The Narrative Structure of The Blind Assassin (Part 2)
As mentioned before, The Blind Assassin is a fragmented narrative with Iris’s autobiography as the framing story. Dancygier declares the very beginning as the opening for two narrative spaces. Iris begins her story with announcing Laura’s death. The way this information is delivered opens two spaces: “accident” and “suicide”. Iris seems to be of the opinion that her sister committed suicide, while a newspaper article suggests otherwise. Through the novel, there are many such official versions of events that are described by Iris in another way, giving the reader the idea, that the newspaper articles hide the truth.
The “suicide” space is linked to the “notebooks” space. We get to know a glimpse of their content through Iris, just enough to see the connection between those notes and Laura’s death. These spaces could be defined as incomplete and inexplicit.
The Blind Assassin is constructed with a network of narrative spaces. The novella published under the name of Laura, named The Blind Assassin, fills in some gaps and links to the final story. One of these spaces is the “photograph” that was taken at the picnic where Laura and Iris met Alex. It connects the two lovers only referred to as “he” and “she” with Alex and Iris.
Within this novella, “he” tells “her” a pulp science-fiction story, and this is another narrative space. This story reflects on the unjustly society and the imposed roles on women. The character named the blind assassin is representing Alex, who might have been hired by Richard, the lord of the underworld, to set the factory of Iris’s father, the kind, on fire. The two girl, Iris and Laura, are both mute girls, who have been sacrificed in different ways.
The different narrative spaces give different viewpoints on the story, and only if all are put together the complete story is visible.
In her conclusion, Dancygier uses a figure, which sums this analysis up.