Summary Of Our Secret By Susan Griffin

The book is called Secrets in the Shadows by the author Anne Schraff. Anne grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. She got a bachelor's and master’s degree from California State University. Since college she has been writing many books including one of the most famous written series called the Bluford Series. Her stories are written basically on her background and how she grew up as a child. A middle class neighborhood including African Americans, Mexicans, Arab, and Filipino’s. From reading some of her books her stories are from a real person’s point of view and the struggles they really go through. Some of her lessons in many of her books are topics such as finding love, value education, respect towards others, and the importance of family.

Throughout "Our Secret" Griffin explores the different characters' fears and secrets and she gives specific insights into these "secrets". Through examining others Griffin comes to terms with her own feelings, secrets, and fears. She relates to Himmler, Leo, Helene, and everyone else even though she is different than all of them. One fact that can be made about all of these characters is that they all represent humans and human emotion

Vladek is depicted as a hero who shows countless acts of selflessness and generosity and a villain who is, “opinionated, tight-fisted, and self-involved”. (Brown 6) Art Spiegelman’s book Maus, tells the story of how Vladek and Anja Spiegelman survived the Holocaust. Spiegelman illustrates Vladek as a man who single-handily saved his family from starvation and Auschwitz in World War I. During Spiegelman’s interviews, we get an idea of Vladek’s darker side since the war ended. Mala to speak of her astonishment and disgust in Vladek’s character. Which leaves us to question how truthfully these stories are being told. In the end, Vladek’s unsuccessful heroism is a constant reminder of his failure; survival with Anja was always easier, after her death, Vladek pushes everyone away with his “guilt and manipulation” (Brown 7)

The narrators in both works prove to be similar in several ways. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the story is told through a psycho narrator; both stories contain apparent psychological imbalances within their story tellers, “

A German boy in the time of Concentration Camps in WWII, Heinz was a homosexual who knew to conceal his secret. Heinz knew that he would be killed if anyone found out about his lifestyle, and told no one about his secret besides his mother. However, the Nazis eventually discovered a picture of Heinz with his lover, and sent him to a Concentration Camp to be killed. These individuals being forced to conceal their lifestyles is, in a way, forcing them to conceal who they truly are. Keeping secrets from others, in a way, means that they have not fully come to terms with who they are.

A particular question that is seldom pondered over and yet is capable of carrying so many doubts within it: who are we? Who are we as a society who can do the things we do? Who are we who can suffer from them? Award winning poet and essayist Susan Griffin confronts these distinct questions in her work titled, “Our Secret”. Griffin believes that a basic understanding of the things that play a part in the growth of an individual is essential to understanding who we are. The way a child is raised dictates how that child is going to become later on in life. One of the distinct highlights of Griffin’s essay was her use of describing the progress of the V1 rockets in World War II. Griffin studies the aspects of human nature by using these missile developments as a metaphor to symbolize the raising of children and the factors that can influence a growing individual. One of the prime figures that Griffin uses pertaining to these growing individuals was Heinrich Himmler, leader of the Nazi secret police. Griffin uses Himmler as an example to demonstrate how big of a role a parental figure can play in the development of a person.

Having concluded that both females are in complete possession of their mental capacities at the beginning of the stories, a collation of The Awakening and “The Yellow Wall-Paper” uncovers a similarity in the oppressiveness of the ruling male figures. Both husbands in

Conrad applies an apparently crystal clear literary narrative technique in the tradition of conventional realism, a narrative method that appears deceptively simple. The Secret Agent holds great deal of the social concerns. It is considered supreme masterpieces, it is a brilliantly depicting an ironic narrative of London's seedy and dispossessed underworld of revolutionist and anarchists.

Throughout the course of the concentration camps, the Nazis complete actions to physically alter the prisoners, making them all look the same. For instance, towards the beginning of the novel the Nazis shave the prisoners heads to rid them of all the hair on their bodies and give them the exact same clothing to wear, making no one look unique or have a sense of style for themselves. The loss of humanity was made evident when Elie states “we had to throw our clothes at one end of the barracks...for us, this was the true equality: nakedness” (Wiesel 32). Wiesel’s statement displays the fact that they are grouped into one being, leaving no room for individuality. The Nazis also identified the prisoners with a tattoo number instead of calling them by their own names, making the detained lose their sense of identity. The loss of recognition was made evident when Elie said “I became A-7713. After that I had no name” (Wiesel 39). His statement claims that he was no longer Elie, making it evident that he has lost any sense of his identity, later leading to him to lose hope in any humanity. Wiesel effectively utilizes events throughout the novel to represent the lifelong intellectual damage that was put into place by the

His story comes flashbacks during and after the Holocaust and his guilt of surviving the death camp while many died. He is suffering from a post traumatic madness of past experience that made him think to just simply die. He is afraid to tell anyone what he saw during the Holocaust because it will make them feel more frightened or simply misunderstood him and eventually he will live isolated from all people. His struggle to keep his experience revealed to everyone makes him isolated, so he lives in a stateless condition between death and life. During his hospitalization, he recalls his encounter with a young prostitute in Paris after the Holocaust to which she revealed her secret as victim of being a sex prisoners when she was twelve years old to not only Nazis’ officers, but also to all mankind. The prostitute feels guilty of surviving death while other women who sacrificed themselves to sleep with the Nazi officer. All the women died and she survived because she was adored. To calm her down, the protagonist says that she is a saint to which she snaps at him saying he is mad. The madness of both characters is similar in a way that they feel guilty of surviving the war while others died. The girl’s laughing when she says he is mad made him feel frightened for he thinks such laugh belongs to a body without a soul. The difference between their madness is

Heinrich Himmler was born on October 7th, 1900 in Munich to a middle-class Bavarian family. His father was Joseph Gebhard Himmler, a secondary-school teacher and principal. His mother was Anna Maria Himmler (maiden name Heyder), a devout Catholic and extremely attentive mother. Heinrich had an older brother, Gebhard Ludwig Himmler, and a younger brother, Ernst Hermann Himmler. Heinrich was named after his godparent, Prince Heinrich of Wittelsbach of the royal family of Bavaria, who was tutored by Gebhard Himmler. Educated at secondary school in Landshut, Himmler served as an officer cadet in the 11th Bavarian Regiment at the end of WW1, although he saw no active service. After working briefly as a salesman for a fertilizer manufacturing firm, Heinrich Himmler joined the Nazi party and in the November of 1923 participated in the Beer-Hall Putsch as a standard bearer at the side of Ernst Rohm. All of these roles combined together were a major reason for Heinrich Himmler being chosen for the jobs he received later in his militaristic life. It is surprising, that Heinrich Himmler, the chief of the SS and the primary architect of the Holocaust, has not attracted the attentions of more biographers. For all that he had taken part in for the history of the Third Reich, he appears to lack the “infamous charisma” of Heydrich or Hitler, and because of this lack of “infamous charisma” he has been presented only rarely as a primary subject for a book about the holocaust and the

We all have secrets in our life. Everyone is entitled to having personal secrets to a certain extent. Some things are very important to us and therefore we all have to keep our secrets stored in our personal mental diaries. Lots of secrets are pure fantasy we should all be allowed to have. Sometimes, people keep secrets because they are scared to hurt others or relationships with others. There are millions of reasons why we keep secrets.

Friendship is a basic human need, especially for nine year old boys living their childhood. For Bruno who is lonely, bored out of his mind and could not find friends his age to play with and Shmuel a Jewish boy entrapped in a brutal concentration camp, their friendship is one of the only things that can spark a little happiness and lighten up their spirit. The boys meet in the least possible place – the periphery of Auschwitz concentration camp, where one is imprisoned and the other is the son of the Nazi commandant in charge. Although they are meant to see each other as enemies as a Jew and Nazi, there is no hatred between Bruno and Shmuel. They simply see each other as another kid to talk to out of the loneliness of Auschwitz. As the book

You may believe in one thing and get yourself so caught up in believing that it is true, that you don't even realize that it is not. In the book, Maxi’s Secrets, by Lynn Plourde, Maxi dies, at age 2 because of bone cancer. Abby, a supporting character who is blind, is always there for Timminy even if she may seem distant. The lunch room was crowded with kids on the first day of school. New kids trying to fit in, just like I was last year, The cafeteria ladies rushing around because they are so not used to the demand in pizza with fake cheese melted in, and lastly, my best friend Abby, walking in front of me with a crowd of kids as usual, surrounding her.

The narrator and Henri are inmates Auschwitz who have the task of unloading rail cars filled with people and all of their belongings. As we relive the experiences, we will compare and contrast each of their perceptions as these events unfold.