Yellow Curtains: Chapter 83 Summary and Analysis
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The chapter opens with reflections on the creeping arrival of war—what it is made from: secrets, lies, betrayals, loves, hatreds, money, metals. War is described as black and white for those on the sidelines, but violently colourful for those in it. The woman sees the war through newsreels and newspapers, feeling at the mercy of events that have no mercy.
She makes a firm decision to leave her current life. She plans to pawn household items—a gold watch, silver spoon, fur coat—bit by bit so they aren’t missed. The money will be insufficient but she will make do. She will rent a modest room above a grocery store, write a letter saying she isn’t coming back, and resist all emissaries and lawyers. She will burn every bridge except the tenuous one to him, the lover who said “I’ll be back.”
She imagines living on apples, crackers, tea, milk, baked beans, and fried eggs eaten at a corner café frequented by newsboys, drunks, and war veterans. She wishes to talk to the veterans but holds back, knowing her body would be misunderstood. The café talk focuses on the impending end of the war—optimism mixed with fear.
Her apartment will have a kitchenette and small bathroom. She will buy a houseplant—a begonia or fern—and water it. The grocery store owner is a plump, dark‑haired Greek woman with a husband and son overseas. Both women spend much time listening for footsteps, calls, knocks. The grocery woman presses apples and candy into her hand, comforting gifts.
She wonders how her lover will find her once she has burned her bridges, but believes journeys end in lovers meeting. She will sew yellow curtains—colours of canaries, egg yolks, sunshine—though she doesn’t know how to sew; the woman downstairs helps. She starches and hangs them, cleans mouse droppings, repaints canisters with stencilled labels (Tea, Coffee, Sugar, Flour), hums while working. She buys new towels, sheets, pillowcases, brushes her hair often. These are the joyful waiting activities.
She buys a small tinny radio from a pawnshop to follow the news, and installs a telephone that no one calls yet. Sometimes she listens to party‑line conversations between women discussing meals, weather, bargains, children, and absent men.
The chapter closes with the line: “None of this happens, of course. Or it does happen, but not so you would notice. It happens in another dimension of space.” This undercuts the entire fantasy, leaving its reality ambiguous.
Key Events
- The woman reflects on how war gathers from secrets, lies, and betrayals.
- She decides to leave her home, pawn valuables, and rent a room above a grocery store.
- She imagines her new life: sparse meals, a corner café, eavesdropping on veterans.
- She buys a houseplant and forms a bond with the Greek grocery woman.
- She sews yellow curtains with assistance and cleans her new space.
- She acquires a radio and a telephone, listens to news and party lines.
- The narrative reveals that none of these events occur in a straightforward sense—they exist in another dimension.
Character Development
The young woman (unnamed) evolves from passive hope to active determination. She plans every detail of her escape and domestic future, showing resourcefulness and resolve. Yet her fantasy is undercut by the narrator’s final comment, suggesting that her agency may be illusory—she is trapped between imagination and reality. Her willingness to burn bridges and endure poverty for love reveals a romantic idealism that the war and social constraints may crush.
The lover remains absent, a catalyst for her actions but never present. His promise to return drives her fantasy, but the tenuousness of that bridge mirrors the uncertainty of war.
The Greek grocery woman emerges as a maternal figure: she offers apples, candy, sewing help, and remedies for sleeplessness. She represents the community of waiting women, sharing the same anxieties about men overseas.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
War as a smokescreen — The chapter begins with war described as something that creeps up while “hope throws a smokescreen.” War is formless, made of human emotions and materials, and ultimately inescapable.
Yellow curtains as domestic hope — The curtains symbolize the joy the woman pours into creating a welcoming home. The colour yellow (canaries, egg yolks, sunshine) stands for cheerfulness and life, a deliberate antidote to the grey war newsreels.
The pawnshop and sacrifice — Pawned items (watch, spoon, fur coat) represent the relinquishing of her past identity and comfort for a chance at a new life with her lover.
The radio and telephone as connections to an uncertain world — The radio brings war news; the telephone offers a passive link to other women’s ordinary lives. Both devices underscore her isolation and longing.
Blurred reality — The closing sentence creates a metafictional twist: the fantasy “happens in another dimension of space.” This motif challenges the reader to consider whether the woman actually escapes or merely imagines it—and whether the inner story itself is a fiction within the larger novel.
Waiting women — The grocery woman, the voices on the party line, and the woman herself all wait for men at war. Their listening, their sleeplessness, and their domestic rituals become acts of endurance.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 83 deepens The Blind Assassin’s examination of storytelling as survival. By presenting an elaborate fantasy that is then negated, Atwood highlights the gap between desire and reality, especially for women during wartime. The chapter shows how imagination can sustain hope even when the outcome is uncertain. It also reflects the novel’s layered narrative structure: the “inner” story may be a version of events that never quite happened, yet still shapes the characters’ inner lives. The yellow curtains become an emblem of the human need to create beauty and order in the face of chaos.
Study Questions and Answers
1. What do the yellow curtains symbolize in this chapter?
The yellow curtains are a symbol of domestic hope and deliberate cheer. The woman sews them herself, with help, and chooses a colour associated with sunshine, canaries, and egg yolks. They represent her effort to create a welcoming space while waiting for her lover, transforming a rented room into a home despite poverty and uncertainty.
2. Why does the narrator state that “none of this happens” at the end?
The final line undercuts the entire fantasy, suggesting that the detailed escape plan exists only in the woman’s mind or in an alternate dimension. This twist emphasises the power of imagination to sustain hope and the novel’s theme that stories—even those that never occur—can shape identity and desire. It also alerts the reader to question the reliability of the inner narrative.
3. How does the war context shape the woman’s fantasy of waiting?
The war is ever‑present: it seeps into her life through newsreels, newspapers, veterans in the café, and the grocery woman’s absent husband and son. Her fantasy of waiting is a direct response to the war’s uncertainty. She plans to live frugally, listen for knock or call, and keep up with current events. The war makes her lover’s return uncertain and her own escape risky, yet it also justifies her intense longing and the sacrifices she is willing to make.
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