Bennett and Royle, in their book "An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory", assert that "the relationship between literature, secrecy and secrets is fundamental1”. In the novels I have chosen, this “fundamental” dynamic is seen in their depiction of secrets as both hidden and obscure, and yet holding omnipresent power; this power is seen in their influence on the narrative structure and diegetic worlds of the text. This complete mastery of plot and discourse can be seen in Great Expectations' multiplicity of mysteries, where open and unanswered secrets intermingle and obscure each other, creating moments of explosive revelation and defining the murky and secret interiority of the protagonist of the novel. Seed. This double supremacy and predominance of secrecy is found again in Jane Eyre and Frankenstein, now under the cover of “secret spaces” within their stories; these domestic crypts, hidden from everyday life, act as a place of entrapment and empowerment in their respective figurations of repressive tombs and powerful wombs. By exploring these diverse representations of enigma and mystery, I hope to demonstrate the enduring narrative power and thematic dominance of secrecy in the texts I have chosen. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay As mentioned earlier, Great Expectations is a great example of a novel interwoven with secrets that both drive and dictate the direction of the plot. Yet the novel's greatest mystery – the identity of Pip's benefactor – is initially presented as an open secret. This oxymoron is best explained by Jacques Derrida, in his essay “Passion: An Oblique Offering,” when he states: “There is something secret. But he doesn't hide. Derrida's particular interpretation of the singular paradox of the open secret is anticipated in Great Expectations, where, despite being told that the name of his benefactor is a "deep secret", Pip immediately assures the reader that "Miss Havisham was going to make a fortune thanks to an open secret. on a large scale. By making the novel's central mystery open-ended - for, despite its "depth", it does not initially "hide" - Dickens creates an elaborate false trail; for as we know, the identity of Pip's benefactor is not Miss Havisham at all, but the criminal Magwitch. Yet, despite this complex creation of a double secret within the narrative, the identity of Pip's benefactor is still “in principle detectable”; Pip himself states that “all this would come out in due time”. This turn of phrase clearly illuminates the paradoxical nature of secrecy in the novel; its central mystery is both secret and not. Therefore, all of the riddles in the plot of Great Expectations are essentially open secrets, riddles with a solution that will be carefully revealed "in due time" to both Pip and the reader. However, beneath the surface of these "solvable" mysteries lies a darker secret that defies both clear interpretation and conclusion. This darker mystery is of course the secret of Pip's nebulous guilt, which both defines his character and manifests itself through his "deep guilt." affinity with the criminal world. In his essay "Hero's Guilt: The Case of Great Expectations," Julian Moynahan acknowledges "a certain gap" between Pip's guilt and actual wrongdoing, identifying an almost primal sense of wrongdoing buried deep within Pip's character. This innate guilt is best seen in Pip's descriptionof how his secret “grew so much within me and became a part of myself.” The verb "grew" lends a strange, organic quality to the persistent growth of Pip's affair with Magwitch in all aspects of his character, providing a psychological context for the continual repetition of the iron, the file and the convicts at all times. the stages of his journey. expectations. Therefore, Piple's sense of guilt can be attributed to what he defines as his "secret terms of conspiracy with the convicts"; This contamination by the "smell of prison and crime", combined with what Mr. Hubble defines as his "particularly wicked" nature, provides a powerful motive for Pip's attempts to conceal his secret criminality under the mask of the nobility; a nicety ironically entirely financed by his “secret terms of conspiracy” with the convict Magwitch. Another way in which the supremacy of secrecy is represented in the novels I have chosen is through the predominance of “secret spaces” in their narratives. In his essay “Derrida's Topographies,” J. Hillis Miller writes that “every secret, it seems, is hidden in a kind of crypt.” These “crypts” are defined as secret spaces which “are there and not there7”, existing in everyday domestic life but also hidden; It is in this paradoxical position that these “crypts” hold their strange power. The hidden, taboo, yet thematically dominant nature of Bertha Mason's "windowless room," and the red room hidden inside Gateshead, are evocative examples of this dynamic in Jane Eyre. The "goblin cell" buried in Thornfield's elegant country residence is the most explosive secret space in the novel. The revelation of the existence of this space brings to its thematic climax the anxiety of domestic entrapment, latent in previous representations of Lowood's "thick black bars" and "wide enclosure". It is this explicit designation of the room as "cell" and its prisoner as "goblin" that ultimately transforms Thornfield's mundane domestic life into an oppressive dungeon, with monstrous consequences for the continued female existence within it. . Much earlier in the narrative, the red room that briefly traps Jane acts as both a thematic precursor to Bertha's attic and a powerful secret space in its own right. Jane remarks that "no prison has ever been safer", and it is in this depiction of the Red Room as a hidden domestic "prison" – one that is "silent", "remote" and "rarely entered" - that she acts. like a powerful mirror of Thornfield’s secret “cell”. By acting as both a prelude and a reflection of this other secret space, the Red Room has its own powerful thematic charge; it is the foundation and genesis of the unease with domestic oppression and confinement that resonates throughout Jane's narrative. In addition to acting as compelling symbols of entrapment, the secret locations in the novels I have chosen can also function as powerful spaces of empowerment. and creation in the story. The most powerful secret space in these terms is Frankenstein's "solitary room, or rather cell", hidden in his student quarters, in which he hopes to create his "new species". This “dirty creation workshop” is explicitly feminized, with Frankenstein described as suffering from “midnight labors,” before finally giving birth to his “dirty creation”; the adjective “dirty” reinforcing the both biological and taboo character of this unnatural conception. This representation of Frankenstein's "cell" as a place of autonomous female creation anticipates the interpretation of. 270-278