Dialectical Journal #32: The Blind Assassin

Passages From The Text	Pg #	Comments & Questions
·         “Richard’s friends are even older than Richard, and the woman looked older than the man… Her husband sat silently while she talks, his hands fisted together, his half-smile set in concrete; he looked wisely down at the tablecloth. So this is marriage, I thought: this shared tedium, this twitchiness, and those little powdery runnels forming to the sides of the nose. ·         ‘Richard didn’t warn us you’d be this young,’ said the woman. ·         Her husband said, ‘It will wear off,’ and his wife laughed. ·         I considered the word warn: was I really that dangerous? Only in the way sheep are, I now suppose. So dumb they jeopardize themselves, and get stuck on cliffs or cornered and some custodian has to risk his neck to get them out of trouble.”	243	·         (R) I am stunned. I know in those times, marriages were more about money than love, but how could Iris’ father ask her to marry Richard? He’s so old compared to her and they barely even talk to each other. Iris did not even have a chance; her Father backed her into a corner, making her seem like Chase families’ only salvation - which I guess she was… but still! I don’t like Richard; he’s so strange and seems to need his sister to help him make every little decision. I can’t believe her Father had the audacity to give her away to a man like that- he barely knows Iris. Yet she’s had to carry so much on her shoulders on his behalf.