Core Literature
Introduction to Biblical Literature by O. B. Davis
This year we talked about multiple stories from O.B. Davis's Introduction to Biblical Literature, but none pertained more to secrecy then the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. The Tree of Knowledge contained more secrets then Eve could handle, and she was lured into eating the fruit by the serpent. God only had one rule for Adam and Eve: do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge. The secrets that the Tree held were too enticing and the unknown knowledge was much too alluring to these newly born people. As human's, we want to learn, to seek the truth. Gaining new insight, new information, we learn and can form our own opinions. But this human characteristic played into Eve's curiosity. This same interest would catch up to her. She couldn't understand why God, her creator, would want to keep this kind of life-changing wisdom to Himself. She was afraid of God, and respected Him, but between her own curiosity and the serpent luring her in with every step, she was no match for the temptation. With that one bite, she would change her perspective - and her life - forever.
The Odyssey by Homer
Odysseus, in The Odyssey, is away for twenty years, leaving behind a wife and son, who have no idea as to whether or not he is alive. Odysseus has angered the god of the sea, Poseidon, and for that he must pay and stay at sea and never return home. Back at home, Penelope - Odysseus's wife - is fighting off suitors that are trying to marry her. Even though she has no inclination if her husband is alive, she refuses to get married. It is hard for us to feel badly for Penelope, since we know all along that her husband is alive and trying (somewhat) to get home. We have to keep in mind though that she doesn't know Odysseus is dead of alive, doesn't know if the father of her child is dead or alive. She has to do without this knowledge and proceed as if he is alive. This causes many problems for her and her house. The suitors are angered because she doesn't pick one of them. So she creates the idea of the burial shroud. Everyday she weaves a bit of a burial shroud for her husband. Secretly at night she un-weaves half of it so that she can keep the charade going for another day. This secret buys her enough time for Odysseus to return and kill the suitors.
The Little Prince by Saint- Exupery
The plot of the Little Prince all starts when a pilot crash lands in the desert and meets a strange little boy. He talks about the planet that he lives on, and how he left it behind to go out and see what he could see. This little boy had gone to several planets before coming to ours. On each planet, he learns something new about himself and the way he thinks. He learns that growing up is not all it's cracked up to be. He learns that the innocence of childhood is often lost and the adults that you grow up to be are not all that great. The secret to growing up and remaining a decent individual is to keep that inquisitive mind-set. And being such a curious individual, much like Eve, he runs into many problems because of this. He takes a big risk, leaving all that he knows, and even the ones he loves, behind to set off on an adventure. However, the little boy misses his planet too much and wishes to return to it. In the end of the story, we are left wondering what happened to the little prince, seeing as it is unknown whether he has died or returned to his planet when he was bitten by the snake. This secretive ending keeps us guessing and makes us think. It also allows us to form our own opinion and continue let's us believe whatever we want to believe.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain's story revolves around the idea of secret identities. In the beginning of the story, Sir Gawain is sitting in King Arthur's palace, when a giant, green knight waltzes in and challenges him in a duel. When Sir Gawain wins, he is told to meet the green knight at a secret location by New Years. So Sir Gawain waits a reasonable amount of time before setting out to start his crazy adventure. He travels for a few weeks and comes to a palace close to what he thinks is his final destination. Upon arriving there, he meets a beautiful young woman, who tries to seduce him multiple times. But Sir Gawain is a man of his word, and a valiant, courteous knight as well. He refuses to sleep with the young maiden and sets back off on his journey. When he reaches the valley where the Green Knight lives, the truth is unveiled: Sir Gawain passed the Green Knight's test by not sleeping with his wife, the young maiden in the palace! Secrets can cause great plot twists but can really be a mess for the characters in these stories. Had Sir Gawain not been a righteous man, he may have slept with the Green Knight's wife and gotten killed for it. When missing pieces of the story is bad enough, the consequences that result from these transgressions can be brutal. We must point out that no one was ever punished for doing the right thing, whether information was kept a secret or not. In this case, by sticking to his morals, Sir Gawain was able to escape death and lived to see another day.
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
During chapter 2 in Grapes of Wrath, our main character - Tom Joad - grabs a ride from from a truck driver. The conversation that insues betweeen the two of them is full of suspicion and secrecy. Tom Joad allows the truck driver to berate him with questions and analyze him for clues about who he is and where he came from. After a long line of questioning, Tom can no longer take the suspicion and deductions the truck driver makes about him. He tells the truck driver that he is an honest man and that he is more than happy to answer his questions, that he doesn't need to guess at who Tom is. He tells him that he just spent the last four years in jail because he killed a man, he tells him his family lives on a farm. There is nothing that Tom feels the need to leave out. Tom seems to be the type of person that doesn't really keep secrets because he doesn't like the mistrust between two people that secrets can lead to. The truck driver can tell that there are no secrets being kept from him, and it almost seems as though he is a little ashamed at his assumptions of Tom. It is hard to get to know someone just by looking at what they're wearing and how they respond to certain circumstances. A person who shares everything is one that feels that secrets limit a persons interaction with the world and those that inhabit it. Tom Joad would be one of those people.
Out of School Literature
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
To listen to a rave review of the book, as well as its connection to secrecy, listen to the clip of Mrs. DeAngelo below.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a complex and twisted mystery. The interplay of characters is interesting and complicated, with each character having their own secrets, which play into the larger mystery. At its basic level, it is a book about an investigative journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, who is hired to find out what happened to girl who vanished almost 50 years before. The girl's uncle has never been able to let go of his search to uncover the truth to her disappearance, though it seems impossible that the case could be solved. Now, Mikael is uncovering new evidence and hidden meanings that make the discovery of her killer a possibility. However, not everyone wants this mystery to be uncovered, including some of the girl's family. Playing throughout the book are the themes of secret identity, hidden messages, keeping things secret from the law, and family secrets. One side story of the novel raises the issue of sharing the secret of abuse. When abuse occurs, sexual or domestic, it is often very difficult for victims to come forward and admit what has been done to them. One statistic in the book reads "92% of women in Sweden who have been subjected to sexual assault have not reported the most recent violent incident to the police." (The book was written by a Swedish author and takes place in Sweden, in case you were wondering why the statistic mentions Sweden.) This shows just how challenging it can be to share a secret, especially one you are ashamed of. The adventure and plot twists of the novel also show how entertaining secrets are to us, as readers.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Kathryn Stockett's The Help takes place in Jackson, Mississippi during the civil rights movement. It is written from the perspective of three main characters: Minny, Skeeter, and Aibileen. Minny is a strong, independent African American. She works as a maid, but has a tendency to get fired because she talks back to her employers. She has five kids at home she has to feed and a husband who beats her in between shifts at his job at the factory. Skeeter is a white woman, living on a cotton plantation with her mother and father. Her mother is slowly getting ill, but that doesn't stop her from telling Skeeter what to do, what to wear, how to act, and her constant nagging about Skeeter's lack of a husband. Aibileen is another African American woman, a friend of Minny's, who is said to be connected to God. She writes her prayers out, and tends to a white family. She loves the children she looks after and slowly tries to break them from the mold of thinking that colored people are inferior to white people - a dangerous thing to do while Miss Hilly is around. Miss Hilly is the boss in town, and anything she says goes. People are actually afraid of her and her power seems endless. Skeeter is tired of the way things are, as are Minny and Aibileen. Aibileen starts to hold these secret meetings with Skeeter in her home. Together, they conduct interviews and stories from twelve maids about what it's like to work for a white family in the south. There are horrible stories, but there are some good ones, where the white women treat the black as equals. At the end of the interviews, they created a book that could have horrific consequence, but could also change the narrow-minded ideas of the southern ladies. The secrets in this book are much to important to not have it published, but the outcome had unknown results. These secret stories could completely unravel this town, proving what a powerful impact secrets have on people.
In Code: A Mathematical Journey by Sarah Flannery
This book is the autobiographical story of Sarah Flannery, an Irish teenager who won Ireland's Young Scientist award for her extraordinary research in Internet cryptography. Her discoveries earned her the title European Young Scientist of the Year at just sixteen. She explains how she went from an ordinary schoolgirl solving math puzzles to an extraordinary mathematician. Her discoveries showed how much coding and cryptology are valued in our society today and how much we rely on them. Her research into Internet cryptology shows how elemental it is to our everyday lives and just how little we know about them. With the advent of computers, codes have become more popular and more complicated. She explains her research in simple "laymans" terms, so that anyone can understand. Her discoveries are truly fascinating, as is the story of her personal journey to find them. To learn about some of the math behind cryptology on our site, click here.
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
Throughout the Harry Potter series, secrets have been a major aspect in the story as a whole. Hogwarts itself is one big secret: the existence, the location, and the magic it holds. Muggles - or regular humans with no magical powers - have no idea that Hogwarts exists or that there are even wizards and witches out there. The only time that a Muggle learns of Hogwarts is if their child is accepted into the school. The spells are unknown to the students, as is the power they contain. One of the Harry Potter books in particular pertains to secrecy: The Chamber of Secrets. In this book, someone has unleashed a beast to kill the Muggle - born wizards of Hogwarts. The identity of this person remains a mystery until the very end, as does the location of the Chamber of Secrets. Also in the series the villian, Voldemort (aka: He - Who - Must - Not - Be - Named), has cut up his soul and hidden the pieces within several objects. In order to kill Voldemort, they must destroy the objects, but how to destroy these objects remains a mystery. These secrets are always challenging Harry and his friends, but they always seem to find a way around these unknown facts and rise to the occasion.
The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, and The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Dan Brown’s trilogy, following Robert Langdon’s twisted and tumultuous secret unearthing escapades, have become international best sellers. The books are filled with secrecy in all forms. There are a multitude of secret societies and hidden codes, as well as secrets in archietecture and religion. Robert Langdon, the book's main character, is a Harvard professor of codes. In the first book, Angels & Demons, Langdon is called to Rome to uncover the secrets of the Vatican. While the books do include many facts and history, they are also filled with adventure. He discoveres a secret coded message from an ancient secret society, the Illuminati, that leads him to uncover an even greater mystery. In The DaVinci Code, Langdon is in Paris, following a trail beginning with the death of the curator at the Lourve. This books includes the Opus Dei secret society as well as various codes and clues to uncovering the mystery. The third book, The Lost Symbol, takes places right here in the U.S.A., in Washington D.C. The history in this one is much more recent, but still intriguing, perhaps more so. Langdon uncovers secrets of the U.S.'s past as well as many secrets in architecture. The book uncovers links between our founding fathers and the secret society of the Freemasons. This book is defiently recommended to anyone who likes thrillers and adventure! To see Dan Brown's website, which has an awesome array of info on secret codes, as well as really cool games, click here.
Sources
- Sooke, Alastair. "New Statesman - The Knight's Tale." New Statesman - Britain's Current Affairs & Politics Magazine. Web. 28 Apr. 2011.
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Photograph. ResourcesForLife. Proudly Powered by WordPress. Web. 15 May 2011. <http://www.resourcesforlife.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/20100316we-the-immortal-life-of-henrietta-lacks-by-rebecca-skloot.jpg>.
- "Books by Flannery." Angus & Robertson. Web. 28 Apr. 2011. <http://www.angusrobertson.com.au/by/flannery/>.
- "Harry Potter Layouts." Cure Writer's Block with Writing Prompts - Writing Tips Character Name Generator. Web. 28 Apr. 2011. <http://languageisavirus.com/harry-potter/layouts/?q=harry-potter>.
- Wilkov, Jennifer S. "Nicholas Sparks." Book Consultant - Your Book Is Your Hook - Book Consultant ~ Your Book Is Your Hook! Web. 28 Apr. 2011. <http://www.yourbookisyourhook.com/tag/nicholas-sparks/>.
- "10. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck — Rachael Reads." Rachael Reads — (and Writes.). Web. 10 May 2011. <http://www.rachaelreads.com/10-the-grapes-of-wrath-by-john-steinbeck/>.
- "'Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' Getting U.S. Remake." The Moviefone Blog. Web. 10 May 2011. <http://blog.moviefone.com/2009/12/16/girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-us-remake/>.
