Political Criticism In Susan Griffin's Our Secret

1. Orwell himself is the one who coined the term of political purpose, and because of this, he seems to be the best person to compare other writers to when discussing political purpose. Orwell defined political purpose as, “Desire to push the world in a certain direction,” and he writes, “…no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude” (3). Orwell, therefore, believes that art is ultimately political in purpose whether that was the intention or not. He believes that no work can be “free from political bias.” He seems to be of the opinion that art must have political purpose or else it will be “lifeless,” much like his earlier writing. Alternately,

Susan Griffin’s “Our Secret” perfectly demonstrates the ideas that Barbara Kingsolver introduces in “Jabberwocky,” leaving little doubt that Kingsolver would approve of Griffin’s essay. In “Jabberwocky,” Kingsolver states, “The artist’s maverick responsibility is sometimes to sugarcoat the bitter pill and slip it down our gullet, telling us what we didn’t think we wanted to know” (228). What she means is that an artist is sometimes obligated to break news to their audience in a manner that does not upset them. Griffin does this well in “Our Secret.” She divulges information from Heinrich Himmler’s early life that the majority of readers did not feel that they needed to know, but she wrote the information in such a way that it was read and absorbed rather easily by her audience. Kingsolver would approve of such a method, as it states the facts while also being persuasive and gentle; it’s more of a bedtime story than a biography in some instances. In “Our Secret” Griffin writes, “Time can be measured in many ways. We see time as moving forward and hope that by our efforts this motion is toward improvement” (300). This is a fairly bold statement to make at the beginning of the essay, stating that the reader needs to contribute to improvement, and it is followed by an upsetting statement about the atomic bombs. Both of these parts of the essay, however, do not seem very upsetting unless one stops to analyze what is being said by Griffin. This is because Griffin was able to

Orwell states that historical impulse is the “desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.” If I were to add to this definition, I would also say that historical impulse is a need to divulge the truth. An author writes to bring forth new information, to present the readers with the facts as the writer sees them. Historical impulse is the desire to be depicted as an honest writer and for readers to take something away from whatever was written. Even fiction is based around truth in some form or another and readers definitely take away from fiction. For example, morals are a large part of fiction writing and morals could be defined as universal truths. Susan Griffin’s “Our Secret” relates well to both Orwell’s original definition of historical impulse and this expanded definition. The majority of Griffin’s essay is centered around Heinrich Himmler and his childhood. It appears that Griffin is presenting evidence as to why Himmler chose the path in life that he did. It also appears as though Griffin presents only the facts of Heinrich Himmler’s life; she does not give much of her opinion. Because of this, one might easily say that she is writing with the “desire to see things how they are.” In spite of this, however, Griffin might be looking to find something to excuse Himmler’s actions. This fits the expanded definition of Orwell’s historical impulse. Even though whatever portrait Griffin paints may be incorrect, she