"The Blind Assassin" Post 2a

Vocabulary

bowdlerized (69): to expurgate (a written work) by removing or modifying passages considered vulgar or objectionable

tam (69): a woolen cap of Scottish origin, short for tam-o-shanter

Figurative Language

Simile: "He's in his uniform; his medals are like holes shot in he cloth, through which the dull gleam of his real, metal body can be seen" (76). This simile acts to further the reader's understanding in several ways. Firstly, it gives us a perspective of Iris in which she has her own fantasies, such as her father as a robot, a metal man. As the book continues, these notions are dominated by Laura and Iris is left to be the sensible on, but she has her own unique way of looking at things as well. Additionally, this simile shows the man that Iris' father has become: cold, hard, stiff, not someone one would imagine as a loving father and husband. The image of holes in his uniform reminds the reader of what he has just been through, but one doesn't truly forgive him for the pain this is sure to inflict upon the rest of his family.

Simile: "It was as if they'd drunk some fatal potion that would keep them forever apart, even though they lived in the same house, ate at the same table, slept in the same bed" (78). This simile shows the transformation in the relationship between Iris' parents. After the war, each had changed in ways that the other could not comprehend even if they had tried. They were stuck knowing only a part of the other, not able to break away or learn of the other part.

Personification: "I think of my heart as my companion on an endless forced march, the two of us roped together, unwilling conspirators in some plot or tactic we've got no handle on. Where are we going? Towards the next day" (83). In this personification, Iris talks of herself and her heart as separate entities bound together to soldier on unwillingly towards a perhaps empty goal, "the next day". This shows the disconnect that she feels throughout her telling of her story, between her current condition and her past self. She is old now, but she does not have that view of her inside self. She is bound to her body, but not willingly. Perhaps not in the sense that she wishes to die: more that she cannot believe quite how time has passed. 

Quote

"There. It's over. The guns are silent. The men who are left alive look up at the sky, their faces grimed, their clothing sodden; they climb out of their foxholes and filthy burrows. Both sides feel as if they have lost. In the towns, in the countryside, here and across the ocean, church bells all begin to ring. (I can remember that, the bells ringing. It's one of my first memories. It was so strange - the air was so full of sound, and at the same time so empty" (75). This passage was particularily affecting because, although it is describing a supposedly joyous event, the end of WWI, it reminds the reader that the ending of the war couldn't account for the losses, the atrocities, and other tragedies which it had brought.

Theme

It's better to do something or almost anything, to have motion, to have the possibility of escaping, than to do nothing, to be stuck.