Secrets
Examine the significance of the title. How does the author use thematic concerns to project it?
“Secrets” is a short story written by prolific author Bernard McaLaverty which deals with convoluted themes such as pain, death and betrayal which portray the dullness and tenebrosity of the plot. The title itself contributes much to the various thematic concerns dealt in the story and McLaverty makes use of various literary devices such as analepsis and the like to make the story an invigorating one.
The title signifies the onerous theme of confidentiality and the serious effect it causes. The anonymous protagonist of the story, the young boy, finds himself guilty ,lying beside his aunt’s death bed, for he had in his mind an incident from the past, that forever remained etched in both their memories. McLaverty makes exceptional use of retrospection through the character of the young man to string together ideas that bring about the evolution of the plot. The story transits from the present to an unrecorded time in the past. The third person incognito narrator unfolds before the readers an incident that made the aunt hate her nephew for the rest of her life. The title itself characterises the fact that the aunt’s secret had been let out. The story of her lover and romantic pastimes of her youth werere initially hidden from both the characters and the readers. The aunt is depicted to be quite reserved and manages to keep her “secrets” with herself”. The line”Your aunt kept herself very much to herself “ clearly reinstates this. This however changes as she makes the mistake of telling the young boy not to look at her letters when he accidentally saw them on some other pretext. This let the seed of curiosity creep into the mind of the boy and he was determined to see what was hidden.
prepIGCSE 