
haunts Iris through memories and
secrets that are slowly uncovered.
Southern Ontario is itself a dark
and brooding character in the book.
It may be likened to the underworld
of classical literature: ominous
stretches of water must be crossed
in order to enter it, and it has its
own villainous gatekeeper, in the
form of Richard. The protagonists
wander here in search of meaning.
Overall, Atwood’s reworking
of gothic tropes and her skillful
interweaving of different genres
creates a novel in which, despite
the darkness, each element
illuminates the whole. ■Margaret Atwood
The Canadian novelist,
poet, and essayist Margaret
Atwood was born in 1939 in
Ottawa, Ontario. For much of
her childhood, she spent half
the year in the wilderness,
where her father studied
insects. During this time
she would write poems, plays,
and comics, and while still at
school she decided to become
a writer. The American writer
Edgar Allan Poe was among
her favorite authors and his
dark influence can be seen in
much of her fiction.
Atwood’s first publication
was a collection of poems in
1966, but she is best known
as a novelist. Her first novel to
be published was The Edible
Woman in 1969. Her passion
for environmental issues and
human rights comes through
in her dystopian novels such
as The Handmaid’s Tale and
the trilogy begun with Oryx
and Crake. She has received
many distinguished literary
prizes, including the Booker
Prize for The Blind Assassin.Other key works1985 The Handmaid’s Tale
1988 Cat’s Eye
1996 Alias Grace
2003 Oryx and CrakeThe first narrative is Iris
Chase Griffen’s memoirs, in
which she reconstructs the
past and re-evaluates her
own life and that of sister.The second narrative is
a novel also called The Blind
Assassin, ostensibly by Laura
Chase, which tells the story
of a political fugitive and his
socialite lover.The third narrative is a
dark science-fiction fantasy
about a blind assassin and
a mute sacrificial virgin.The structure of The Blind Assassin, with its stories within
stories and multiple narrators, echoes gothic literature, while the
third tale—although set on the planet Zycron—contains the
familiar gothic elements of romance, betrayal, and murder.US_326-327_BlindAssassin.indd 327 08/10/2015 13:11