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Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Breakdown
The Who
Richard Papen. A 20 year old Californian who dreams of escaping his working class parents. Applies to Hampden College in Vermont where he changes his major to Greek.
The Others
Richard makes friends with a group of five other Greek students: Henry, Francis, the twins Charles and Camilla and Edmund, known as Bunny. They are handpicked by their ecclectic professor, Julian.
The Where
The novel takes place in Vermont at the fictionl liberal arts college Hampden.
The When
The novel is written in 1992, and this is also when the novel is set.
The Need to Know
The Secret History was Donna Tartt’s debut novel. It immediately became a success and a cult book. It’s themes of classic literature and academia in combination with darker themes of death kickstared the subculture that is now known as Dark Academia.
The First & Second Glance
First Glance
At first Tartt comes off as a novel about a group of Classics students and their lives at college. As a result of their professor's eccentric ways they are rather cut off from other students, living in their own buble. They discuss classic literature and questions posed by the Greek philosophers. However
Bunny is dead. And it was the others who killed him.
This is not a spoiler, this is the first thing we are told in the preface. Then we go to the beginning.
Second Glance
For the first quarter of the book, Tartt manages to make you forget about the murder. Until then Richard’s new friends invite him into their decadent lives, to a world of dusty glamour. Then, an accident happens and becomes the start of something grim. As they descend deeper into their alienation from the other students, their perceptions of morality are challenged, boundaries pushed.
About
Set in the early 1990’s we are introduced to Richard Papen. A twenty year old California native wanting to escape his working class background. He applies to Hampden, a college in Vermont. At Hampden he is accepted into a Greek classics course, with a professor who handpicks his students.
The class’ remote location on campus cut the group off from the rest of the student body, allowing the six of them to remove themselves from reality. Not only do they study the past, but it is almost as if they live in the past. Their ignorance of popular culture, their constant smoking, drinking scotch and dressing in old fashioned suits and loafers creates a nostalgic atmosphere.
Why Fall?
Tartt’s story starts at the beginning of the academic year, in early fall when protagonist Richard Papen begins at Hampden College. As he begins his Greek studies, he falls into step with the other five students of the course. Together they form a group secluded from the rest of the student body, and the reader is drawn into a dreamy world of classic Greek literature, drinks and old fashioned wardrobe. As the group murders one of their own, the novel takes a grim turn.
With an abundance of trees whose leaves inevitably will turn into spectacular yellows, reds and oranges, the six New England states can be said to be synonymous with fall. Following this line of thought, the Salem Witch Trials in 1692-93 took place in New England. Salem has become infamous for the trials, the city being depicted in popular culture as a setting for witchcraft.
The witch, as a symbol of the fall tradition of Halloween, ties together the darker pieces of history of New England and the passage of time illustrated by leaves - and the passing of an academic year.
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