Margaret Atwood has quickly become my favorite author in a way that I've never expressed toward an author before. She captures my beliefs toward the world in each one of her works. She puts a voice to my thoughts in a beautifully tragic way. The best authors are relatable with something meaningful hidden inside themselves. Margaret Atwood stands for women and works to uplift them through the telling of their true existence. A woman does not live through luxury and fragility, but must endure the hardships that men cast aside. They must pick up the pieces that are considered to be "beneath" men, meaning most of the struggles of life.
As shown in her work The Blind Assassin, the Chase sisters live lives of extreme wealth and privilege. They are mocked by their neighbors for their selfishness and ego, despite being sheltered children. As they grow, their family name holds less and less power and their financial situation quickly becomes unstable. Laura is too young to be burdened by the struggles of adults, so the responsibility falls on Iris. She must essentially sell herself away to her father's friend in order to keep her own family business thriving and provide for her family.
Iris must be happy and beautiful while missing the death of her father, losing touch with her sister and abandoning the woman that raised her. Through all of this, her husband ignores, belittles and torments her. She is presented in the tabloids to have a life with no room for imperfection, but in reality, this situation is a prison, not her escape. Throughout the novel, with the use of a frame story, Iris tells of how happy she is that her husband died young and she was capable of escaping this situation. Before the reader has met Richard, Iris has told us that he is not a man that she wanted in her life and she was willing to sacrifice to rid herself of him.
It matters how people feel in the situation that they are in. It matters how women feel when all of their actions are dictated for them. As a society, we often overlook these decisions and look at the overall standings. In the middle of the #MeToo movement, this novel is eye-opening. A life spent with everything likely came from years of suffering from others' demanding opinions and decisions. We rarely choose a life for ourselves. When others have everything it is likely because they have nothing keeping them together. When we project outwards, how are we supposed to care for what's inside?
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