47 pages • 1 hour read
The Secret History
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Symbols & Motifs
Greek Language
In The Secret History, Greek literature and language is represented as a kind of special, insular code known only to the students of Julian’s classics program. As Richard explains, there are many words in Greek that speak to a world of definitions, ideas, and aesthetic ideals that simply cannot be translated into English. Because the classics students are the only six people in Hampden who can speak this language (aside from Julian), they feel a kind of dark, otherworldly kinship with one another. Richard even characterizes the Greek language as a “beautiful and harrowing landscape, centuries dead […]” and describes “looking up from [our] books with fifth-century eyes and finding the world disconcertingly sluggish and alien, as if it were not [our] home” (200). Thus, it is clear that the exclusive group of classics students uses Julian’s rarified teachings to create their own cult-like society, which functions according to elevated yet peculiar social and aesthetic standards. In the eyes of the students, upholding Julian’s aesthetic standards thus comes to transcend even the limitations of conventional morality; to maintain the stability of their world, even murder seems justifiable.
In a number of scenes, the students even utilize their Greek to communicate in situations where they do not want to be understood by those around them. For example, when Francis comes to visit Richard and wants to communicate about Bunny’s potential autopsy, he speaks in Greek. The novel also uses stilted English translations to represent the amusingly archaic tone of their language. For example, when speaking cryptically about the reaction of Bunny’s mother to her son’s death, one classics student states to Richard in Greek, “Do not fear. […] It is the mother. She is concerned with the dishonor of the son having to do with wine […] she grieves for the shame which has fallen on her house” (383). Between the secrecy of their Greek communication and the anachronistic quality of the language itself, the classics students deeply appreciate their ability to imbue their own everyday interactions with an elevated sense of the epic, as though their own doings are somehow on the level of the celebrated deeds of ancient Greek heroes such as Odysseus and Achilles.
Traditions, Rituals, and Routines
Traditions, rituals, and routines assume a significant role in the lives of Julian’s classics students. In addition to taking almost all of their classes together in accordance with the structure of Julian’s program, they also spend a great deal of their personal time interacting with one another in various social settings, and their weeks are often filled with the same basic schedule of activities. For example, they habitually go to the same restaurant in town together, and they meet every week for dinner at Charles and Camilla’s apartment. As Richard says of this fellow students, “It is easy, even now, for me to remember what their daily routines, which subsequently became my own, were like. Regardless of the circumstance they lived like clockwork” (84).
Because the lives and routines of Charles, Camilla, Henry, and Francis are so intricately linked, Richard and Bunny often feel hurt when circumstances exclude them from the secret bacchanals. As Henry later explains to Richard, Bunny’s cruel teasing—of himself, Francis, Camilla, and Charles—doesn’t come from a place of moral indignation so much as his anger at being “left out” (192). However, this derisive commentary also conveniently glosses over the fact that Henry also contrives to exclude Richard from the group’s activities on a number of occasions, and it is only toward the end of the novel that Richard finally begins to recognize that he is being manipulated, for he is not included in the group’s routines as completely as he first assumed himself to be.
Ironically, the group’s secret bacchanals take place during their ritualistic weekend getaways to Francis’s aunt’s Victorian house, and they almost run the risk of becoming routine rituals themselves, as they are repeated so many times. However, the accidental murder of the farmer ultimately transforms the bacchanals from a simple performative ritual into a transgressive act, an escape from their “mortal selves” (42) that also serves to catapult the plot into a higher state of tension that ultimately leads to the disastrous climax of the tale.
Vacations and Escapes
In line with this abandonment of their “mortal selves,” vacations and escapes are represented as powerful, and even dangerous, interruptions to routine and ritual. Henry attempts to win Bunny’s favor by taking him to Rome and then planning a trip to France, but he only succeeds in agitating Bunny further—ultimately providing him with the hotel stationery that reveals their secret. Henry also interrupts the routine of Camilla and Charles by setting Camilla up in an expensive hotel. This act, of course, inspires Charles to lash out in anger, pointing the gun at Henry, which leads to Henry’s ultimate escape in death by suicide.
Although Richard’s final dream about Henry is open to a variety of interpretations, it is telling that Henry states that he is not dead, but “only having a bit of trouble with [his] passport” (559). Furthermore, his inversion of his earlier reflection—that Richard is “not happy where he’s from” (559)—illustrates the full-circle nature of the novel’s narrative. Originally, Richard left California in hopes of escaping to the beauty of Hampden College, but he is fatefully forced to return to California and pick up the pieces of his abandoned, lower-class life, discarding his dreams of a more elevated, rarified status after the disastrous events of the term.
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