Our Secret
Duha Salamah
Professor Aquino
English 1A
1 March 2015 In Susan Griffin’s essay “Our Secret”, she examines her life and the lives of others and their correlation to the Holocaust. The essay’s structure is interesting as there are italicized sentences placed seemingly randomly between several paragraphs. Further reading into the essay will reveal that these italicized sentences are used to describe the growth of a missile and a cell. Griffin uses both of these objects to describe different fates that people are subjected to. The paragraphs that sandwich the italicized sentences coincide with the stories Griffin tells. The structure Griffin uses helps to progress all aspects of the essay, whether they are scientific or historical, in an organized manner.
The patterns throughout the rest of the essay vary a bit from the beginning. The italicized sentences describing the missile and cell begin to lessen as the story progresses and are missing for a large portion of the essay. While the italics are absent, the essay continues to tell the stories of Heinrich Himmler and Leo and their drastically different experiences through the Holocaust. The missile and cell development are brought back and are specifically compared to Himmler and Leo and their fates. The missile is compared to Heinrich Himmler, a man who grew up in a cruel environment, driven by his domineering father. As Himmler struggles through his harsh childhood, he later gains control of the production of rockets for the third Reich. This is similar to a missile, which is built in a precise way making it more efficient, meaning it is more and more destructive. The cell, on the other hand, represents a different type of fate and is compared to Leo, a Russian refugee, who struggled to keep his family alive and well. Leo, like Himmler, was brought up in a harsh environment with an intrusive father. Griffin describes the development of a child. Many cells are joined to create a child, much like many ideas are
Professor Aquino
English 1A
1 March 2015 In Susan Griffin’s essay “Our Secret”, she examines her life and the lives of others and their correlation to the Holocaust. The essay’s structure is interesting as there are italicized sentences placed seemingly randomly between several paragraphs. Further reading into the essay will reveal that these italicized sentences are used to describe the growth of a missile and a cell. Griffin uses both of these objects to describe different fates that people are subjected to. The paragraphs that sandwich the italicized sentences coincide with the stories Griffin tells. The structure Griffin uses helps to progress all aspects of the essay, whether they are scientific or historical, in an organized manner.
The patterns throughout the rest of the essay vary a bit from the beginning. The italicized sentences describing the missile and cell begin to lessen as the story progresses and are missing for a large portion of the essay. While the italics are absent, the essay continues to tell the stories of Heinrich Himmler and Leo and their drastically different experiences through the Holocaust. The missile and cell development are brought back and are specifically compared to Himmler and Leo and their fates. The missile is compared to Heinrich Himmler, a man who grew up in a cruel environment, driven by his domineering father. As Himmler struggles through his harsh childhood, he later gains control of the production of rockets for the third Reich. This is similar to a missile, which is built in a precise way making it more efficient, meaning it is more and more destructive. The cell, on the other hand, represents a different type of fate and is compared to Leo, a Russian refugee, who struggled to keep his family alive and well. Leo, like Himmler, was brought up in a harsh environment with an intrusive father. Griffin describes the development of a child. Many cells are joined to create a child, much like many ideas are