I make sense of her definition by the
format that she uses. She will write about
Gebard and how he was a horrifying
shadow over Heinrich. How he dictated
what he was going to say and do. How
he was going to write in his journal. Just
the fact that he had to write in a journal.
Gebhard was a schoolmaster who
disciplined children in, in my mind, cruel
and sadistic ways.
Then Griffin would switch over to how her
grandmother would be strict and
overshadowing not only to Susan but to
her mother also.
The way I see it is that Gebhard and
Susan's grandmother grew up learning
the same child disciplinary tactics even
though they were in different countries.
If you look through those points and pick
them out they seem to mirror each other.
So you have Gebhard = Grandmother,
Mother Himmler = Mother Griffin, Heinrich
= Mother Griffin and the out come of all of
those individuals equaling Susan Griffins
life as she knows it, because of the way
the world was shaped by Heinrich
Himmler.
Even thought Griffin doesn't give much
information about herself, so we don't
know how she interacts with others
including, if she has any, her own
children. Maybe Susan = Heinrich. I don't
believe this is the case, because of how
she brings innocence into the stories by
involving the children, even Heinrich.