A World Where "Nobody Won": A Study Of Trauma In The Blind Assassin

Margret Atwood is a famous contemporary writer of Canada who has been credited as "Queen of Canadian Literature".Her long novel The Blind Assassin got the Booker Prize in the year of 2000 with a narrative structure like the Matryoshka doll.82-year-old Iris,the protagonist,has tasted the bitterness of the world.Her recount of the present wretched life is interwoven with her first-point-of-view reminiscence of the changes of the Chase family,which forms the primary of the narrative.Inside is a love affair of a man and a woman who make up a love story happening in an imaginary city of Sakiel-Norn on an alien planet.Trauma literature is motivated by an urgent need to tell and retell the story of the traumatic experience,to make it real so as to offer the victim a channel to speak it out loud and help the audience think over the root reasons of trauma.There are various traumas:domestic trauma,war trauma,political trauma,race trauma,cultural trauma,etc.This thesis,focusing on the fall and decline of the Chase family,examines the main characters' traumas by patriarchy,war and hierarchical system.The body is made up of three parts.The first part discusses the domestic trauma by patriarchy to the traumatized wives and the neglected daughters.Atwood vividly presents women's tragic fate of four generations,which reflects a true picture of women's plight in patriarchal family.The second part analyzes trauma of wars that has inflicted great destructions on the Chase members and their business.Iris' grandfather starts the family factory and runs it well.World War One breaks out.Two of the old man's sons are killed in the front.Noval—the eldest son—survived,but came home with one eye blind and one leg lame.He gets easily irritated and annoyed.The Chase factory goes bankrupt.The third part focuses on the victims who suffer from political trauma by hierarchical system.Having few possessions and siding with the leftists,Alex has been excluded,suspected and hunted.Sakiel-Norn is rigidly stratified,where the bulk belonging to the underclass are exploited.The imaginary city troubled with sharp class conflicts is a microcosm of the contemporary world.Patriarchy,war and hierarchical system traumatize people physically and mentally,and together make a world where "Nobody Won".In her strong criticism of patriarchy,war and hierarchical system,Atwood conveys her great sympathy for underprivileged groups including women,children,soldiers and the working people,etc.