Sequence Seven, Assignment 1

Hey Guys, Im just putting some notes out here regarding this essay. I'll tighten it up and hand them out in class next week, as well as bring my essay. Any comments are appreciated.

Our Secret, by Susan Griffin

The reason this essay is notable is because:

• She is using an experimental style.
• She does not start the essay with a thesis, and work her way through providing examples to support it.

"To tell a story, or to hear a story told, is not a simple transmission of
information." (p.339)

She is telling us that stories are complicated...both in the telling and hearing.

She uses a complicated style in this essay, that manages to flow well, in order to connect seemingly unrelated topics.

She does make specific arguments, and tells us her purpose throughout the essay. Although there seem to be many different things going on, we can see what she is trying to do...she sort of takes us on the journey with her.

• "I have come to believe that every life bears in some way on every other." (p332)
• "...is one ever really free of the fate of others? I was born in 1943, in the midst of this war. And I sense now that my life is still bound up with the lives of those wyo lived and died in this time." (p. 314)
• "....hoping to find a door into the mind of this man, even as his character first forms so that I might learn how it is he becomes himself." (p. 315)
• "...she traces the origins of this violence to childhood. of course there cannot be one answer to such a monumental riddle, nor does any event in history have a single cause. Rather a field exists...Each life is influenced and it in turn becomes an influence...Childhood experience is just one element in the determining field." (317)
• "What then occurs if the soul in its small beginnings is forced to take on a secret life?...He harbors his secrets in fear and guilt, confessing them to no one until in time the voice of his father chastising him becomes his own." (319)

The main theme seems to be the interconnectedness of things. Influence. In regards to Himmler, asking what influenced him, and in turn, how did he influence. And instead of just writing about it, she actually crafts or pieces together topics that seem unrelated, but prove her point. She doesn't specifically tell us why she is writing about cells and rockets, but allows us to think about it and try and make some sort of connection. She doesn't spell out what she is doing.