47 pages • 1 hour read
The Secret History
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Prologue-Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary
The Secret History opens with a quote by German philosopher and cultural critic Friedrich Nietzsche that asserts “1. A young man cannot possibly know what Greeks and Romans are. 2. He does not know whether he is suited for finding out about them” (i). The quote is followed by another from Plato: “Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes” (i).
The prologue is narrated by Richard Papen, a former classics student who—with the help of four other students in his Hampden College program: Henry, Camilla, Charles, and Francis—murdered a fifth student nicknamed Bunny. Recounting the story later, Richard describes the uncanny swiftness of events on the day of Bunny’s murder, explaining how Bunny approached the edge of a cliff in the woods, Henry pushed him, and the students quickly left the scene of the crime.
Richard recalls that he paused for just a moment to look back at the area where Bunny fell and admits that he frequently revisits this scene in his imagination. He states, “I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell” (iii).
Chapter 1 Summary
Richard Papen describes his unsatisfying youth growing up as an only child in Plano, a small, dull town in inland California. He grew up feeling alienated from his working-class family, particularly his father, who owned a gas station and often took out his own frustrations by abusing Richard and his mother. Richard pursues his first semester of college education at a local school with the aim of becoming a medical student but soon finds that he has no aptitude for the field. His Greek class is the only class that he enjoys, as it nourishes his appreciation of beauty. Richard’s “longing for the picturesque” (7) inspired by his Greek studies ultimately drives him to gain admission to Hampden College, a small liberal arts school in Vermont, which he can only attend with the help of substantial financial aid. When Richard attempts to continue his Greek studies under the college’s classics professor, Julian Morrow, his advisor, Georges Laforgue, strongly discourages him and warns him that Morrow has “some odd ideas about teaching” (14) and requires his small group of hand-picked students to commit to taking almost all of their classes with him. Because he is a wealthy man, Julian refuses payment for his teaching and instead donates his salary to the college.
Awed by the social stature of Julian’s students (Henry, Bunny, Camilla, Charles, and Francis), Richard impresses them with his Greek knowledge in a casual run-in at the library. Of the other students, Henry is a towering, intellectually imposing dark figure from a wealthy family in St. Louis; Bunny is a jovial and only moderately intelligent student from a family that was formerly wealthy but is now middle-class; Francis is thin and foppishly dressed in keeping with his wealth; and finally, Charles and Camilla are blonde, angelic-looking twins who were raised by an elderly rich aunt in Virginia. Richard is particularly struck by Camilla’s cold, eerie beauty. The next day, Richard meets with Julian and convinces Julian to take him on as a sixth student by inventing a glamorous and wealthy upbringing in California. Julian’s condition is that Richard must give up his other classes and study with Julian exclusively. Richard overcomes his initial skepticism and agrees. As the semester opens, Richard starts working as a research assistant for an incompetent, befuddled psychology professor named Dr. Roland. Anxious to maintain the lie that he comes from an affluent background, Richard asks Dr. Roland for an advance on his paycheck and uses the money to buy a new wardrobe in keeping with his new false identity.
Taking place in Julian’s office, the classics classes are conversational in nature and incorporate references to ancient Greek plays, poems, and philosophical texts. Julian is a “magical talker” (36) who develops an aura of mystique that is augmented by the lessons themselves, which revolve around subjects such as the link between “terror” and “beauty” (39) and the Greeks’ desire to “lose control completely” (42) through bacchanalian celebrations of wine, lust, and violence. This notion of completely losing control—and losing oneself—is especially appealing to Richard, who wishes that he could abandon his childhood in Plano and adopt the more illustrious persona of a wealthy scholar. One day, Bunny leaves a note in Richard’s campus mailbox inviting him to lunch at an upscale restaurant on Saturday. Bunny’s note is filled with awkward misspellings that illustrate the full extent of his significant academic struggles. (The novel later explains that Bunny has dyslexia and is only enrolled in Greek because his counselor suggested he learn a language with a symmetrical alphabet.)
Prologue-Chapter 1 Analysis
With the stylistic choice to have her protagonist begin the novel by confessing his involvement in Bunny’s death, Donna Tartt immediately creates an overarching sense of dramatic irony, for no matter what happens from this moment forward, the author has primed readers to evaluate each event and interaction with an eye toward predicting the moment of the murder, speculating on the reasons for its occurrence, and finding out whether the culprits manage to evade justice. The Prologue also establishes the ongoing theme of The Morbid Aesthetic of Death and Beauty, for in addition to admitting his complicity in Bunny’s murder, Richard also imbues the entirety of the novel with the qualities of a dark, fateful Greek epic. Obsessed with the idea that his “fatal flaw” is a “morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs” (7), he adopts the affectation that destiny itself has played a part in his participation in these past events—his relationships with the other classics students, his role in Bunny’s murder, the aftermath of the crime, and his current fixation upon telling the story. Thus, with the deliberately self-centered overtones that Richard gives to the ensuing story, Tartt implies that Richard’s own compulsion to sensationalize this chapter of his life plays a more central role in his consciousness than the remorse he might feel for his past misdeeds.
Chapter 1 also details how Richard’s “longing for the picturesque” ultimately leads his younger self to the classics group at Hampden College, driving him to abandon his half-hearted study of medicine in favor of the aesthetic enrichment offered by a focus on Greek studies. This shift in majors and colleges also allows him to escape his humble origins and remake himself in the (albeit false) image of a wealthy young scholar, thus highlighting both The Hidden Costs of Class Inequality and False Identity as a Tool and a Trap. By developing a new exterior self, Richard gains access to a variety of opportunities that would otherwise remain closed to his working-class self, the most important of which is the chance to become the sixth member of Julian’s exclusive group of students. In fact, Richard is only able to join Julian’s program because he charms Julian with false tales of his wealth and his carefree Californian lifestyle. However, Tartt also makes it a point to inject a cautionary note of foreshadowing when Richard’s advisor insinuates the inevitable future fallout that will result from Richard’s pretentious performances, saying, “No teacher is that good” (32).
In line with this warning, Julian begins to demonstrate his deep level of influence over the small group of classics students from the very beginning, for his charming demeanor, powerful presence, and intoxicating speeches about The Morbid Aesthetic of Death and Beauty allow him to create an aura of mystique and audacity around his lessons, and little by little, Julian uses his charisma to insinuate his own philosophies into the minds of his students. It is also important to note that even with the initial quotations that open the Prologue of The Secret History, Tartt foreshadows the unhealthy nature of both Julian’s teachings and the students’ subsequent actions, for the juxtaposition of the two quotes suggests the naiveté of students who “cannot possibly know what Greeks and Romans are” and yet commit themselves to a creating dangerous and even destructive ideal of beauty, derived from the seductive voice of a teacher whose classes merely “pass a leisure hour in storytelling” (i).
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