Raine Simon
Imagine chills that shoot down the spine and slowly creep up the span of the skin as the instant cold, frozen air and biting wind becomes tangible through the intricate sounds of the violin solo. Imagine the rising panic that parallels the ominous and increasing crescendo that is met with a gripping, beautifully entrancing song of death. When one hears Antonio Vivaldi’s Winter, the surreal and sinister beauty blurs the line between terror and enchantment, perfectly capturing the essence of winter and its undisputable duality. Vivaldi summons this lasting effect that seems to eternally rest within the listener’s psyche, a surreal realm that resides in the subconscious, one characterized by the distortion and dismemberment of reality. Generation after generation, for four centuries, Vivaldi’s Winter has yet to dissipate from the human experience, remaining unchanged within the ever-changing world.
This idea of eternal existence, one lying in the surreal realm, is explored in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, which emphasizes the significance and presence of duality within life and reality. Specifically, in death, one lives forever. In pain and terror, one finds beauty. Within the lifeless, one finds life itself. Within the human experience, the surreal cannot be completely severed from the real. These highlight the fundamental strive and struggle of humanity: balance. Across history, many philosophical and spiritual approaches to conceptualize balance have arisen. Duality or dichotomy, from the ancient Greek dikhotomia “division into two parts,” is one approach explored in The Secret History. The novel follows the memories of Richard Papin, a young college student from Plano, California as he recounts the events at Hampden College in Vermont with his five friends, which ultimately lead to the death of one. A socially isolated group, the six friends are captivated by the Classics, which are intrinsically dualistic. Although revered as beautiful, elegant text, much of the Classics deals with themes of brutal death and sexual perversion that are quite abhorrent to modern readers. For instance, Roman culture was characterized by the cruelty of death, so much so that it was a form of entertainment, such as gladiator fights and crucifixion. Additionally, Greek mythology, while similarly gruesome, also contains much sexual exploitation. Many gods, such as Zeus, raped mortal women. Despite this nature, the Classics are renowned for their beauty, poise, and sophistication. To test the dualistic concepts they learn in their studies of the Classics, the friends replicate the narratives they romanticize, exercising extreme imbalance by living in distortions of reality.
Such is especially prevalent in Richard’s memory at Francis’s house. While walking in the lake with Henry and Richard, Camilla, another group member, steps on a shard of glass, slicing her foot open. Henry frantically carries Camilla’s limp body from the lake to the bank while the other members intensely scurry in panic. Richard recounts the moment as picturesque and dreamlike, his ultimate fatal flaw. As imbalance in any nature brings about varying consequences, the characters in the novel are ultimately bound to damnation as a result of living exclusively in the surreal. The dualistic language in The Secret History foreshadows the characters’ inescapable doom because it highlights the fundamental gravity of balance within life.
Duality of life and death is confirmed in Richard’s metaphoric recollection of Camilla’s accident. For example, the memory as a whole serves as an extended metaphor comparing a captured memory to a work of art or “painting too vivid to be real” (Tartt 98). Richard illustrates the scene as a piece of art: vivid, striking, and acutely graphic. In this way, he removes himself from reality by creating a surreal world lying outside of time and space. Within such a realm, he possesses the power to pause and capture a single moment in eternity. Thus, Richard tries to transcend mortal existence by creating the “picturesque” (1) because in death, one lives on through one’s legacies. A person’s essence can be felt through their art, whether paintings, music, or literature, because the person captures a moment, idea, or feeling of eternity, which supports that duality is fundamental to life itself. Likewise, Richard paints his life as artwork, fabricating dreamlike realities in which his essence lives on through his death. However, in this way, Richard overlooks the severity of the situation. Instead of addressing the dangers of the moment, he has left reality. The omnipresence of balance in life shows one cannot successfully avoid reality. Thus, metaphoric language communicates Richard’s coming doom.
Duality of beauty, terror, and death is proposed through the use of juxtaposition to draw connections between the deceivingly contradictory ideas. For instance, Richard describes a morbid scene. Despite Camilla appearing in a state of death, Richard expresses the moment as an alluring work of art, illuminating Camilla as angelic with the “curve of her throat beautiful and lifeless” (99). Beauty is associated with life. For example, the phrase “rosy cheeks,” an illustration of increased blood pumping through one’s body, is a predominant portrayal of beauty, emphasizing the direct bond that exists between life and beauty. Flushed cheeks signify youth and health, two pillars of beauty. Flush appearances can imply embarrassment, especially in situations of intimacy. Additionally, pink cheeks possess historical links to social class as wealthy Romans and Greeks used rouge to further highlight their pale skin, which was an indication that they did not need to work outside. However, in this instance, beauty is placed alongside “lifeless.” This creates a comparative effect, helping the reader to uncover the powerful and prominent dualistic relation the words possess. Specifically, the characters’ ultimate goal is “to live forever” (39), yet they desire death. As seen by the death of winter bringing the new life of spring, it is in death that they can find new and everlasting life. Thus, the existence of the duality of life itself is conveyed with juxtaposition to foreshadow the downfall that results in the attempt to elude dualistic principles, and, in turn, mortality.
The connection between life and the lifeless is verified through the use of personification. Immediately after Camilla’s incident, Richard manipulates the reader’s initial negative interpretation of his panic and terror by highlighting that his “pulse sang” (99). Richard’s increase in pulse is a direct reaction to sudden and overwhelming feelings of horror, fear, and urgency. Thus, the idea of a raised pulse possesses a negative connotation. However, he assigns jubilant and peaceful characteristics to his pulse by explaining its singsong nature, contradicting the true origin of the response and reiterating the dualistic relation between beauty and terror. Also, his pulse, a heartbeat, cannot sing, so it is given human characteristics. This provides insight into the deeper meaning of the novel: the search for immortality. The characters desire to live forever and aim to expose forms of accomplishing such a feat. Personification by definition mirrors this idea by giving living qualities to a lifeless object or idea. Thus, Richard’s phrase parallels the overarching question of the novel: Can one overcome or escape one’s own humanity? The characters test this by living outside of reality, finding residence in the psyche whether through art form, ideas, or drug and alcohol use. In this specific case, the personification takes the existence of heartbeats and translates it into a song, which as an eternal art form, possesses the ability to carry one’s soul forever. Therefore, duality of life and the lifeless is supported by the use of personification.
Ultimately, the characters in The Secret History, despite their mindsets, are still subject to the limitations of humanity. Therefore, they are unsuccessful in trying to escape dualistic principles fundamental to life and experience demise as a consequence to their imbalanced lifestyles. I have interpreted Richard’s metaphoric language as his expression of his ultimate desire to capture life as an everlasting picture so that in death, he lives forever. However, in doing so, the reality that he ignores continues to act and impose human consequences. Additionally, I analyzed the purpose of juxtaposition to include communicating the true duality of life, which aided in my discovery that, surprisingly, in pain and terror, one finds beauty. Again, this supports the fundamental presence of duality in life itself. Continually, personification personally helped me to draw connections between life and death. I found that not only can we experience both simultaneously, but we can, in theory, defy mortal existence through art form and accomplishments. Furthermore, Richard’s contemplation of duality relates to humanity’s grappling of similar concepts over thousands of years. Different cultures and religions possess varying ways of conceptualizing duality and balance. For example, Christianity teaches that through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, death can bring about new life. Thus, in dying one finds eternal life in heaven. This is a dualistic idea as life and death are not only interconnected but become one in the same. Moreover, spanning thousands of years, Chinese culture has developed the idea of yin and yang, which addresses the dual nature of existence, both human and of the natural world. This philosophical relational concept expresses that the universe is governed by opposing and complementing principles present in all of existence. Yin represents the soft, feminine aspects of balance, while yang encompasses the rough, masculine aspects. Both elements are present within all that exist, including both the living and nonliving, such as nature and the seasons. In this way, Vivaldi’s Winter perfectly exemplifies the concept of yin and yang, showing duality of life and death, as well as beauty and terror, concepts which Richard explores in The Secret History.
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