"The Blind Assassin" Post 1a

Vocabulary

"Sibyl in the bottle" (42): a tale from Greek times by Ovid concerning a nymph forever imprisoned in a bottle to grow old but never die.

"enervating" (65): to weaken, deprive of force or strength

Figurative Language

Simile: "The orange tulips are coming out, crumpled and raggedy like the stragglers from some returning army" (42). This simile is interesting because spring and the return of flowers, especially tulips, is usually remarked upon as a joyous occasion, celebrating the beauty and return of life. Here, Iris remarks that her flowers are barely hanging in there, even in the spring as they begin to blossom. Perhaps she is remarking as to her own similar state, as she continues in the next line: "I greet them with relief, as if waving from a bombed out building; still, they must make their way as best they can, without much help from me... I can't kneel very well any more, I can't shove my hands into the dirt" (42). 

Metaphor: "I prefer to be upright and contained- an urn in daylight" (43). Iris is speaking of how she feels a desire to be melodramatic about the end of her life, as well as looking back on it, or "romantic" as she describes it. Instead, it's more her style to be "classical" like an urn in daylight: proud, on the verge of putting on a face, things concealed without be sly about it as in the darkness.

Simile: "They killed as softly as a moth brushing against your neck" (22). This simile of the blind children working as assassins builds a great but disturbing picture in the reader's mind: one can imagine how their killing would be gentle, delicate, just a little slice with their capable hands. At the same time, the idea of children working as killers is so horrible because death and destruction is something their innocence shouldn't be tainted by.

Quote

"That's unnecessarily cruel, she says coldly.

When is cruelty necessary? he says. And how much of it? Read the newspapers, I didn't invent the world. Anyways, I'm on the side of the throat cutters. If you had to cut throats or starve, which would you do?" (23)

This quote was interesting in the questions that it raised. When one says unnecessarily cruel, does that mean that cruelty to a certain level is "necessary"? Or at least to be expected? And if one was presented with the situation of stooping to acts not thought of as moral in order to survive, what would one do? Is cruelty "necessary" there because of the circumstances?

Theme

Cruelty is a fact of the world.