IB Extended Essay sample

English A1 EE. Written in thousand-word spurts the night before each draft was due, then hastily polished a couple days before the turnitin.com deadline. The lesson I can give you: go with your gut instinct. The Blind Assassin is one of my supervisor's favourite books - she suggested that I do it. I gave her my proposal after reading 30/600 pages. At first she was really hesitant, but it was actually a really simple topic to do. You know your strengths and weaknesses! Even if the topic is a bit odd, if you think (realistically) you can do it, you probably can.


International Baccalaureate Diploma Program
Extended Essay
English A1




Clothing Imagery in The Blind Assassin




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May 2008



Abstract

Margaret Atwood employs clothing imagery in The Blind Assassin to help connect and foreshadow the different stories within the novel and show relationships and traits. What kind of clothing a character wears can show personality, while the value and care he or she places on physical appearances can also reveal disposition. Specific types and items of clothing seem to have a role as well—animal fur conveys dishonesty and reluctance to believe in the truth—while accessories can have symbolic meaning. They can hint at future events and link two apparently dissimilar events to make each more poignant. When one character wears clothing that another character wore previously, this not only joins their experiences in the reader’s mind, it forces him or her to consider any associations. Thus, Atwood compares and contrasts the experiences merely through description of attire. Colour is used as symbolism and to show changes in the role or opinion of characters. Atwood does not simply designate commonly-used meanings to the colours, but places her own spin on it. She also differentiates between different shades and combinations of colours. Clothing imagery is used in The Blind Assassin meaningfully and helps to create a much more textured novel.

Word count: 200 words





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Abstract………………………………………………………………………………...i
Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………...ii
Essay…………………….…………………………………………………………1-13
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Clothing Imagery in The Blind Assassin


Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin is a mise en abyme — in fact, there are three stories nestled one within the other. In one story, narrator Iris Griffen née Chase recounts her life from childhood to middle age. Interspersed with this are chapters of The Blind Assassin, a roman à clef that Iris wrote but published under her younger sister’s name. And within that fictional story, one of the protagonists, Alex, tells a pulp science-fiction story to the other protagonist. One of the ways Atwood connects the stories within this intricate framework is with clothing imagery. Atwood uses clothing imagery in The Blind Assassin to create character profiles, link characters or events and show character opinion or motivation. For the purpose of this essay, the novel as a whole will be referred to as The Blind Assassin, while narrator Iris Griffen’s story-within-a-story will be called The Blind Assassin (I).

Clothing helps build a portrait of characters, not only what style of clothing the character wears, but the characters’ opinion on clothing. Iris remembers that “although [Miss Violence] herself [is] lumpy and inelegant, she [has] high standards of delicacy” (194). Miss Violence wears a uniform of tattered cashmere cardigans, hinting that she was once wealthy enough to afford them. Though they have frayed and she is no longer as well off, she continues wearing those sweaters, just as she retains her ladylike manners. Her clothes serve as a reminder of better times; Miss Violence wears them while dreaming of those better times.

For Laura, Iris’s younger sister, her opinion of clothing reflects her unusual outlook on life. From a young age, Laura is different from others; after Reenie, the family help, admonishes Laura to bite her tongue and stop asking questions, “Laura couldn’t chew for days” (108). Her skewed sense of ownership accentuates her eccentricity. Laura does not hesitate before rifling through her sister’s closet. Her beliefs help underline how her codes of conduct and moral are out of sync with that of everyone else. There is nothing selfish about her motives – she simply does not differentiate between her clothing and Iris’s. Laura “[lacks] the necessary cruelty….her cruelties [are] accidental” (379). Actions such as taking her sister’s clothing could seem greedy when done by another person, but Laura does so with simple intentions. It lends Laura a certain unpredictability, as the reader is never sure what she will do next. It also makes the reader second guess her purposes, for surely a character cannot act with such guileless intentions.
Iris is much more interested in fashion than her sister. Although her sister certainly seems to enjoy it – “‘Well, you’ll have nice clothes, anyway,’ [Laura says]” (299) as the sole merit of Iris marrying Richard – she does not pore over fashion magazines like Iris does. This should be a hint that The Blind Assassin (I) was written by Iris, not Laura, as clothing is often detailed in that novel. This is something Iris, but not Laura, would pay attention to. Laura is a Good Samaritan who is not thrown out of loop by “bedpans and vomit…nor the swearing and ravings and general carryings-on” (529). It seems unlikely that when faced with people in a similar state of poverty, she would notice that the men do not wear ties, whereas Iris is more decorous and less humanitarian. For her, it would only be another point showing the disparity between her lifestyle and Alex’s. Iris would be aware of it because she is unused to it, and would be uncomfortable, whereas if Laura had written The Blind Assassin (I), the novel would focus more on the plight of the men and less on their appearance.

When Alex begins telling the story of the planet Zycron in The Blind Assassin (I), there are lavish descriptions of clothing. It certainly helps set the scene, but at the same time, it feels as though he is trying to ingratiate himself to Iris. To him, clothing is of no great importance unless it is used to make aliens appear utterly unearthly, and he leans towards fantastical costumes such as “a skin-tight suit the greenish-blue of a gas flame” (351). Alex seems to realize how much Iris cares about clothes though, and tries to make himself part of her world. He begins mentioning what each caste on Zycron wears and tones down the science fiction elements, clothing his characters in silk masks and tunics, instead. As Alex delves farther into the story, the clothing imagery he applied in the beginning almost disappears. He does not need to attract Iris by catering to her whims and although he is not certain that Iris will continue sneaking away to him, he is more confident that she will. He feels more comfortable being himself, whereas when the relationship was just starting, he is careful to build up a strong friendship.
Fitting in with the chameleon theme is Iris’s chiffon cape trimmed with ermine fur, which sums up who she is in both her relationships. The chiffon would be how she is with Richard – weak, light and frail. With Alex, though, she more resembles the ermine – she is braver, more disobedient and coarser. The fur trimming plays on the fact that her relationship with Alex is on the side, not the main one. It is also a luxury that not every cape or relationship has; in Iris’s case, this luxury is that of happiness and love. Although she prefers Alex to Richard, her life is with Richard, whereas she only sees Alex sporadically. Also, the ermine changes fur colour in the winter and summer to better camouflage itself in its environment, which could be compared to Iris’s behaviour and contrasted with Iris’s wardrobe. Although the ermine fur on her cape is white, the scene takes place in April, when the stoat’s white winter coat is blotched with brown as it changes into its summer coat. Iris is wearing the coat of another season, emphasizing how no matter how hard she tries she can never blend in completely. She is in a family with significant political and social stature. Even in her most bedraggled clothes, she cannot appear as destitute as the people she encounters.

The use of animal fur in general suggests falsehood and lies. During Iris’s honeymoon, she meets a number of other affluent couples. In her first experience with one of them, the aging wife wears “white mink, despite the spring weather” (305). Despite getting on the years, she is determined to maintain an impression of sensuality and culture. She wraps herself in this mink coat as though it can cover her with a veneer of beauty and elegance. Iris is exposed to the social appearances she must keep up. There are also instances of animal fur being used not so much as lying but hiding from the truth. After her mother’s death, Laura “[spends] a lot of time inside Mother’s fur coat…Laura would get inside it and try to do up the buttons” (171). Although she is too young to truly understand death and its implications, she tries to escape it by hiding in her mother’s old garments. Only after the jacket is given away does Laura begin questioning what happened to her mother; prior to that, she is satisfied with the knowledge that her mother has joined God. Iris almost mimics the gesture when she “pulls the fur coat over her” (450) after hearing Alex’s story of Paradise. As an idealistic woman, she does not want to think about Paradise being more of a trap than a Haven, as Alex sees it. Her way out, like Laura, is to hide from the truth.

Laura and Iris often wear the same outfit when they go through similar circumstances; linking them through parallels in wardrobe emphasizes the outward similarity, but the dissimilar personal experience of each sister. Laura regularly wears Iris’s hand-me-downs. It is interesting, though, that she happens to wear Iris’s yellow cotton dress when she begins to be molested by Richard – the same thing that Iris wore at the start of her affair with Alex. They are both the beginnings of sexual relations, but under greatly different terms. What is striking is how similar the language is. For Iris it is “a pale yellow dress, cotton” (374); Laura wears “a yellow cotton dress” (491). Superficially it shows how deceiving appearances can be, as both Chases kept secrets from each other and sometimes put up a false front, but it also underlines a theme in The Blind Assassin: the connection between the sisters. Neither knew about the others’ secret life until just before Laura’s suicide, but epochs in their life echo each others’, and it is reflected in clothing.

This situation does not only occur between Iris and Laura. During her honeymoon on the ship Berengeria, Iris notices that “a group of English people in cream-coloured linen [stare at her] … [she feels] rumpled and grubby, and of minor interest” (308). Later, her trysts with Alex bring her in close contact with the poor and downtrodden. On one instance, she wears a cream poplin raincoat. Although on that occasion, there is little description on how people react to her, the cream links her with the English. This time, however, she is on the other side of things: she is the one making others feel unwashed and unimportant.

In Mayfair, a magazine Iris frequently reads, all accounts of important events are followed by lavish description of what the socialites are wearing. In an article about the English Queen’s trip to Canada, a few sentences about the visit will be quickly followed by an equally long description of who wore what – as though the fact that a woman is “fetching in a demure Schiaparelli creation of blistered bisque” (159) is just as important as the arrival of royalty. Mayfair is an excellent example of the upper-class attitude. Events may be important, but so are the people seen attending the events, and appearances are everything. Iris’s stance on this paper is indicative of her growth as a character. As a teenager, she leafed through it and harboured dreams of dressing up in the fine attire of the wealthy. When she achieves this, though, no more mention of her reading Mayfair is made. Once she sees the well-to-do lifestyle, she loses interest because she sees its flaws and triviality. Although the rich appreciate their way of life, they are never satisfied. Their gratification depends on whether they are admired for their attire at the next social gathering. In contrast, characters seem most joyful when they are naked. When the blind assassin and the mute maiden in Alex’s story finally escape the city and are free, they are naked from stripping to dive into the river; and Iris and Alex are naked for much of their private time. It is interesting that when Alex is urged to create a happy story in The Blind Assassin (I), the women in Paradise wear clothing. Cynical Alex does not believe that complete happiness is possible and an early hint of this is when he clothes the women in the story.

Accessories are also important. On some outings with Alex, Iris wears “a straw hat, round like a schoolgirls’” (22). Iris wore a very similar hat on childhood excursions with Laura. The rationale was that a lady never went out without her hat. Even though she has grown up, Iris appears to unconsciously keep that advice – a gesture that Laura would probably abandon, just as she abandons much of what she is told is proper. On the other hand, Iris is more likely to abide by the rules. What is more, on these excursions, Laura and Iris “would peer in through the chain-link fence at the primary school, which was for ordinary children” (192). They do this despite the fact that they have been warned that these trips were dangerous. Iris’s trysts with Alex could be seen as a riskier, adult form of these outings. As children, this is an aimless activity and Iris and Laura are not quite sure whether they wish to join the schoolchildren. As an adult, Iris is more set. Instead of merely peering, she actively carries out an affair. Her visits to Alex are definitely meaningful, showing her maturation despite still being treated by Winifred as a child. Alex is poorer and of a lower social class than Iris, and would be the equivalent of the schoolchildren. Richard calls him “the young thug” (408), and this seems to be the general opinion of him. Certainly he would be seen as far too villainous for Iris to associate with. Though Iris’s affair and her jaunts seem quite incongruous, one cannot help recalling the insouciance of those childhood days, and comparing it to the freedom in Alex and Iris’s relationship. Again, this is the grown-up counterpart, even if Iris wears similar clothing; Alex and Iris are not free to roam wherever they want or do whatever they please, but they can escape from an everyday life neither enjoys. Remembering that Laura followed Iris compounds the feeling that both sisters are involved in Iris’s affair, for until the end of the novel, it is hinted that Laura was the one having the affair.

Gloves are possibly the central accessory in the novel, representing a move towards change. This is rather ironic, as gloves should impede motion. The clearest and most dramatic instance of this is Laura’s suicide. The police know that the death was deliberate because “she had white gloves on. They [see] her turn the wheel” (619). Mentioning gloves often tips the reader off that the character is about to make an important decision. During the picnic which marks the start of Alex and Iris’s affair, Iris “[takes] off her cotton gloves, [wads] them into a ball, her hands nervous” (22). For her, the choice to meet Alex and continue seeing him on a regular basis is one that will change her life; on this occasion, it is not enough to simply wear the gloves on or take them off, but to fiddle with them as well. This also ties in with the theme of gladness when naked, as Iris is taking her gloves off and revealing bare flesh. It can be seen as Iris’s move towards the pursuit of happiness.

Colour is another important tool that Atwood utilizes to reveal personality and characters’ opinions. The colours blue and green are used especially frequently. The Chase family commonly wears blue before Iris’s marriage to Richard Griffen. In one of Iris’s memories about her mother Liliana Chase, she wears a dress of “sky blue, with a broad white collar and white cuffs edged in piquet” (101). This image fits the affluent, fair-minded family. They may be white-collared employers, but they still look out for the blue-collar workers at the factories and both Liliana and Laura have a humanitarian streak that drives them to volunteer amongst the homeless and unfortunate. Laura and Iris wore very proper blue dresses in their childhood. Mr. Chase wished to attire his children in stiff clothing as though it would desexualize them enough to turn them into the boys he wanted. Also, the economy had crashed, and to save money, Mr. Chase spent very little on clothes. At Iris’s wedding, it is Reenie’s turn to wear a blue dress. It reflects their new roles. After Iris’s marriage to a prominent industrialist, Reenie is less important, just as Laura and Iris were less important as children. She is also much less wealthy than they have become. When Laura and Iris meet Alex Thomas, he sports “a blue shirt, a little frayed around the edges” (221). Iris is initially wary of him; though she sees him as a nice enough young man, he is a young man who is definitely beneath her station. However, when they begin their affair in The Blind Assassin (I), Iris “looks at his rolled-up shirt sleeve, white or a pale blue” (12). She is not sure whether the shirt is white or blue because the fact that he is a worker no longer matters to her. To her, they are now equals. When Laura meets up with her sister for the first time after running away, she is “neatly, even austerely dressed, in a dull-blue shirtwaist dress” (607), marking a return to the sombre garb she wore as a youth. It is no surprise that she initially hid at their childhood home. After she leaves the house, Laura spends her time doing “this and that…I made myself useful” (608). In the time that she ran away, she lived amongst the middle class, blue collar people she had always craved to be a member of. It can be seen in her clothing just how much she was absorbed into society by the fact that her shirtdress was plain blue, without the white collar or lace of her childhood dresses. For the first time, she has become the normal person she has always wanted to be.

Winifred, Richard’s sister, wears green so often it seems to be her signature colour, and when anyone else wears green it feels tied to her. Considering her forceful and calculating personality, it feels as though she is in fact assimilating others to her. After marrying Richard, Iris rarely wears blue, but she wears much more green. Winifred organizes Iris’s wardrobe and picks out her clothes – just like she arranges the rest of Iris’s life. The meek Iris accepts this, but an interesting twist is that to an extent Iris enjoys it and uses it to her advantage. She likes having a fashionable wardrobe. It appears as though she agrees to submit on more unimportant issues as clothes as cover for her greater insubordination of carrying an affair with Alex. This is illustrated when she dresses for the Xanadu banquet. “The pleasure-dome was where I really lived now” (425), she thinks as she puts on her green veil, and at the time the reader thinks that she is referring to her opulent life with Richard, but she is actually referring to her visits with Alex. Veils symbolize concealment and deception and by donning a green one, Iris shows how she pretends to be obedient so she can continue to sneak away to continue her affair. It is significant that Winifred’s colour is green as opposed to another colour. Green is traditionally linked with envy and Winifred is certainly envious of those higher up in society than her. She is also envious of those with respect, which she, as someone with new money, does not gain. Green could also symbolize the serpent. Winifred is deceitful when it suits her purpose and can also be quite spiteful, taking away Iris’s granddaughter, Sabrina, because she knows how much Iris values the child. Lastly, green is the colour of money – appropriate, considering how much Winifred enjoys wealth and how eager she is for more of it.

There appears to be a distinction between different shades of green, though. Winifred prefers shades that are “not a pastel green but a vibrant green, almost flagrant” (290). Both her shoes and her purses tend to be “reptilian” (636), again emphasizing that Winifred is like a serpent. This reinforces her image as a strong woman who cannot be ignored, who clothes herself in such bright colours to capture attention. The colour is also once described as “poisonous” (290), once more accentuating Winifred’s malice. In contrast, even though Laura and Iris start wearing green after Iris’s marriage, they often wear paler shades. Although they must act according to Winifred’s wishes, they are not as pernicious as she is. At Iris’s reception, Laura wears “leaf-green velveteen with watermelon satin accents” (160). The green Laura wears could have numerous implications. The mention of nature could refer to Winifred’s opinion of the Chase sisters – useful as decorative foliage. Iris is only important for her role as a wife and political supporter of Richard. The green could also be a nod to the Garden of Eden. Outwardly, Laura is like the serpent, angry and determined to ruin affairs. This is ironic, because the serpent is infamous for tricking Eve, and no matter rebellious or ungrateful Laura appears, she is always truthful. At the same time, Laura is the forbidden fruit. Green is commonly linked with youth and Richard has a yen for young women, even the legally under-aged Laura. The green Winifred wears could also be tied up with youth, as Winifred seeks the beauty of youth, and as she ages, clings determinedly to the youthful styles and cosmetics of her heyday.

During her dalliances with Alex, Iris usually wears white, the colour of innocence and purity. Compared to Alex, who is running away from the law and is prone to crasser language such as “cunt on stilts” (348), she certainly seems both innocent and pure. However, Iris never wears pristine white – the white may be patterned, or off-white. No matter how wholesome she seems, she is not wholly pure, as evidenced by the fact that she is carrying an affair with Alex. It is especially tragic that Laura wears white gloves when she kills herself. Throughout the novel, Laura is portrayed as innocent. Even at the moment of her suicide, a far from innocent moment, she retains her purity in the form of her white gloves.

Black is the colour of the young, contemporary people. Any youths the elderly Iris encounters on her walks is inevitably cloaked in black. It is a unique use of colour, as black often has negative connotations, yet the youths are never shown as antagonistic nor melancholy. On the contrary, black seems to symbolize the mystery of youth, an enigma that adolescents have but Iris cannot penetrate. However, black along another colour always seems implies something else. This sends an interesting message – as though stating that youths are still trusting enough to be easily written over. Certainly Reenie’s plain cousin is too old for her black dress to symbolize youth as Winifred’s elegant black dress does. That black is overridden by other wardrobe features – in her case, her sagging brown stockings, a mismatching, unpolished item of clothing that contributes to an impression of age and shabbiness.

Most significant is the combination of silver and black, which signifies strong feelings of gratitude, awe and exceptionality. When Iris hands out the Laura Chase Commemorative Prize, the prize winner stands out. Although she is in a sea of youth, her black dress is shot with silver and “the light streaming out from her was so dazzling [Iris has] to shut her eyes” (51). The language seems to suggest that the prize winner is a star. As she hands out the prize, Iris thinks that “perhaps Sabrina looks like that now…I might not even recognize her” (50-51). The elderly Iris’s sole wish is to reunite with her granddaughter, and by mentioning her at that moment, she not only shows her desire to see Sabrina, she reveals her secret dream of identifying Sabrina. Though Iris has not seen her granddaughter since Sabrina was an infant, she hopes that like the prize winner, Sabrina will show her uniqueness through figurative silver threading even if she is robed in youthful black. She believes that Sabrina is as special and as much of a star as the prize winner.

The Blind Assassin is an elaborate work that benefits from being anchored by various literary elements. It can be seen that clothing is mentioned with definite purpose and that its imagery helps foreshadow and deepen the novel. Certainly, it adds another layer to an already richly-textured novel and helps create the poignancy and complexity that earned this novel the Booker Prize.

Word count: 3965