A Critical Analysis Of 'Our Secrets' By Susan Griffin

There are so many different texts that are out there. “Our Secrets” by Susan Griffin is a transcultural text. A contact zone is the space in which transculturation takes place. Mary Pratt defines “Transculturation as a process whereby members of subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted by a dominant metropolitan culture” (323). Pratt uses “transcultural” to describe the dominant groups or cultures because there are so many groups and cultures that are dominant in this world. Pratt says that we are a community that is “strongly utopian.” But for Griffin, that is not the case. People lived in fear. There would not have been a war if we all were a community. And many people’s lives would not have been lost if …show more content…
Horrible things that we do not want our children to know. Her essay is interwoven in a way that is based on the holocaust where millions of Jews and homosexuals were killed; women, men and children. Griffin believes that people share similar forms of hidden desires, biases, and savageness. The effects of keeping these evil human characteristics deeply buried also have similar effects on the different individuals. Heinrich Himmler who grew up to command Nazi and became the key architect of Jewish genocide. Both the families of Himmler and Griffin we unhappy families. They lived in a controlled household where the parents were so strict about everything. For example, in Himmler’s family, his father controlled everything. He choose the friends that Himmler spent time with, Himmler was forced to tell secretes of his friends to his father, and also he thought him how to be a man. Griffin states that, “The weight of that hand would not be comforting. It will be a warning” (237). Himmler’s father was no joke. Ten years old and your childhood is over. There was no disrespect in his house. A man is not supposed to cry. That very person, turned his son into a monster. I think that he made his son not to have a sense of belonging. I bet that everything that Himmler did was to impress his father at least to acknowledge the things he has done. For example when he was twenty-five years old, he was hired by …show more content…
She first starts by describing Himmler’s life as he was struggling as a boy. How boys are supposed to be masculine, but he was not. His brother stronger than him because he was sick from an illness that weakened him. Griffin’s states that, “As an infant, stricken by influenza, he came close to perishing and his body still retains the mark of illness” (243). It was difficult for him to grow as a young boy. When he got older, he was not even able to provide for his family. As he was working his way to earn respect, his got sick again, so he had to go home again. All his hard work went to waste in that case, he had to start all over again. He exercised and practiced for three years; he was able to lift the required weights and run the required labs, but he failed throwing the discus. He failed to earn the Reich’s sports badge. Griffin’s family was similar to Himmler’s family. There is always someone in the family who dominant. They have more power than anyone else. Whatever they ask you to do, you do it; no questions asked. A reflection of Himmler’s diaries shows that he was sent to her grandmother at age eight which reminded Griffin of her life in her grandmother’s house. She talks about her relationship with her family and how the family’s secrets, developed further into a divorce. Griffin states that, “We were not comfortable with ourselves as a family. There was a