Historical Perspective in the Essays of Susan Griffin,...

Historical Perspective in the Essays of Susan Griffin, Richard Rodriguez, and Ralph Ellison (Our Secret, Extravagance of Laughter, The Achievement of Desire) Susan Griffin’s â€Å"Our Secret† is an essay in which she carefully constructs and describes history, particularly World War II, through the lives of several different people. Taken from her book A Chorus of Stones, her concepts may at first be difficult to grasp; however David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky say that, â€Å"Griffin writes about the past - how we can know it, what its relation to the present, why we should care. In the way she writes, she is also making an argument about how we can know and understand the past†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Griffin strikes all of†¦show more content†¦In her personal history, she describes her life, and her childhood, which intertwines with her family history. However, she not only talks about her histories, she talks about the histories of the other characters in the essay to bring across the larger world history. One of the technique’s that Griffin uses to help the audience understand her concepts, is explaining two other story lines while telling her main story. The first one is a description of a cell. Throughout the essay, italicized sentences explaining the intricacies of a cell are placed seemingly randomly between passages. The description begins with a nucleus, and as the story progresses, so does the nucleus. Griffin tells what happens to the nucleus, and how the inner-workings of the nucleus develops into a cell, which gives rise to many cells, which will eventually become an embryo. He other story line, also italicized sentences, goes through the making and beginning of missiles. Later in the essay, Griffin explains how the one missile develops into a bigger and more effective missile. These separate story lines are placed within the story to explain that everyone has a background, and a past. The background and past are factors in developing the present and future; and certain characters in the story had a tendency to try to forget their past, not realizing that there is no escape from it. Griffin illustrates this technique most vividly with