Dangerous Secrets Exposed in Susan Griffins Our Secret Essay -- Susan

Dangerous Secrets Exposed in Griffin's Our Secret    Secrets are apart of every human being. Even children, in their earliest years in this world, learn how to bury secrets in their hearts. In Susan Griffin's "Our Secret," she explores the subconscious, aiming particularly at the dark secrets that lie in the abyss of the human heart. Griffin claims that the darkest secrets of each person are similar in the sense that these secrets are perverted and prejudiced thoughts. These concealed evils are so deeply imbedded that people forget or choose to forget the existence of these malicious thoughts. However, these are often the thoughts that will encourage a person to take to violence. 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. Even the way of countering the negative effects caused by these locked up secrets are common among the "family" and the "statesman and bombers." 1 Although each person has an element of individuality, people are not all that different from one another in their basic desires. Everyone is a product of the "DNA molecule," and everyone has been a "fertilized egg" (Our Secret 363, 365). There are numerous traits shared by everyone, and one of which is people's capacity to have and hide their perverted thoughts. Everyone is capable of having depraved thoughts, and these thoughts are not so different from one person to another. Griffin's grandfather keeps "a stack of magazines" of "women or girls uncovered in ditches, hacked to pieces or other wise mutilated" that he does not allow Griffin to look at (335). These magazines indicate that Gr... ...o realized too late. Like Griffin says, "family secrets mingle with the secrets of statesman and bomber" in the sense that the secrets may vary among individuals in context, but many different secrets share the same effect on people. These secrets and desires that people keep inside are dangerous sources of violence and malice, and there is virtually no way to be rid of these hidden evils. People may often be provoked to hurt, and these are the times when people need to look into their anger and see the pain that they can cause by releasing their rage physically. This is perhaps the only way to stop violence in a person, whether he is just a simple man, the president, or an emperor. Works Cited: Griffin, Susan. â€Å"Our Secret†. Ways of Reading Eds. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. Sixth edition. Boston. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002.

Black People and Story Essay

What is the relevance of the title in Toni Morrison’s â€Å"Recitatif? † â€Å"Recitatif† is a short story written by Toni Morrison and first published in the anthropology â€Å"Confirmation: An Anthropology of American Women† in 1983. The author creates a pioneering story about the lives of two young girls, Roberta and Twyla, living in an orphanage during a period of racial inequality. Both girls had been taken away from their mothers, one for illness and one for indiscretion. What makes this story unique is that, while the characters are clearly separated by class, neither is affirmed as African American or Caucasian. In order to address the essential social issue of that time, Toni Morrison presents five sections that span many years; the author provides a clear insight of inequality between white and black people. Moreover, with the publication of â€Å"Recitatif†, â€Å"Morrison raised issues engaging middle-class black women whose education and personal achievements create tensions within and outside of the black community† (Fultz). A considerable aspect of this story is the title of the work. â€Å"RecitÐ °tif† is a derivation of the word â€Å"recitative† which may be defined as a spoken singing style used in opera and oratories. A now-obsolete meaning is the rhythm peculiar to any language; furthermore, this word uses the root â€Å"recite† which also has special meaning. To recite, or to tell from memory, exemplifies that the story written by Toni Morrison was from a series of memories. Both of these definitions suggest the episodic nature of this story (Kusumoto). The plot is the key to understanding the meaning of the title. There are five encounters that show what occurs when two people have contradictory memories about the same event. For example, when Twyla realizes that she and Roberta have completely different memories of a significant event, she asks, â€Å"I wouldn’t forget a thing like that. Would I? † (Bakara & Bakara). Such uncertainty highlights to the main theme of the story. This instability of memory is expressed through narrative collage – â€Å"Recitatif† brings together the rhythms of 2 different lives for 5 short moments that are narrated by Twyla’s voice. The story is, then, in several ways, Twyla’s â€Å"rÐ µcitatif. † The title of the story accurately conveys some changes in actual voice throughout the text; for example, when Twyla is a younger, it is obvious that the author â€Å"speaks† in a child’s voice. In some cases, it seems that this girl is too thoughtful to be the little child, but the author conveys her voice in such a way that there is no doubt that she is. The sing song voice applies to the narrator as well as to the nature of other characters in the story. Radical changes are visible during Roberta’s and Twyla’s meetings; moreover, the sing song nature of race is also a part of the character’s makeup. Each of them shows clues that may be interpreted as rÐ µpresenting a black or white race. That is why readers try to compare the various aspects of the story in order to identify the race it characterizes. This story develops like acts in an opera, presenting its characters at different points in life. Here is an interesting fact: the voice of the narrator grows with its character much as children grow throughout their life. The title describes Morrison’s prose narrative and provides that the use of â€Å"gaps† is an integral part of this story. They are left out purposely by the author so they can be filled in by readers. In the first lines of the story it may seems that â€Å"Recitatif† tells a simple story about the interactions of two girls. Toni Morrison divided this short story into five encounters which describe the ongoing narrative events from the lives of these two women. These interludes imitate the spoken singing style and narrative of the Morrison story implied by its title. The term â€Å"gaps† is suitable for this story because each encounter is separated by long periods of time that leave the reader guessing; as an example, Roberta’s reference to Jimi Hendrix at the meeting in the HÐ ¾ward JÐ ¾hnsons. Before the reference, readers are certainly unsure of the time period of this meeting, but with the mention of this famous pop star, everyone can fill in the gap and realize this part of the story takes place in the 1960s. In conclusion, it can be said that the title of Toni Morrison’s story plays an essential role in the story. It accurately conveys the style of writing and the use of different techniques throughout the story. Works cited: Bakara, Imamu Amiri, and Amina Bakara. Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women. 1st ed. Morrow, 1983. Print. Fultz, Lucille P. Toni Morrison: Playing With Difference. University of Illinois Press, 2003. Print. Kusumoto, Jitsuko. â€Å"Memories of the Daughters from â€Å"Recitatif† to Beloved. â€Å". 21-24, 2008. Web. 26 Feb 2013. .

Photographs Capture Time And Create Meaning - 916 Words

Photographs capture time and create meaning. Mark Klett’s â€Å"Under the Dark Cloth†, is a simple, yet compelling piece of art which captures his experience in Monument Valley, Arizona on May 27th, 1989. The perspective of the photograph is strategic in allowing the viewers to see from Klett’s point of view. This angle places the viewer in the first person, connecting them directly to the image. Images of landscapes are often engrossing, Klett’s piece does this on two planes. In the text, Visual Methodologies, author, Gillian Rose uses semiotics as a way to make sense of an image. She defines semiotics as the study of signs and their use or interpretation, or, â€Å"how images make meaning† (pg. 75). Under close inspection of Mark Klett’s â€Å"Under†¦show more content†¦Another question could be looked at through the lens of â€Å"positional communication†. â€Å"Who is positioned as superior and who inferior?† (pg. 82). The photographer makes the audience feel as if they are a part of the image, giving the audience a connection to the subject of the photograph. This allows power within the image to be equally distributed and shared between human and nature. The objects within the image, such as the watch, camera, and dark cloth connote time, preservation, and reflection. Klett’s use of signs give his photo the purpose it needs to remain captivating. Within Klett’s photo, icons, indexes, and symbols are all presented. The icon most prevalent in the image is the upside down image of Monument Valley. This iconic image represents that specific rock structure in the valley. This image is also a synecdochal sign, it is a part of this rocky range, representing the national park as a whole. The two indexes that stand out immediately are the camera and the dark cloth. When you see a camera- you immediately think of documentation or memories. When we think of something under the dark cloth or in a dark space we think of referees reviewing a play or the process of developing a photograph. When someone is under the dark cloth, it is a personal, capturing moment. This sign is a moment of silence and critical reflection. The symbols which are presented in the photograph include the camera, watch, and the style of the photograph.Show MoreRelatedAnalysis Of The Cave Wall 896 Words   |  4 Pagescave wall paintings have shown us that even early man have wanted to create an identity through art, even though we don not have knowledge of the individual(s) identity, we know of their existence. Throughout humanity the image can be viewed as a conceptual idea, the actual capturing an image, making this object has only been around for 170 years, however are brains have the ability to capture images, not only that it can capture images and renders them into dreams. 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