“The Secret History”: A Review
The ‘fatal flaw’ survives only in classical literature, in the epic tales of antiquity– or so John Richard Papen presumes. Donna Tartt’s The Secret History probes the boundaries of this popular homeric trope. Our insipid narrator, Richard, reveals his fatal flaw in the opening remarks: “a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs” (Tartt 5). The novel shadows Richard’s unfortunate brush with a clan of murderous Greek students his junior year of college. Doomed by his penchant for the aesthetic, Richard soon finds himself amidst a dysfunctional friend group, unravelling after the elaborate slaughter of their comrade.
The Secret History opens on Richard’s application to Hampden College, a cultish liberal arts school in Southern Vermont. Desperate to escape his banal life as a pre-med student in California, Richard flees to the east coast, if only for a change of scenery. Eager to explore the humanities after arduous years of compulsory medical school, Richard intends to further amateur knowledge of ancient Greek at Hampden. However, his advisor dissuades him from enrolling in the revered classics program, which only accepts a select number of students. Heeding his instructor’s warnings, Richard attends French classes for his first few weeks of school. He notices the Greek program’s five attendees and their curious professor in passing; often isolated from Hampden’s intimate student body, constantly hiding in the library to brood over classical poets. The class intrigues Richard, though he can’t quite place why. As autumn gusts turn crisp, Richard’s infatuation with the Greek students swells. He observes them from afar, secretly dissecting their puzzling characters in a futile attempt to understand the students’ allure.
One afternoon in late September, Richard happens upon the five students in the library, deep in discussion over a challenging translation. He overhears the scholars bickering over the supposed case of a noun in an upcoming assignment. Having studied basic Greek at his prior institution, Richard chimes into their argument, suggesting the locative case. After a moment’s consideration, the group’s inherent leader, a stern fellow named Henry Winters, affirms Richard’s hypothesis; the noun in question must be locative. The following day, Hampden admits Richard to their exclusive classics program.
Over the course of this fateful year, Richard obsesses over his fellow classmates. He wastes his time, abandons rationality, and loses his personality in pursuit of their validation. The members bear an impossible sense of immortality, a concept alien to Richard; perhaps a result of his unexceptional, effervescent childhood. An overwhelming sense of magnitude seems to loom over the Greek students, fascinating Richard. His fatal flaw, a potent thirst for eternal beauty, prompts him to sacrifice everything in hopes of his classmates accepting him. After only a few weeks of classes, Richard has grown ignorant to his precious friends’ faults. He trails the students’ treacherous journey, blinded by this innate desire to live aesthetically. Richard’s fatal flaw, an indomitable hunger for the picturesque, drives him to madness. His delusion even compels him to justify the murder of his friend Bunny, another classics scholar.
After Bunny’s murder, the Greek clique crumbles apart. In a pivotal outburst, one drunken student accidentally shoots Richard in the stomach. He looks up, stunned, at his quarrelling companions. Unbothered, they barely glance at his blossoming wounds before returning their attention to the current dispute. After sacrificing his sanity in search of undying glory and recognition from his peers, Richard realises he was never more than an asset to the class, a tool at their disposal.
Everyone seems to move on from that year’s events; they overlook Bunny’s death and abandon their degrees, intent on living ordinary lives. Yet, eight years later, Richard cannot shake their crimes from his conscience, nor conceal such terrible secrets. His classmates refuse to acknowledge the truth. In recounting the year’s tragedies, Richard immortalises himself and recaptures the aesthetic he once coveted. Although Richard’s fatal flaw dragged him down paths of irreversible treachery, he still managed to perpetuate the picturesque via literature, from whence the fatal flaw emerged.
Sage Preston ‘25
