摘 要

创伤是指突发或灾难性事件带来的压倒性经历，创伤者对此的反应通常延迟且不受控制地重复幻觉和其他侵扰现象。《盲刺客》是玛格丽特·阿特伍德于2000年获得布克奖的小说，讲述了饱受创伤折磨的主角艾丽丝·蔡斯的自白，其间交织着剪报以及艾丽丝以妹妹劳拉为笔名出版的同名小说《盲刺客》的章节。这本小说中的小说本身包含了另一个科幻小说，描绘了虚构的残酷城市萨基诺城和发生在盲刺客和被献祭的哑女之间的爱情故事。本文旨在分析在亲属悲剧性死亡、受金钱驱使的破碎家庭及战争多重压迫和压抑下艾丽丝的创伤，深入探究其重建故事的康复过程。本文分为五个部分：第一部分本文背景信息的介绍，包括作者和《盲刺客》的背景信息、文献综述和创伤理论。第二部分重点介绍艾丽丝遭受的创伤性疾病，包括错时、创伤性梦境和间歇性健忘症。第三部分从三个方面阐述其受害的根源：亲属的死亡、压迫的父权制和残酷的战争。第四部分深入研究其从创伤到重建和解的三个复原阶段：安全的建立、回顾和哀悼以及重建联系感。最后一部分是结论。心理创伤者能够通过讲述创伤故事重获力量、尊严和信任感。而结合创伤批评分析文学，文学作品将进一步得以被赏析并与读者建立联系。

关键词：《盲刺客》；玛格丽特·阿特伍德；创伤；记忆侵扰；重建

Abstract

Trauma describes an overwhelming experience of sudden or catastrophic events, in which the response to the event occurs often in the delayed, uncontrolled and repetitive occurrence of hallucinations and other intrusive phenomena. The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood’s Booker Prize-winning novel in 2000, describes the traumatized protagonist Iris Chase’s confession intertwined with newspaper clippings, chapters from a homonymic novel, The Blind Assassin, which Iris ostensibly published under the pseudonym of her sister Laura. The novel-within-the-novel itself contains a science-fiction narrative about a fantastical cruel city called Sakiel-Norn and the love story between a blind assassin and a mute sacrificial maiden. The paper aims to analyze Iris Chase’s traumatic disorders under the repression and depression of tragic deaths of relatives, the money-ridden and wrecked family and wars, delving into her recovery process by reconstructing her story. It will generally be divided into five parts. The first part is an introduction to the background information of this thesis, including the background information of the author and The Blind Assassin, literature review, and trauma theory. The following part will focus on the traumatic disorders that Iris Chase suffers from, including the anachronies, traumatic dreams and intermittent amnesia. In the third part, the origin of the victimization is expounded on three perspectives: the death of relatives, the oppressive patriarchy and the cruel wars. The fourth part is delving into three stages of Iris’ recovery from trauma to reconstruction and reconciliation: the establishment of safety, remembrance and mourning and reconnection. The last part is the conclusion. By telling the traumatic story, the traumatized people regain a sense of power, dignity and trust. And by analyzing literature with traumatic criticism, the literary work is further appreciated and connected to readers.

Key Words: The Blind Assassin; Margaret Atwood; trauma; intrusion; reconstruction

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Margaret Atwood and The Blind Assassin 1

1.2 Literature Review 3

1.3 Trauma Theory 5

2 The Traumatic Disorders: Intrusion and Constriction 7

2.1 Anachronies 7

2.2 Traumatic Dreams 8

2.3 Intermittent Amnesia 9

3 The Origin of the Victimization: Disempowerment and Isolation 10

3.1 Death of Relatives 10

3.2 Oppressive Patriarchy 11

3.3 Cruel Wars 12

4 The Recovery: Reconstruction and Reconciliation 14

4.1 Establishment of Safety 14

4.2 Remembrance and Mourning 14

4.3 Reconnection 15

5 Conclusion 17

References 18

Acknowledgements 19

From Intrusion to Reconstruction:

On Trauma of Iris in The Blind Assassin

1 Introduction

1.1 Margaret Atwood and The Blind Assassin

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian novelist, poet, and literary critic, known for her feminist perspective, the theme of Canadian identity and political involvement in her works. As one of the most renowned writers of fiction in modern literary history, Atwood won numerous awards and honors for her insightful writing, including the Booker Prize (twice), Governor General’s Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award, Franz Kafka Prize, the National Book Critics and so on. Also, she has been nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in literature. With profound literary heritage, keen observation of life and rational reflection, Atwood pays heed to the violence, repression, and fear brought by industrial civilization and the predicament of women. The New York Times considered her novels “Absorbing… Expertly rendered… Virtuosic storytelling.”^[1]

Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa, Canada in 1939 and grew up in the backwoods of northern Quebec and later Toronto because of her father’s research in forest entomology. Not attending school full-time until she was 12 years old, Atwood spent massive time reading and writing from a very young age and began writing plays and poems at the age of 16. In 1957, she began studying at Victoria College of the University of Toronto, where she published poems and articles in the college literary journal. Atwood obtained a master’s degree in Arts in English from Radcliffe College of Harvard University in 1962. Atwood’s first book of poetry, Double Persephone, was published as a pamphlet in 1961, winning the E.J. Pratt Medal. Atwood in succession taught English at the University of British Columbia the University of Alberta, the University of Toronto and so on while continuing to write, and she published collections of poetry, novels and her first non-fiction monograph, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972), helping establish her as an important and emerging voice in Canadian literature.

Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Cat’s Eye (1988), Alias Grace (1996), The Blind Assassin (2000), and Oryx and Crake (2003). Depicting theocratic dystopia and religious tyranny in which women are put in sexual slavery on account of the rare fertility, The Handmaid’s Tale has gained considerable popularity and acclaim. The book is adapted into a TV miniseries and later won multiple Emmy Awards in 2017. And its sequel, The Testaments, published in 2019, was the global number one bestseller and won the Man Booker Prize.

The Blind Assassin is Margaret Atwood’s Booker Prize-winning novel in 2000 with three stories and newspaper clippings intertwined in this complex novel. The premise of the book is an autobiographical confession of the elderly protagonist, Iris Chase, recounting her memories of her childhood, eccentric family history and tragic deaths of her families, especially her sister Laura Chase who was under sexual exploitation by Iris’ husband Richard Griffen for years and finally suicide in 1945. Interspersed with this memoir are chapters from a roman à clef, The Blind Assassin, which Iris ostensibly published under the pseudonym of her sister Laura. The homonymic novel, in which two illicit lovers amuse each other by spinning a tale, was written based on Iris’ extramarital affair with Alex Thomas, a politically radical author of science fiction who has an ambiguous relationship with the sisters, but Iris deceives Richard into believing that Laura was the one having an affair with Alex Thomas, driving him to commit suicide. The novel-within-the-novel itself contains a science-fiction narrative about a fantastical cruel city called Sakiel-Norn on a distant planet and the love story between a blind assassin and a mute sacrificial maiden. The novel ends as Iris dies, leaving the truth to be to her sole surviving granddaughter Sabrina in her unpublished autobiography.

In richly layered narrative and structure, Atwood weaves together spellbinding family saga and individuals’ incessant efforts against social unrest, patriarchal tyranny and human frailty, demonstrating the protagonist’s reconstruction way off purgatory of regrets. The paper aims to analyze Iris Chase’s traumatic disorders under the repression and depression of wars, the money-ridden and wrecked family and tragic deaths of relatives based on trauma theory, delving into her recovery process by reconstructing her story, to reveal its significance and exact a positive effect on the recovery of those who are afflicted with devastating strikes and intrusion by psychological pieces even hysteria.

1.2 Literature Review

The Blind Assassin, published in 2000, is Margaret Atwood’s magnum opus that wins the Booker Prize that year. Simon Jenkins, chair of the 2000 judges, made the following comment on the award-winning novel and its author Atwood: “The Blind Assassin is a complex book that works on many different levels. Far-reaching, dramatic, and structurally superb, it demonstrates Atwood’s immense emotional range, as well as her poet’s eye for both telling detail and psychological truth”.^[2]

Foreign studies on The Blind Assassin are carried out early and with great achievements. Search on the related websites of ProQuest, EBSCO and SpringerLink, more than 40 essays, 20 dissertations, and 10 monographs related to Margaret Atwood and The Blind Assassin can be found.