Blind Assassin

The Truth Among Lies

In the Blind Assassin, Atwood's presents truth to be subjective. The events are portrayed differently according to the different characters' perspectives on the events. Atwood shows many different perspectives and leads the reader to believe in one thing, when in the end the contrary is true. Ultimately the truth is shown to be what the reader believes, because the author and characters are not reliable.

The main narrative, which is written by the character Iris, shows her take on things. Iris also shows the other characters' perspectives such as Winifred and Laura. The reader can only rely on Iris, because she is the only one the reader has access to. Since the reader can only rely on Iris, the reader doesn't take what she says for granted. However, Iris brings out other perspectives of the events and that's what causes the reader to question her truth. For example Winifred's perspective that Iris is an unfit mother contradicts Iris's belief that she could have done better. By giving the reader only one person to rely on Atwood is making the reader question our reliance on the author. She is showing us that the author is not completely reliable, because what they write about is their perspective of things, the way they perceive things, which may not entirely be true.

There are two other narratives in this novel. One of the narratives is the newspaper articles. The newspaper articles are supposed to convey--the factual events, but the newspapers seem to be all wrong. The newspaper seems to be stretching the truth for the public. The writing is what people want to read and want to believe. When Laura, Richard, and Aimee die, the newspapers say that the deaths were accidents. The newspapers directly contradict Iris's narrative, where she suggests that all the deaths were suicides. Iris says about Laura's death, "It wasn't the brakes... she had her reasons. (2)" The direct contradiction in the two narratives makes the reader question the reliability of either of the narratives. Atwood is showing how the truth is different for different people. Society did not want to believe in the unhappy circumstances surrounding suicide and the newspaper articles are for the society.

The other narrative in this novel is a novel within this novel, called the Blind Assassin as well. The novel within the novel is used by Atwood to portray yet another way in which the truth is concealed. The names of the two main characters are unknown, but the readers in the society speculate who the characters were just like we as readers do. Iris plays a big role in leading us to believe that the characters are Laura and Alex, because Iris publishes the novel in Laura's name after Laura's death. In the end, we as readers find out that we were deceived by Iris and the novel was actually written by Iris herself about Iris and Alex. Atwood is showing that because the only authority is Iris, we believe in her, but we should not because the author is just showing the author's perception of events, not the truth.

Iris' narrative portrays Winifred and Richard as extremely terrible people. However her truth is questionable. Possibly she felt they were terrible people, but they might not have been as terrible as she said they were. It seems like she exaggerated the truth when she talks about Richard: "His eyes tended to bulge out when he was angry, and they were bulging out now...what was needed was a firm hand.