Haden Archer
Throughout the story of The Secret History by Donna Tartt, the main character, Richard, is shown to be a quick thinker that can come up with a lie on the spot. He has the ability to lead people around and make them believe what he wants, but like most people, he is not perfect. We learn this early on when Richard has a conversation with Julian, a professor of the Greek language, in his office. In this conversation Richard is led around by Julian and interrogated without even knowing it. From Richard’s background of lying and the way Richard describes his conversation with Julian, we can see that Professor Julian is a highly intelligent man that manipulates other characters without their knowledge.
In The Secret History, Richard is established to be a dishonest character. In the first chapter when Richard meets Julian, Richard lies to the professor about his interest in Greek and Latin to gain access to the professor’s class. His actual reason is that he wants to know more about the people in Julian’s class and adopt their lifestyle. From this we can conclude that Richard is comfortable with lying and adept at bending the truth. This strengthens the idea that Julian is an experienced liar, because he is able to deceive someone that is used to lying themselves. At first Richard is not allowed into the professor’s class, but he is able to convince Julian to let him in by getting closer with Julian’s students. The students tell Richard that Julian has high standards, and that he will need to act like he loves the same Greek studies as Julian to be allowed into his class.
In the passage, Richard talks about the conversation and his inability to realize what Julian was doing. At the beginning of the passage, Richard explains that he had been “led deftly from topic to topic” and was so engrossed in the conversation that it “seemed only a few minutes but was really much longer” (Tartt 20). From this we can tell that Julian has a way with words and can enthrall a person into complacency, while also being wise enough to lead the conversation to his desired topic. This shows that Richard put a lot of misplaced trust in Julian. At times Richard even found himself “talking with relish on a bewildering variety of topics—some of them quite personal” (20), which is even more stunning because Richard had come to the meeting ready to lie to get into Julian’s class. Julian had been able to skillfully pull the truth out of Richard with only a single conversation. This demonstrates how a simple conversation can lead you to say things you never intended to share, especially when you’re being manipulated. At the end of the passage Richard even says that he was “convinced that he was acting of his own volition” (20), like he had wanted to share with Julian himself. Yet throughout the passage, Julian had the conversational upper hand the entire time.
The story presents Richard as a skilled liar, but also as someone who can be manipulated by a more experienced liar. Richard is comfortable with deception, yet is still overwhelmed by Julian’s excellent ability to manipulate the truth. The conversation between Richard and Professor Julian serves as an example of Julian’s intelligence and ability to control the conversation, successfully extracting information from Richard without him even realizing it. This scene highlights the power of manipulation and the importance of being aware of who is leading the conversation. Ultimately, it shows you can be manipulated without your knowledge, and that it’s important to know the motivations of the people around you.
To demonstrate a similar idea, I’ve included the following video: