The Blind Assassin

by

Margaret Atwood

Laura is Iris’s younger sister and Norval and Liliana’s second daughter. Laura is presented as the author of The Blind Assassin for much of the story, though it’s ultimately revealed that Iris wrote the book based on her own experiences and published it under Laura’s name. Laura is a complicated character defined by contradictions: simultaneously anxious yet bold, childish yet altruistic, deeply religious yet prone to questioning everything about her faith. She gravitates toward strong, absolutist ways of thinking and is constantly curious, yet she never flourishes in an academic environment. There are hints throughout the novel that Laura has psychological issues surrounding food—although it’s never specified whether she has an eating disorder, she often skips meals and is described as being very thin. As a child, Laura is molested by her and Iris’s tutor, Mr. Erskine, though Iris doesn’t believe Laura when she confesses this. Laura eventually befriends a union organizer Alex Thomas, whom she hides him in the attic at Avilion after the riots at Norval’s button factory. Throughout the novel, it seems as if Laura is in love with Alex, although she never admits this out loud. As a teenager, Laura becomes increasingly rebellious, running away from home and faking doctor’s appointments so that she can skip school. This is likely related to the fact that Richard rapes Laura repeatedly after she comes to live with him and Iris, manipulating her by threatening to harm Alex if she doesn’t have sex with him. Richard and Winifred ultimately take Laura to a mental institution, BellaVista, where—she eventually reveals—she’s forced to have an abortion. She runs away and lives independently for a number of years. However, when Iris reveals that Alex was killed in World War II (and that she was having an affair with him before the war), Laura kills herself by driving Iris’s car off a bridge.

Laura Chase Quotes in The Blind Assassin

The The Blind Assassin quotes below are all either spoken by Laura Chase or refer to Laura Chase. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Storytelling, Narrative, and Truth Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

She seems very young in the picture, too young, though she hadn’t considered herself too young at the time. He’s smiling too—the whiteness of his teeth shows up like a scratched match flaring—but he’s holding up his hand, as if to fend off in play, or else to protect himself from the camera, from the person who must be there, taking the picture; or else to protect himself from those in the future who might be looking at him, who might be looking at him though the square, lighted window of glazed paper. As if to protect himself from her. As if to protect her.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen, Laura Chase, Man, Woman
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 4-5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

And so Laura and I were brought up by her. We grew up inside her house; that is to say, inside her conception of herself. And inside her conception of who we ought to be, but weren’t. As she was dead by then, we couldn’t argue.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Adelia Montfort Chase , Benjamin Chase
Related Symbols: Avilion
Page Number: 62
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Not only were they outside agitators, they were foreign outside agitators, which was somehow more frightening. Small dark men with moustaches, who’d signed their names in blood and sworn to be loyal unto death, and who would start riots and stop at nothing, and set bombs and creep in at night and slit our throats while we slept (according to Reenie). These were their methods, these ruthless Bolsheviks and union organizers, who were all the same at heart (according to Elwood Murray). They wanted Free Love, and the destruction of the family, and the deaths by firing squad of anyone who had money—any money at all—or a watch, or a wedding ring. This was what had been done in Russia. So it was said.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Reenie, Captain Norval Chase, Elwood Murray
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

She takes after Laura in that respect: the same tendency towards absolutism, the same refusal to compromise, the same scorn for the grosser human failings. To get away with that, you have to be beautiful. Otherwise it seems mere peevishness.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Sabrina Griffen, Aimee Adelia Griffen
Page Number: 288
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

I look back over what I’ve written and I know it’s wrong, not because of what I’ve set down, but because of what I’ve omitted. What isn’t there has a presence, like the absence of light.

You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two and two together. But two and two doesn’t’ necessarily get you the truth.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Richard Griffen, Winifred Griffen Prior, Mr. Erskine
Related Symbols: Avilion
Page Number: 395
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

Laura herself didn’t know it, of course. She had no thought of playing the romantic heroine. She became that only later, in the frame of her own outcome and thus in the minds of her admirers. In the course of daily life she was frequently irritating, like anyone. Or dull. Or joyful, she could be that as well: given the right conditions, the secret of which was known only to her, she could drift off into a kind of rapture.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Man, Woman
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 417
Explanation and Analysis:

Following the death of Norval, Laura has (reluctantly) been living with Richard, Winifred, and Iris in Toronto, where she has caused a great deal of trouble. Recently, Winifred has complained to Iris that Laura has been expressing outlandish ideas, such as saying that love is more important than marriage. When Iris confronts Laura about this in private, Laura replies with this quotation. From a contemporary perspective, it may seem obvious that Laura’s argument is at least partly correct. These days, many would argue that love is self-evidently more important than marriage. Furthermore, Laura’s argument about marriage being an “outworn institution” that is more an economic transaction than a sacred bond foreshadows the feminist claims that became popular later in the 20th century.

Significantly, Laura frames her critique of marriage not in a progressive feminist light, but rather in a Christian one. Following Jesus’s tradition of focusing on the principles behind rules rather than the rules themselves, Laura argues that love is what’s important, not marriage. One could argue that Laura’s need to draw on Christianity in order to justify this claim is evidence of the restrictions placed on women and their thought during this era. At the same time, it also obvious that Laura’s faith intensely informs the way she approaches the world—it isn’t just a cover for subversive views.

Related Characters: Laura Chase (speaker), Iris Chase Griffen, Richard Griffen, Captain Norval Chase, Winifred Griffen Prior
Page Number: 424
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

I was relieved: all might yet be well. Laura was still in town. She would talk to me later.

She has, too, though she tends to repeat herself, as the dead have a habit of doing. They say all the things they said to you in life; but they rarely say anything new.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Richard Griffen, Winifred Griffen Prior
Page Number: 491
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

How can I describe the pool of grief into which I was now falling? I can’t describe it, and so I won’t try.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase
Page Number: 500
Explanation and Analysis:

What did I want? Nothing much. Just a memorial of some kind. But what is a memorial, when you come right down to it, but a commemoration of wounds endured? Endured, and resented. Without memory, there can be no revenge.

Lest we forget. Remember me. To you from failing hands we throw. Cries of the thirsty ghosts.

Nothing is more difficult than to understand the dead, I’ve found; but nothing is more dangerous than to ignore them.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Richard Griffen
Page Number: 508
Explanation and Analysis:

As for the book, Laura didn’t write a word of it. But you must have known for some time. I wrote it myself, during my long evenings alone, when I was waiting for Alex to come back, and then afterwards, once I knew he wouldn’t. I didn’t think of what I was doing as writing—just writing down. What I remembered, and also what I imagined, which is also the truth.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Richard Griffen, Winifred Griffen Prior, Aimee Adelia Griffen
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 512
Explanation and Analysis:

It was no great leap from that to naming Laura as the author. You might decide it was cowardice that inspired me, or a failure of nerve—I’ve never been fond of spotlights. Or simple prudence: my own name would have guaranteed the loss of Aimee, whom I lost in any case. But on second thought it was merely doing justice, because I can’t say Laura didn’t write a word. Technically that’s accurate, but in another sense—what Laura would have called the spiritual sense—you could say she was my collaborator. The real author was neither one of us: a fist is more than the sum of its fingers.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Aimee Adelia Griffen
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 512
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

The photo has been cut; a third of it has been cut off. In the lower left corner there’s a hand, scissored off at the wrist, resting on the grass. It’s the hand of the other one, the one who is always in the picture whether seen or not. The hand that will set things down.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Man, Woman, Sabrina Griffen
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 517
Explanation and Analysis:
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Laura Chase Quotes in The Blind Assassin

The The Blind Assassin quotes below are all either spoken by Laura Chase or refer to Laura Chase. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Storytelling, Narrative, and Truth Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

She seems very young in the picture, too young, though she hadn’t considered herself too young at the time. He’s smiling too—the whiteness of his teeth shows up like a scratched match flaring—but he’s holding up his hand, as if to fend off in play, or else to protect himself from the camera, from the person who must be there, taking the picture; or else to protect himself from those in the future who might be looking at him, who might be looking at him though the square, lighted window of glazed paper. As if to protect himself from her. As if to protect her.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen, Laura Chase, Man, Woman
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 4-5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

And so Laura and I were brought up by her. We grew up inside her house; that is to say, inside her conception of herself. And inside her conception of who we ought to be, but weren’t. As she was dead by then, we couldn’t argue.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Adelia Montfort Chase , Benjamin Chase
Related Symbols: Avilion
Page Number: 62
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Not only were they outside agitators, they were foreign outside agitators, which was somehow more frightening. Small dark men with moustaches, who’d signed their names in blood and sworn to be loyal unto death, and who would start riots and stop at nothing, and set bombs and creep in at night and slit our throats while we slept (according to Reenie). These were their methods, these ruthless Bolsheviks and union organizers, who were all the same at heart (according to Elwood Murray). They wanted Free Love, and the destruction of the family, and the deaths by firing squad of anyone who had money—any money at all—or a watch, or a wedding ring. This was what had been done in Russia. So it was said.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Reenie, Captain Norval Chase, Elwood Murray
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

She takes after Laura in that respect: the same tendency towards absolutism, the same refusal to compromise, the same scorn for the grosser human failings. To get away with that, you have to be beautiful. Otherwise it seems mere peevishness.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Sabrina Griffen, Aimee Adelia Griffen
Page Number: 288
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

I look back over what I’ve written and I know it’s wrong, not because of what I’ve set down, but because of what I’ve omitted. What isn’t there has a presence, like the absence of light.

You want the truth, of course. You want me to put two and two together. But two and two doesn’t’ necessarily get you the truth.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Richard Griffen, Winifred Griffen Prior, Mr. Erskine
Related Symbols: Avilion
Page Number: 395
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

Laura herself didn’t know it, of course. She had no thought of playing the romantic heroine. She became that only later, in the frame of her own outcome and thus in the minds of her admirers. In the course of daily life she was frequently irritating, like anyone. Or dull. Or joyful, she could be that as well: given the right conditions, the secret of which was known only to her, she could drift off into a kind of rapture.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Man, Woman
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 417
Explanation and Analysis:

Following the death of Norval, Laura has (reluctantly) been living with Richard, Winifred, and Iris in Toronto, where she has caused a great deal of trouble. Recently, Winifred has complained to Iris that Laura has been expressing outlandish ideas, such as saying that love is more important than marriage. When Iris confronts Laura about this in private, Laura replies with this quotation. From a contemporary perspective, it may seem obvious that Laura’s argument is at least partly correct. These days, many would argue that love is self-evidently more important than marriage. Furthermore, Laura’s argument about marriage being an “outworn institution” that is more an economic transaction than a sacred bond foreshadows the feminist claims that became popular later in the 20th century.

Significantly, Laura frames her critique of marriage not in a progressive feminist light, but rather in a Christian one. Following Jesus’s tradition of focusing on the principles behind rules rather than the rules themselves, Laura argues that love is what’s important, not marriage. One could argue that Laura’s need to draw on Christianity in order to justify this claim is evidence of the restrictions placed on women and their thought during this era. At the same time, it also obvious that Laura’s faith intensely informs the way she approaches the world—it isn’t just a cover for subversive views.

Related Characters: Laura Chase (speaker), Iris Chase Griffen, Richard Griffen, Captain Norval Chase, Winifred Griffen Prior
Page Number: 424
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

I was relieved: all might yet be well. Laura was still in town. She would talk to me later.

She has, too, though she tends to repeat herself, as the dead have a habit of doing. They say all the things they said to you in life; but they rarely say anything new.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Richard Griffen, Winifred Griffen Prior
Page Number: 491
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

How can I describe the pool of grief into which I was now falling? I can’t describe it, and so I won’t try.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase
Page Number: 500
Explanation and Analysis:

What did I want? Nothing much. Just a memorial of some kind. But what is a memorial, when you come right down to it, but a commemoration of wounds endured? Endured, and resented. Without memory, there can be no revenge.

Lest we forget. Remember me. To you from failing hands we throw. Cries of the thirsty ghosts.

Nothing is more difficult than to understand the dead, I’ve found; but nothing is more dangerous than to ignore them.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Richard Griffen
Page Number: 508
Explanation and Analysis:

As for the book, Laura didn’t write a word of it. But you must have known for some time. I wrote it myself, during my long evenings alone, when I was waiting for Alex to come back, and then afterwards, once I knew he wouldn’t. I didn’t think of what I was doing as writing—just writing down. What I remembered, and also what I imagined, which is also the truth.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Richard Griffen, Winifred Griffen Prior, Aimee Adelia Griffen
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 512
Explanation and Analysis:

It was no great leap from that to naming Laura as the author. You might decide it was cowardice that inspired me, or a failure of nerve—I’ve never been fond of spotlights. Or simple prudence: my own name would have guaranteed the loss of Aimee, whom I lost in any case. But on second thought it was merely doing justice, because I can’t say Laura didn’t write a word. Technically that’s accurate, but in another sense—what Laura would have called the spiritual sense—you could say she was my collaborator. The real author was neither one of us: a fist is more than the sum of its fingers.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Aimee Adelia Griffen
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 512
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

The photo has been cut; a third of it has been cut off. In the lower left corner there’s a hand, scissored off at the wrist, resting on the grass. It’s the hand of the other one, the one who is always in the picture whether seen or not. The hand that will set things down.

Related Characters: Iris Chase Griffen (speaker), Laura Chase, Alex Thomas, Man, Woman, Sabrina Griffen
Related Symbols: The Blind Assassin
Page Number: 517
Explanation and Analysis: