Our Secret Susan Griffin Analysis

“Now that you have started reading this essay, you and I are now connected by a web of connections.” This is what Susan Griffin, author of “Our Secret”, a chapter taken from Griffin’s insightful book A Chorus of Stones, most likely would have declared. Griffin argues that, “all of us, especially all of us who read her essay - are part of a complex web of connections” (265). But how are people who do not even know each other connected? Griffin implies that people are part of a “larger matrix” and have a “common past” (265). The “common past” between people that Griffin asserts can be proved by examining the unique underlying comparisons and analogies she applies in the chapter. “Our Secret” is a collection of Griffin’s own life story and the life stories of others, including Heinrich Himmler, Heinz, a painter, a friend, Holocaust survivors, a homosexual man, and her sister. She even uses RNA and cells as analogies to indicate how even the materials that compose people have similar functions to people themselves. Although people may question how
There is no explanation as to what these terms convey, but Griffin incorporates history, biology, and her personal stories to justify that everyone is connected to each other in a special way. She uses Heinrich Himmler, homosexual people (including her sister), Holocaust survivors, a friend, a painter, and cells to support her theory. Himmler, especially, shares a “common past” with Griffin in that they were both raised in a strict environment, knew homosexual people, and did not want to assume responsibilities for the bad decisions they made. In conclusion, the different people that Griffin incorporated into “Our Secret”, either share a “common past” with Griffin or with each other. A question that one should keep in mind is if they too share a “common past” with