Jeffrey Malcolm

How can one experience social exclusion from the ones they call their friends? In The

Secret History by Donna Tartt, our narrator, Richard, leaves behind his ordinary college life at

Hampden College to experience the exclusive lifestyle of learning Greek under Professor Julian.

For a year, five students have only learned under Professor Julian, but Richard’s presence

would change everything. Once these students heard the news, they were against the idea of

an outsider joining their ranks. So, before Richard could meet the other students, the students

were already skeptical of him. As a result, Richard struggled with social isolation as he was subtly excluded from the group.

Struggling to gain the trust and acceptance of the group, Richard decides to

spontaneously take a vacation with the group to a lake house. His classmates are very secretive

with their actions. He begins to notice the subtle things that the group does. “Of course, I can

see traces of what went on–to their credit, quite small traces–in retrospect; in the way they

would sometimes disappear, very mysteriously, and hours later be vague about their

whereabouts” (Tartt 91). He came to the lake house to hang out with them, not to be deserted

randomly as the group pleases. Donna Tartt keeps these mysterious things hidden for the

reader to speculate what the group is doing without Richard’s knowledge. The group: Henry,

Bunny, Camila, Charles, and Francis never told him anything about their odd disappearances.

Richard has no idea what they could be doing, but he does not like being left in the dark about

it. Whether it is for or against his benefit, he would like to not be left alone.

He does not have any other friends to talk to due to the amount of time he hangs around

his five classmates. Through some interactions with the group, Richard notices what else the

group does to exclude him “in private jokes, asides in Greek or even Latin which I was well

aware were meant to go over my head” (Tartt 91-92). Richard had no idea what the group had

done before he joined the class. The “private jokes” are probably inside jokes that the group has

been telling for years (Tartt 91). But the “asides in Greek or even Latin which I was well aware were meant to go over my head,” is a prime example of the group blatantly withholding

something from him (Tartt 92). Richard is starting to feel the onset of social exclusion by the

people he calls his “friends”. Sadly, he cannot stop being friends with the people that whom he

will spend the rest of college. So, his entire social life relies on his presence being

acknowledged and welcomed.

How does one deal with the fact that their friends do not want them around? Richard’s

friends deserted him and withheld knowledge from him. He does not feel like he belongs

amongst them. He cannot beg them to include him, but he has to be accepted naturally. Richard

does not want to feel invisible and unwanted; he wants to feel like he matters.

Works Cited: A

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

Works Cited: A

Amelia Barnard

Some startling or even violent events can cause life to drift into a trance–like the experience of the surreal. This illusory state is precisely the feeling Donna Tartt creates in this striking passage. Following the group of friends’ trip to the pond at Francis’s countryhouse, Camila steps on a piece of glass and the events quickly spiral into a state of the surreal. While the chaos is unfolding around him, Richard begins to romanticize the beauty of the scene. He claims his fatal flaw lies in the fact that he would do anything to achieve “the picturesque,” which becomes evident in this passage in the way that he ignores the frantic actions of his friends and the violence around him in order to glamorize the scene.  In the atmosphere of “the surreal,”  Tartt’s use of irrational juxtapositions and evocative imagery facilitates the understanding of Richard’s inclination for “the picturesque,” regardless of the real glamor in the situation. 

Richard states early on in the passage that the accident regarding Camila stepping on a piece of glass allows “the surreal [to] take over,” and it is this guise that allows him to conceal his longing for the picturesque in the severity of this situation (Tartt 98). Richard appears to romanticize the state Camila is in as he claims that she, “limp in Henry’s arms,” is “beautiful and lifeless” (98-99). This juxtaposition causes any concern Richard might have about the incident to dissipate from the reader’s understanding as the contrasts Tartt creates become even more apparent. These contrasts become even more conspicuous as Richard describes Camila’s dress. He claims that her current appearance is that of “a dead girl’s,” but continues to personify the hem of her dress as “flutter[ing] abstractly in the breeze” (99). Animating her dress in such a lively way evokes a feeling of eeriness as the reader understands at this point that Camila has lost a lot of blood and needs dire care, an observation of which Richard is completely oblivious. By creating a contrast between the way in which Camila appears lifeless, while another element is given animation with a light, even playful connotation, these juxtapositions once again create the assumption that Richard’s vying for the picturesque causes him to disconnect from more important matters.

The vivid imagery created in the passage further magnifies Richard’s “fatal flaw” of wanting the picturesque. A list-like structure is utilized in many of these descriptions in order to magnify them and make each one apparent. This includes “every pebble, every blade of grass sharply defined, the sky so blue it hurt me to look at it” (98). This clear use of imagery allows readers to grasp the scene and understand Richard’s claim that an accident can often cause time to appear to slow down. However, this imagery becomes more evocative as the scene progresses and Richard says, “It was like a painting too vivid to be real” (98). After describing the “dreamlike” scenes of the meadow, the images begin to take on an underlying, more violent connotation, despite the fact that Richard’s interpretation of them remains consistent. While Henry is carrying Camila she appears to have lost a lot of blood and Henry’s trousers are described as “spattered with drops the size of quarters, too red to be blood, as if he’d had a paintbrush slung at him” (99). Though the imagery here has an inherent sense of gore, Richard’s romanticizing even causes blood to have a much more artful connotation. With his explicit statements of the scene as related to “a painting,” Richard’s inclinations of wanting the picturesque to remain constant throughout the passage as the bright image he “paints” is tainted by the elements of gore that remain.

With the vivid imagery and stark juxtapositions Tartt creates in this scene, Richard’s “fatal flaw” is ever apparent and foreshadowing of the dangers of romanticizing dark events appears. Knowing that this group of friends will go on to murder one of their own, this passage evokes a feeling of uneasiness regarding Richard’s habits of looking for “the picturesque.” Though romanticizing one’s life is often seen as an effort in sentimentality, observing Richard’s habits of disregarding danger and violence in an act to preserve his illusory observations raises the question of how harmless romanticism really is for both the characters and reader alike.

Works Cited: A, 4