Theme Essay - the Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

1070 Words5 Pages
The book written by Kim Edwards, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter’s, has many mentions of secrets and how it affects people’s lives. It shows that keeping secrets for one’s selfish motives will negatively impact others. One of these negative impacts includes pain towards others. Loss will also be a consequence of keeping secrets based on one’s selfish intent. People will also be angry once they find out the secrets that have been kept for one’s incentive. Pain will be one of the repercussions of the secrets kept hidden based on one’s impulse. One example was when Caroline was debating whether or not to send David a picture of Phoebe on the day of celebrating her confirmation. While she’s pondering what to do, she starts to think about how he may hurt her the same way he hurt Caroline, “without even knowing it happened” (234). Caroline, as far away as she may be from Norah and David, did suffer because of David’s secret. It pains her to keep the truth from Norah, knowing how much the whole ordeal has damaged her. However, the thought of having Phoebe taken away from her pains her just as much, if not more. This secret she hides from Norah for her own, selfish reason hurts Norah as well as herself. Her intentions may be pure as she wants the best for Phoebe, but it doesn’t deny the fact that she’s also doing that for her own self preservation. Secrets that are kept for one’s own, selfish intention cause pain to other, no matter who they are. A different time secrets caused pain to others was when David comes back after days of being away with a pregnant girl named Rosemary. When Paul’s trying to convince his mother to let him stay home from school he describes her as talking calmly and with red eyes from crying (276). Norah is obviously hurt that David has come back with a pregnant girl as she assumes that Rosemary’s pregnant with David’s child. David refuses to clear

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