Iris Chase Griffen: The Unreliable Recluse Behind The Blind Assassin

Overview

Iris Chase Griffen serves as the elderly narrator of Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, a novel within a novel that she constructs after her sister Laura’s apparent suicide. Living in near-isolation in Port Ticonderoga, Iris undertakes the act of writing as a form of confession, accusation, and memorial. Her narrative weaves together personal memories, a clandestine love affair, a pulp science-fiction story, and newspaper clippings, all aimed at exposing a lifetime of family betrayal. Iris is simultaneously a victim of patriarchal control and a manipulative agent who uses storytelling as her final weapon.

Plot Role

Iris’s role is central and dual: she is both the memoirist reconstructing the past and a key actor in the events she describes. After Laura’s death, Iris discovers a bundle of notebooks left behind—a discovery that triggers her recollection of their shared history. She then reveals that she herself authored the novel published under Laura’s name, The Blind Assassin. This book functions as a bombshell that destroys her husband Richard Griffen’s political career. Iris’s narration thus moves from passive witness to active avenger. She controls the flow of information, selecting which truths to reveal and which to obscure, making her an unreliable yet compelling guide.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

Iris’s primary motivation is to reclaim her own story from the silences imposed on her. She states, “We can’t stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally.” Her writing is an act of defiance against the erasure she experienced as a wife and daughter. She also seeks to expose Richard’s cruelty and to memorialize her lover Alex Thomas, who died in the war. Her actions reveal a complex personality: she is initially passive and compliant—agreeing to marry Richard to save her family’s factory, enduring a painful wedding night, and feigning ignorance of Richard’s affairs—but later becomes calculating and vengeful. She hides her affair with Alex, manipulates her sister Laura, and publishes a scandalous novel under Laura’s name. Iris shows deep guilt over Laura’s fate, yet she also exhibits a survivor’s ruthlessness.

Chronological Arc

Iris’s arc follows a trajectory from privileged daughter to oppressed wife, then to secret lover, and finally to elderly recluse and chronicler. As a child and young woman, she is shaped by her mother’s death and her father’s decline. She marries Richard in 1935, believing it will save the family business, but quickly discovers his controlling nature—he withholds telegrams about her father’s death. She begins a clandestine affair with Alex Thomas, a leftist fugitive. During World War II, she grows apathetic as Richard’s infidelities multiply. The climax occurs in 1945 when Laura reveals she was pregnant and forced into a clinic; Iris confesses her own affair with Alex, and Laura steals Iris’s car and drives off a bridge. After reading Laura’s notebooks, Iris realizes Laura was recording Iris’s romance, not her own. This revelation spurs Iris to leave Richard, take her daughter Aimee, and eventually write The Blind Assassin as an act of confession and revenge. In old age, she faces failing health and hopes for a reunion with her granddaughter Sabrina, who may finally know the truth.

Relationships

• Laura Chase: A bond of sibling love, rivalry, and guilt. Iris both protects and betrays Laura. She hides her own affair with Alex, allowing Laura to believe the love story was hers. Laura’s suicide haunts Iris, who later confesses, “I’d do anything to have her back.” Yet Iris also appropriates Laura’s name as author.
• Richard Griffen: An oppressive husband who treats Iris as a possession. He arranges their marriage, controls her finances, and confines Laura to a clinic. Iris eventually ruins him through publication of the novel, leading to his suspicious death.
• Alex Thomas: The secret lover who represents passion and freedom. Their affair gives Iris a glimpse of autonomy, but Alex’s death in the war ends that hope. He becomes the “blind assassin” in the embedded story.
• Winifred Griffen Prior: Richard’s sister, a social manipulator who orchestrates Iris’s wedding and later takes custody of Iris’s daughter Aimee after the scandal.
• Aimee: Iris’s daughter, raised by Winifred and estranged from Iris. Iris’s loss of Aimee is a consequence of her rebellion.
• Sabrina: The granddaughter to whom Iris addresses her narrative, hoping to break the cycle of silence and to reveal that Sabrina’s true grandfather is Alex Thomas, not Richard.

Key Decisions and Consequences

Theme and Symbol Connections

• Memory and Storytelling: Iris’s narrative is an act of reconstruction. She calls her writing “a long dark thread of ink” and acknowledges that “the only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read.” The novel itself mirrors this theme, blending memoir, fiction, and newspaper excerpts. (See our page on memory and storytelling.)
• Gender Oppression: Iris is bartered in marriage, silenced in social settings, and subjected to sexual coercion. She reflects that “what was mine was his, to all intents and purposes.” Her eventual rebellion through writing subverts this oppression. (Explore gender oppression.)
• Betrayal and Manipulation: Richard betrays Iris by withholding news of her father’s death; Iris betrays Laura by hiding her affair; Winifred manipulates Iris’s public image. (Related theme: betrayal and manipulation.)
• Identity and Self-Invention: Iris reinvents herself as a writer and as the hidden author of the novel. She literally rewrites her past. (See identity and self-invention.)
• Power and Control: Richard’s political and economic power controls Iris for decades. Iris eventually seizes narrative power to destroy him. (Theme: power and control.)

Symbols are used throughout: the photograph of Iris and Alex with a severed hand left at the margin represents the hidden parts of the story. The steamer trunk containing her trousseau and later her secret papers signifies her buried life. The wedding album with hand-painted alterations—Laura painting Richard’s face grey with red flames—is a visual accusation. The eggshell hat crushed in Laura’s embrace symbolizes the fragility of Iris’s façade.

Questions and Answers

1. Why does Iris marry Richard Griffen?
   Iris marries Richard because her father tells her the family’s survival depends on it. The button factory has been destroyed by arson, and a marriage alliance is the only way to secure Richard’s investment. She feels she has no choice, stating later that “the laws were different then. What was mine was his.”

2. What does Iris discover in Laura’s notebooks?
   Iris expects to find proof of a love affair between Laura and Alex Thomas. Instead, she discovers a coded record of Iris’s own sexual encounters with Alex. The revelation forces Iris to realize she has been blind to the truth all along—Laura was not Alex’s lover, but Iris’s secret chronicler.

3. Why does Iris publish The Blind Assassin under Laura’s name?
   Iris publishes it under Laura’s name as a form of posthumous collaboration and to incite maximum scandal. She wants to expose Richard’s abuse without taking direct personal credit. She also wishes to give Laura a voice and to honor the story they both lived. In her confession to Sabrina, she admits “the book is mine, but Laura was my ghost.”

4. How does Iris’s relationship with Alex Thomas affect her life?
   The affair gives Iris a sense of agency and joy, but it also creates a dangerous secret. She must lie to her sister and her husband. Alex’s death in the war leaves her grief-stricken and guilty. Later, she learns that Alex is the biological father of Sabrina, which transforms the legacy of her love into a hope for the next generation.

5. Does Iris feel remorse for her actions?
   Yes, Iris expresses profound regret, especially regarding Laura. She describes herself as “heartless” and “a zero at the bone.” She acknowledges that her silence and complicity contributed to Laura’s fate. Yet she also defends her choices as necessary for survival. Her entire memoir is an attempt to justify herself while also seeking forgiveness from Sabrina.

For further exploration, see our ending explained and questions and answers.