The Effects of a Secret

     As we finished reading The Scarlet Letter this week in class, I've been really thinking about secrets and their effects. What I've concluded through what we've discussed in class, including the PostSecret blog and connections to The Scarlet Letter, and what I've thought about on my own time, is that secrets are not meant to be held in.
     In the novel, we see the effects of secrets in Dimmesdale's character. As the whole community knows about Hester's adultery, no one knows that Dimmesdale is the one who she committed it with. It is obvious why Dimmesdale wants to keep his sin a secret; he is the minister and would be the last person anyone in the community would expect to commit this sin. Although keeping this secret upholds his respectable position, it really doesn't do him any good because his whole inside is being eaten up by guilt, shame, and weakness. Just because Dimmesdale decided to keep his secret in, he has created a mental downfall for himself.
     As I was thinking about secrets, I remembered an old Disney channel movie called Little Secrets. This movie is about a girl named Emily who is a "secret-keeper" and charges neighborhood kids 50 cents to relieve themselves of a secret they've been keeping. All the kids are fine because they aren't holding their secrets in, but Emily doesn't have anyone to tell her deepest secrets to. She eventually breaks down and her dreams are almost crushed. This is just another example of how secrets shouldn't be held in. In class, we discussed the PostSecret blog, where people can send in post cards with their secrets on them. The man who created this is amazing because what he has done has saved millions of people from experiencing their inner downfall and from holding in their pain any longer. Keeping a secret might seem like the right thing to do, but, in the end, all it will do is cause inner pain and most likely create a mental and, in Dimmesdale's case, also a physical downfall.

The trailer for Little Secrets: