"The nightmare images of the German child-rearing practices that one discovers in this book call to mind the catastrophic events of recent German history" (350). This quote, taken from Susan Griffin's Our Secret, shows us the situation Heinrich Himmler would have been brought up by. The upbringing of children in Germany at the time was very harsh according to our standards today. I find that his father had oppressed Himmler, and this may have been what caused him to have his sick and twisted views as a grown-up. Similarly, their peers also oppressed males in The Chrysanthemums and Trifles.
             In Griffin's tale, she gives us the account of how Heinrich Himmler had been responsible for the deaths of some six million Jews. If an order had been given to kill a Jew during the Holocaust, he in some way affected it. For a man to be able to cause such suffering upon another human being would have to be tormented in some form in his life. While his own suffering may have been unbearable for him, the amount of suffering and oppression that he had put on millions of others must have tortured him as well. Although most would think that he might have actually enjoyed the amount of suffering that he put on these people, he could never actually find himself watching the orders he gave out. He would in a sense hide behind the mask of his power while he let some petty officers do the dirty work. This shows that maybe deep down he didn't want to have his orders carried out. As a child, his father was very overbearing. He had been very abusive by today's standards, and this may have given Heinrich a sense of fear from authority. Maybe he was afraid of the repercussions of his actions from higher ups if he was unwilling to do what he was told by Hitler perhaps.
             Similarly, the males in the story Trifles were somewhat oppressed, even if they didn't know it. Throughout the entire play, they were trying to...