The Blind Assassin

"The real name of the city was erased from memory by the conquerors, and this is why—say the taletellers—the place is now known only by the name of its destruction. The pile of stones thus marks both an act of deliberate remembrance, and an act of deliberate forgetting."

Given history's tendency to repeat itself, memory is a complicated issue in The Blind Assassin. Forgetting history may cause us to repeat it (which is presumably why Norval Chase wants 'Lest We Forget' inscribed on the war memorial), but remembering it can have much the same effect if it inspires revenge (148). Perhaps in an attempt to break the cycle, some characters therefore resort to the balance of remembrance and forgetting described in this passage. Iris, for instance, describes her novel as a "memorial," but she also leaves the main characters anonymous and publishes it under her sister's name (508).

"Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for, when they scrawl their names in the snow."

Language is central to The Blind Assassin; it is one of the only ways in which characters can access one another's perspectives, and it is also the medium people use to construct their versions of reality. In this passage, however, Iris raises the possibility of a different use for language. Her memoir, she says, may not communicate anything to anyone or even "mean" anything in the usual sense; instead, it may function simply as a kind of marker of her existence. This is in keeping with Iris's ultimate description of her novel as a "memorial," but it also suggests another way of thinking about the motif of muteness, since there is a sense of futility around all of Iris's attempts at storytelling.