The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Berry, Essay Example

No oppression is as heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the pervasion and exorbitance of the law and majority over the minority. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It is never did and it never will. Find out just why any people will quietly submit and you have found out the exact measures of injustices and wrong which will be imposed upon them, this will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows or both. The limits of the tyrants are prescribed by those they oppress. Berry novel “The secret scripture put” seems to support this idea. People experience different forms of oppression which is meted upon by those in the authority. Poverty and oppression seem to go hand in hand in barriers writing.

Roseanne’s background reveals that she was a victim of circumstances.  She was born between the Catholics of north Ireland whom as the author illustrates see protestant as half humans. The people of Sligo are severely oppressed and she say, “Always the deluge of falling rain on Sligo, falling on the streets big and little, making the houses shiver and huddle like people at a football match. Falling fantastically in enormous amounts, the contents of a hundred rivers. And the river itself the Garravoge, swelling up, beautiful swans taken by surprise, riding the torrent, being swept away down under the bridge and reappearing on the other sided like successful  suicides, their mysterious eyes shocked and black, their mysterious grace un assailed. How savage swans are even in their beauty.” (Berry, 125) Berry is illustrating how overwhelming oppression and injustices descend upon it victims like the rain descend on earth from the heaven. People are made to tremble with awe under the mighty of the oppressors and when they are totally subdued with they are transformed just like the swans are transformed when they are swept under the bridge. The people willingly or unwillingly go along with the oppression and somehow manage to keep it as part of their life.

In the novel Berry present his main character as a socially oppressed lady.  The oppression mated upon this lady and her fellow protestant feel lonely and isolated. She fells that the people of Sligo have allowed oppression to ruler them.  For instance Roseanne who is the main narrator states that; “Sligo made me and Sligo undid me, but then I should have given up much sooner than I did being made or undone by human towns, and looked myself alone. The terror and hurt in my story happened because when I was young I though others were authors of my fortune or misfortune; I did not know that a person could hold up a wall made of imaginary bricks and mortar against the horrors and cruel, dark trick of time that assail us and be the author therefore of themselves”.(Berry, 3-4). As such the narrator states that it only the oppressed that can rise against the oppression and deliberate themselves. Roseanne decided to ignore what was going on around her and go on with her business. She ends up being locked in a mental institution because people believe that she has gone insane. However, she finds refuge in the mental institution where she is kept away from the injustices taking place in her society.

Religion politics is used as a means of discriminating and oppressing people. Roseanne becomes grate traumatized when she marries a catholic and refuses to convert from Protestantism despite Fr. Guant’s invitation to join catholic- the real religion and help to fight Protestantism.. Most of the protagonists suffer due to religion biases. The author has daringly tackled this problem in the society that not so many people have dared to tackle (this being one of them). Roseanne has an uphill challenge facing her life that naturally awes her. Her tragedies have worn her giving her breakdown that makes her a resident of the hospital. Father Guant takes full advantage of the –powers that were vested within the Catholic Church during the Ireland’s early 20^th century political turmoil. When her father dies Fr. Guant approaches her, “remember, Roseanne, your grief is two years long. You will not make a good thought for along time. Be advised by me, let me advice you in loco parentis, do you see, in place of your father in this, a priest ought.” The Catholic Church had the power to have it views respected in the political arena and private view of the Irish people. This makes her recount her marriage years McNulty, a Catholic.  Terrible things happened when Roseanne refuses to convert to catholic after being married to one of them. Her father puts up a spirited struggle to frustrate the marriage and succeeds in having it nullified by the head of the Catholic Church. The perspective of the church is brought to light on its view on the day to day choices that followers have to undergo to fulfill its requirements. Clearly, Berry illustrates how the church or religion is used as a source or means of oppression. Most of the problems experienced by the protagonist have a direct or indirect origin form the church. Roseanne fined it difficult to brake away from her circumstances. Women are also oppressed for instance married women are not allowed to work and therefore can not have money of their own. Women are no a given chance to express themselves they are downtrodden and will do as required of them. But just like her father, Roseanne has the ability to rise above disaster. For instance her fathers says, “and a man who can make himself merry in the face of those coming disasters that assailed him, as disasters do so many, without grace or favor , is a true hero.” (Berry, 67)

By using use Roseanne as an old person helps Berry to cover many happens that take place in the Irish 20^th century history as she reflects on her memory. This presents conflicts which hold the central part of the novel and social oppression, limits that are imposed upon women and the factors that lead to Roseanne’s tragedy of waste. Various images criss-cross the narratives past and present, more so on the institutions which handle the disadvantaged such as the poor, orphans and the mad. The discrepancies that exist in Roseanne’s memories as well as part of the tension in the novel is one of the factors useful in separating truth from fantasy or what is real or false. For instance Roseanne says, “For history as I can see is not the arrangement of what happens, in sequence and in truth, but a fabulous arrangement of surmises and guesses held up, as a banner against assault of the withering truth.” (Berry, 55).

Clearly, Barry has managed to reveal the oppression that takes place in the society. The oppression is normally based on human differences such as religious ideologies. The protagonists surfer due to their religious affiliation and position in the society. However, many devise means of escaping the suffering for instance Roseanne is locked in a mental institution in loneness to avoid the injustices, proving that oppression only recurs if the victim does nothing about it.

Work cited

Berry, Sebastian. The Secret Scripture. New York: Viking Adult. 2008.