Death can be understood as the moment when your body stops and you pass away to the afterlife. However, metaphorically speaking, death can cover many ideas such as the death of innocence, the failure of relationships and the loss of communication. In Winton's book Scission, there are stories which involve the pain and suffering of growing old, which ultimately leads to the death of people; there are also stories that address marriage breakdown, muddled relationships and vocabulary problems. Winton, through the use of powerful symbols and evocative metaphors, shows us how terrifying and daunting the reality of death and its destruction can be to the individual and the individual's family.
             A marriage breakdown can sometimes cause a death of innocence in its wake. In "Secrets" there is a family breakdown and Kylie is the person from the story who suffers as a result. Kylie feels excluded and confused because of this breakdown and her mother's sexual obsession with her new boyfriend, which she does not understand. Kylie passes hours of her time by staring at her photo albums where she sees herself as "ugly and short." In her sad and miserable state, she thinks that the marriage breakdown is maybe her fault. Kylie feels abandoned by her mother and finds security with the hens. Her association with the hens displays her sense of being an outsider, as the adults are in their own world and cannot offer her any sense of security. Metaphorically, Kylie is really the hen, "the secret grew bigger every day" and Winton uses this metaphor to paint a picture in our mind which allows us to delve further into the story. Kylie is now starting to feel hated and angry due to her mother abandoning her and her isolation with the hens. She turns on herself, acting and thinking like an adult, "Kylie chased it (hens) and hit it with a piece of wood and dropped it down the well." This attack on the help...