Analysse Humaran
Have you ever run wild, naked, and free in the woods? Ever wanted to? To unleash your inner animal self, throwing civil restraints to the wind? You and the characters of The Secret History may have something in common then.
Richard’s first day in his Greek class of five featured an eloquent lesson, part Greek ideology and part passive observation of people, on the idea of civil beings snapping back to their animal ways. This passage, excerpted from Professor Julian’s lesson, functions to foreshadow the students’ reversion to savagery by first associating that behavior with his students, then by fostering their feelings of superiority over others, and lastly by invoking persuasive extremes in his speech.
Right off the bat, the text insinuates that the subject of the passage pertains to the audience of the speech, Julian’s class. “We don’t like to admit it” (Tartt 84) exclaims Julian. They must clearly exhibit some kind of behavior that conjures enough feelings of shame that the “we” live in denial of it. Already, one could sense the negative implications ensuing. He goes on about civil people releasing their inner primal instincts and losing all civility, and whilst he does so, he continues to associate the students to that behavior. “Are we, in this room, really that different” (20) questions Julian; He means different from the Greeks and the Romans, who were previously cited by the individuals of the Greek class to be obscenely violent. They had listed a multitude of stories from their knowledge of those civilizations not only committing violent acts but glorifying them, a release from the superficiality of man. At this point, Julian is not only communicating his opinions of the fragility of human civility, but telling the students that they carry the potential to break from their current facades…like engaging in the act of murder.
Now that he has seeded the idea that murdering another person lies just below the surface of every individual in the classroom, he waters that seed by feeding the students’ senses of superiority over others. This sense may serve to justify and cope with the murder of another being, down the line, since their superior selves may very well may be above the concern of who lives and dies. Julian and his class are “truly civilized people” (20), they are “controlled people” (20). It’s clearly ingrained into the students that they are better than their less controlled and less civil school mates. Anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their niche ideas of carrying oneself are simply of less value to society, justifying the foreshadowed murder.
The last nail in the coffin that contributes to the foreboding nature of the passage is its extremist tone and dramatized delivery. Losing control “fascinates” (20) those on the high social level Julian considers himself. A strong word that emulates a sense of hypnosis, a feeling that they can not resist due to innate forces. Subsequent words like “obsessed” (20) further reinforces that nature of losing control and succumbing to ruthless whims, it even romanticizes doing so just as they romanticized the Greeks and Romans terrors. Speech in such extremes inflates extreme ideas in the students mind, to the point that murder lies merely on their horizon.
It’s evident through Julian’s speech that murder is not so far-fetched as the reader may feel it to be, it can simply be a product of unrestrained human instinct. When one rationalizes murder in such a philosophical and academic way as Julian did, how terrible is it? I hope you still think terribly, but his students may take this lesson to heart, foreshadowing and explaining their committing of murder in the book.
Till next time! Your expert on all things dark academia,
Analysse Humaran
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