 Hello and welcome to a summary of what you need to know about secrets by Bernard McLaverty. I'll explain the meaning of the story as it appears in stories of ourselves, the University of Cambridge International Examination Anthology of short stories in English. I'll begin with some context about the author of the story before explaining the plot in a nutshell. I'll explain the characters that you should be aware of in the story, then I'll highlight important themes that you should consider when studying the text. Bear in mind that we have a stories of ourselves course that goes into depth on these stories so make sure you do sign up for our course. So let's get started. Now to begin with, a little bit of context around Bernard McLaverty. He was born in Belfast in 1942 and he moved to Scotland in 1979 where he lived in Edinburgh on the Isle of Ile and now in Glasgow. After leaving school he became a medical laboratory technician, later studying at Queen's University Belfast and becoming an English teacher. He has been a writer in residence at the University of Aberdeen and guest writer at the University of Augsburg at Iowa State University and for three years he was visiting writer at John Moore's University of Liverpool and he's currently visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde. Now when it comes to the story itself, secrets. So the title of the story contributes to much of the various thematic concerns dealt with in the story and his title signifies the onerous theme of secrecy and confidentiality and the serious effects it causes. The anonymous protagonist of the story, the young boy, finds himself guilty lying beside his Aunt Mary's deathbed for he had in his mind an incident from the past that forever remained etched in both of their memories. McLaverty makes exceptional use of retrospection through the character of the young man to strengthen the other ideas that bring about the evolution of the plot. The story transits from the present to an unrecorded time in the past. The third person incognito narrator unfolds before the reader's an incident that made the Aunt hate her nephew for the rest of her life. The title itself, Secrets characterises the fact that the Aunt's secret had been let out. The story of her lover and her romantic pastimes of her youth were initially hidden from both the characters and the readers. The Aunt is depicted as quite reserved and she manages to keep her secret with herself. This however changes when she makes a mistake of telling the young boy not to look at her letters when he accidentally saw them on some other pretext. This let the seed of curiosity creep into the mind of the boy as he was determined to see what she was trying to hide and one day when he's visiting her, he sneaks into her office and discovers the letters that his auntie had exchanged with the man she loved. He reads them and these letters contain the secrets that Aunt Mary hides from her family. When she discovers the boy reading her letters, she insults him and promises she will remember the violation of her trust until the day she dies. The story then flashes forward again to the time after his Aunt Mary's death, showing the boy and his mother throwing his aunt's correspondences into the fire to protect the privacy she so desired. However, the boy's mother quickly reads through the letters before throwing them into fire, violating her privacy even in her attempts to protect it. Now when it comes to understanding the characters, the first is the narrator. So he's a young and curious character and he used to be really close to his Aunt Mary. However, overcome of curiosity when he was younger, he violates his aunt's trust by looking at her letters which she wants to keep secret. This causes his aunt to get really angry at him and they become estranged as a result. He harbors intense feelings of guilt and at his aunt's deathbed, he hopes she's forgiven him. The other characters Aunt Mary, so she's the narrator's aunt who was very close to him as a young boy. She used to read in books her favourite being Great Expectation about a woman, Miss Havisham, whose life came to a halt after being jilted and rejected at the altar on her day of her marriage. Perhaps this could be a reflection of how Aunt Mary feels with her unrequited life, on her unrequited love as well with Brother Benegas, the man who she fell in love with and went to war, yet he came back and gave his life to God instead of marrying her. Now Aunt Mary is extremely sensitive about guarding her past and her love letters and is incensed at her nephew for intruding on this and breaking her trust. Now when it comes to theme, the first is that of secrecy and of course this is aptly important because when you consider the title of the story it's secrets. Now the boy's aunt, Aunt Mary, is intensely reserved and secretive, she's sensitive about her past and the man who she fell in love with, Brother Benegas, who she perhaps felt may have jilted her just as Miss Havisham in Great Expectations was jilted at the altar on her day of her marriage after he came back from the war and he chose a life of faith for God rather than marrying her. Aunt Mary wants a secret past and her love hidden and is even burnt by her sister once she dies so these secret letters are burnt by her sister once she dies. The other theme is that of love, so unrequited love shapes and frames the story. So Aunt Mary is so sensitive about not being able to marry her true love to the extent that she's protective of a secret love for this man and this causes her to cut off her nephew when he learns about her past love life. The other theme is that of curiosity, so the boy's curiosity causes him to break his own sense of trust and respect for him and he regrets indulging this curiosity and harbors extreme feelings of guilt as a result of satisfying his curiosity. The other theme is that of guilt, so the boy feels extremely guilty for his transgression, breaking his aunt's trust and reading her secret letters and his estranged from his aunt and feels guilty that she may have never forgiven him for violating her trust. So that's all, if you found this summary video useful do make sure you sign up for our Stories of Ourselves course and check out our website which is www.firstreadtetors.com where you can find plenty of other revision worksheets, model answers and online courses covering all the major syllabuses including edXL, AQA and IGCSE. Thank you so much for watching.