essay questions on the secret history

• study guides
• lesson plans
• homework help

The Secret History Essay Topics & Writing Assignments

Essay Topic 1

Richard defines his fatal flaw as "a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs." What does he mean by this? Is he correct? Support your answer.

Essay Topic 2

How do Richard and Bunny serve as foils for each other? What qualities does each bring out in the other that are important to the plot of the novel?

Essay Topic 3

Setting is often an important element of a novel. Describe the setting of this story. How does the setting affect this novel? Why is it important to the plot?

Essay Topic 4

There were a great number of clues visible to Bunny concerning his fate. What character flaws does Bunny have that prevents him from being able to see the plot of his own demise? Discuss.

Essay Topic 5

In this novel, the lines between protagonist and antagonist are blurry. Who do you consider to be the protagonist...

(read more Essay Topics)

FOLLOW BOOKRAGS:

The Secret History

43 pages • 1 hour read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 1

Chapters 2-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-7

Chapter 8-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Prologue-Chapter 1 Chapter 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.

Related Titles

By Donna Tartt

The Goldfinch

The Little Friend

Featured Collections

Mystery & Crime

View Collection

• Share this —

• Watch Full Episodes
• Read With Jenna
• Inspirational
• Relationships
• TODAY Table
• Newsletters
• Start TODAY
• Shop TODAY Awards
• Citi Concert Series
• Listen All Day

Follow today

More Brands

• On The Show
• TODAY Plaza

Donna Tartt answers 11 questions about 'The Secret History'

" The Secret History" was published 30 years ago — and ever since, fans have been looking for a follow-up that delivers the same intoxicating blend of mystery, mythology, tight-knit friend groups and unreliable narrators.

Jenna selected Donna Tartt's debut novel, and veritable modern classic, for the last Read With Jenna pick of 2022.

“With a book as layered as ‘The Secret History,’ there’s going to be new revelations every time you read it. I feel like this is the type of book that needs to be reread every 10, 20, 30 years,” Jenna tells TODAY.com.

After 30 years, readers like Jenna have racked up quite a few questions. Below, Tartt answers a few of them, sourced from Read With Jenna members and Jenna herself.

Questions from Jenna

What has the response of the book over the past 30 years meant to you.

Donna Tartt: I love that it’s meant something to people — that readers have not only enjoyed wandering around in the imaginal space of the book but have kept returning to it. For me, writing a novel doesn’t feel like an address to an audience so much as a direct interaction with one other person — the solitary person who pulls the book off a shelf and reads it, whoever that happens to be — so I’m less concerned with the broader impact of the book than with how it reverberates in the lives of individual readers. If the book keeps someone company during a difficult time in their lives, I’m happy. I’ve had some moving letters from people in prison. I’ve also loved hearing from young people who have been inspired to study Classics after reading the book.  

How has your life changed since the book was published? 

On one level, the tasks that have fallen to me since publishing the book have almost zero to do with the factors that that enabled me to write the book in the first place, but I’ve had a life filled with travel (the book has been published in 40 languages) and it’s been more than wonderful to have a following and the freedom to write what I want.     

Questions from readers

Did you imagine, back then, the impact the book would have.

I’m thrilled with how the book continues to resonate with readers — I couldn’t have wished for anything better. The people who connect with 'The Secret History' are passionate about it — it’s not a book for everyone but the responses to it, for better or worse, are seldom lukewarm.  

Where do you get your ideas for fiction? 

Everywhere — from travel, from history, from gossip, from true crime, from stories in magazines at the dentist’s office, from childhood memories, from rumors and songs, from dreams (I mean this literally — I keep a dream journal, and dreams often make their way into my books). I think the assumption is that novelists get some giant idea all in one piece, and then all they have to do is sit down and write it. And that may be true for some novelists but for me a book is a storm, a swarm, a party. Ideas don’t drop down on me singly, in monumental chunks, but flow in from thousands of different sources and tributaries evolving over a long period of time, and I think the texture of my books reflects that.   

Have you ever re-read 'The Secret History'? If so, what was the experience like? 

I re-read it about 15 years ago, and it was uncanny because it brought back to me with great clarity where I happened to be and sometimes even what I was wearing when I wrote certain passages. Other passages seemed foreign and as if someone else had written them.     

How do the characters of the book still live on for you?

There’s no way to build a solid or realistic literary character without putting a good deal of yourself in it. With "The Secret History," my DNA is recognizably twined throughout all the characters — which is only to say that a gesture or a turn of phrase or an intonation of my own voice will unexpectedly conjure up Francis, say, or Henry, and the emotions and ideas that went into creating them.   

Richard in 'The Secret History"   lives on for me in a more practical way than any character I ever wrote, however. Richard’s voice, to start with, was an invented voice, constructed for the purposes of the story I wanted to tell, but because I spent so many years when I was young writing almost exclusively in Richard’s voice, his narration ended up influencing my own writing voice pretty profoundly.  

We are forever looking for a book like 'The Secret History.' Are there any books you recommend as follow-ups? 

Not really as follow ups, though I can direct people to some books that were important to me when I wrote "The Secret History" that admirers of the book might enjoy. I couldn’t have written or even thought to write "The Secret History" without "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", which is sharp and shocking as ever on the page—it’s a short novel, very tight and modern by 19th century standards.

• "Le Grand Meulnes" by Alain Fournier has a lot to do with the elegiac mood of the novel, the sense of a lost, magical past — so too does "The Great Gatsby ."
• "Cold Heaven" by Brian Moore and "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" by Shirley Jackson helped me to keep an open sense of what’s possible in a literary novel.
• It’s too bad that people mostly seem to know the film version of "The Talented Mr Ripley" because the novel, by Patricia Highsmith, differs in key respects and is and far superior.
• The books of George Orwell and of Evelyn Waugh were very important to me during the time I was writing "The Secret History" and still are. I was reading them obsessively during that time—novels, essays, letters, everything.
• The novels of Vladimir Nabokov are touchstones, as well.
• Anybody wanting to know more about the ideas behind the book should read "Bacchae" by Euripedes (I like the Richmond Lattimore translation) and "Phaedrus" and the "Apology" by Plato—a lot of people will be put off by the mention of Plato but these two dialogues in particular were life-changing.   
• "Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice" by JF Martel had not yet been published when I wrote "The Secret History" but it articulates very clearly some of my ideas about art as a meeting place for ideas otherwise inexpressible and a conduit to realities beyond the human: “True beauty is not pretty. It is a tear in the facade of the everyday, a sudden revelation of the forces seething beneath the surface of things.”   

Between 'The Secret History' and 'The Goldfinch,' what do you find most compelling about writing young characters in this general age? What qualities do they have in terms of development and plot that older adults don’t?

Younger characters tend to be more malleable than older ones because they are less determined by circumstance and have more space to grow. Though with older, more fixed characters, there’s more capacity for reversal and surprise.  

What inspired the names of the characters? We couldn’t help but notice Charles and Camilla — like the current king and queen of England — feature prominently. 

I can’t remember how Charles got his name, but Camilla got hers from Camilla the warrior maiden in the  Aeneid — Virgil calls her “a sacred falcon” and there is a beautiful passage where the mothers of Italy gather to watch Camilla heading off to battle. I was reading the  Aeneid  for a class right around the time I started writing The Secret History. Camilla is as strong and heroic as any soldier in the poem, and her name stuck with me. 

At some point after the book was published, my publicist Bogie telephoned me in excitement because “Charles and Camilla” had been mentioned prominently in some notable news feature as personalities of the year. But of course it turned out that they were talking about a different Charles and Camilla and not my characters.      

Why aren’t you on social media?    

I was warned off it early on. Years ago, in India, I was the only America at a big dinner where everyone was talking about social media, which at the time was very new. A few of us (including me) had never heard of it — I was trying to understand what it was and how it worked, but Becky Swift, Margaret Drabble’s daughter, was very emphatic: "You should never get social media Donna, it’s a terrible idea for you, it’s noisy and shallow and distracting and it will sneak into your reading and writing life in a thousand horrible ways and and be a monstrous waste of your energy and time. Promise me you’ll never touch it." 

And I didn’t. It would be years before people started talking about how destructive social media was, or how insidious it would turn out to be on so many cultural, political and personal levels. So I’m hugely grateful to Becky for steering me away from it before I stumbled into it unawares — Becky died young, and I am sad I never got a chance to tell how much that conversation changed my life for the better.     

Do you have any guilty pleasure books or TV shows?

Most television doesn’t appeal to me — a rare exception was  “Better Call Saul.” I love the Rod Serling "Twilight Zone" episodes, and noir movies from the forties and fifties and old RKO or Universal horror films. 

I don’t feel guilty about reading any book I enjoy or that keeps me interested, though sometimes I feel guilty about listening to an audiobook instead of reading the book on paper. That’s probably silly though because I listen to audiobooks at times when I wouldn’t be reading anyway, when I’m walking the dogs or ironing shirts.  

Elena Nicolaou is a senior entertainment editor at Today.com, where she covers the latest in TV, pop culture, movies and all things streaming. Previously, she covered culture at Refinery29 and Oprah Daily. Her superpower is matching people up with the perfect book, which she does on her podcast, Blind Date With a Book.

‘Shatter Me’ author Tahereh Mafi announces spinoff series and first book ‘Watch Me’

Everyone’s listening to ‘It Ends With Us’ audiobook on Spotify. Here’s how you can, too

All of the books on Barack Obama’s 2024 summer reading list

Emily Henry announces casting for film adaptation of ‘People We Meet On Vacation’

Jenna Bush Hager says ‘you’re going to love’ her August 2024 pick

See the cover of Cher’s memoir, which is so long it’s two parts: EXCLUSIVE

Take a first look at Jasmine Guillory’s newest novel, ‘Flirting Lessons’

Lucy Score announces new book series. Get details here: EXCLUSIVE

‘Triple Sec’ is one of romance's 1st polyamorous rom-coms. Its author hopes it's not the last

Rebecca Yarros reveals the cover of ‘Onyx Storm,’ the 3rd book in her ‘Empyrean’ series: EXCLUSIVE

• Ask LitCharts AI
• Discussion Question Generator
• Essay Prompt Generator
• Quiz Question Generator

• Literature Guides
• Poetry Guides
• Shakespeare Translations
• Literary Terms

The Secret History

Donna tartt.

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

The Secret History begins with Richard Papen revealing that he and his friends have gotten away with killing someone named Bunny . The story he is about to tell promises to reveal how and why this happened.

Richard grows up in Plano, California, the son of working-class parents. After deciding that he cannot stomach the pre-med classes at his local community college, Richard decides to apply to Hampden College, a private liberal arts school in Vermont. Richard is accepted at Hampden, where he decides to study Greek under the tutelage of Julian Morrow . Julian is an enigmatic and charismatic professor with peculiar teaching methods. He insists that he acts as academic advisor to all of his students—of which there are only six, including Richard—and that the vast majority of their classes be with him.

After becoming Julian’s pupil, Richard gets to know his fellow Greek students: Henry , Bunny, Francis , and Charles and Camilla (who are twins). Often throughout Richard’s first semester, all the Greek students go to Francis’s country house on the weekends. Richard has fond memories of these weekends, even though he will later learn that things are not entirely as they seem. Primarily, Richard spends his energy on learning Greek and hiding his background from his new friends. In particular, Henry and Francis are quite wealthy, and Richard is embarrassed about his working-class upbringing.

During winter break, Richard lives for free in a warehouse while working at school. Unfortunately, he is ill-equipped to handle winter in Vermont, and he almost dies from the cold. Luckily, Henry comes back early from a trip to Italy and lets Richard live in his apartment until school starts. While living with Henry, Richard witnesses a number of odd exchanges between Henry, Bunny, and Francis. After some sleuthing, he eventually finds out that Henry has booked four plane tickets to South America, which depart right before the start of the semester. Additionally, he doesn’t see or hear from any of the other Greek students leading up to the start of the semester. As such, Richard eagerly awaits the start of classes so that he can figure out what is going on. However, when classes start, everything appears normal. All of the other Greek students show up on time for class and greet him excitedly, albeit with some rather unconvincing excuses.

Not long after classes begin, Henry decides to tell Richard the truth. He knows that Richard found out about the flight to South America and wants to explain what happened. As it turns out, Henry and the other Greek students spent most of the previous semester performing rituals and trying to induce Dionysian madness, which is a sort of pre-civilized euphoric state associated with the Greek god Dionysus. Because Bunny was not taking their attempts seriously, the other Greek students decided that he could no longer take part in their rituals. Then, once Bunny was out of the group, the Greek students succeeded in inducing Dionysian madness. However, in doing so, they accidentally killed a local man. They got away with the crime, but Bunny eventually learned what they did and is now blackmailing them for money (though in a rather casual, friendly way). Henry is worried that they will run out of money soon, which is why he and the other Greek students considered leaving for South America. He’s also worried that Bunny will tell somebody what he knows.

Not knowing what else to do, the Greek students decide to kill Bunny. They hide out in the woods where they know he likes to walk, and when he appears, they crowd around him and Henry pushes him into a ravine. After Bunny’s murder, it takes the authorities 10 days to find his body. During that time, Henry and Charles are questioned by the FBI, but ultimately Bunny’s death is ruled to be an accident. In the days following the recovery of Bunny’s body, the Greek students go to stay at Bunny’s parents’ house and attend his funeral.

In the weeks following Bunny’s funeral, relationships begin to dissolve between the Greek students. Charles begins drinking heavily and one night he crashes Henry’s car after the two of them get into a fight. Eventually it is revealed that Charles is jealous of Henry because Henry is in a secret relationship with his sister. Previously, Charles and Camilla were in an incestuous relationship with one another, but Camilla moved out of their shared apartment because Charles became abusive after Bunny’s death. In addition, Charles worries that Henry wants to kill him, since Henry seems to think Charles might go to the police.

Around the same time, Julian tells Richard and Francis that he’s received a previously lost letter that purports to be from Bunny. The letter talks about the man that the Greek students murdered and Bunny’s apparent fear that Henry wants to murder him. Julian dismisses the letter as fake, but Richard and Francis quickly realize that it’s genuine and try to get it away from Julian before he figures out the truth. However, they fail to do so, and Henry is forced to explain to Julian everything that has happened over the past several months. In response, Julian gives Henry the letter and then flees from Hampden, never to be seen there again.

After Julian’s departure, the situation between Henry and Charles continues to escalate. In an attempt to calm Charles down, Richard and Francis take him to the country house. However, while there, Charles overhears a phone conversation between Richard and Henry that makes him paranoid. In response, he flees the country house, and no one is able to find him. Desperate for help, Richard and Francis go to the inn that Camilla is staying at, where they find Camilla and Henry. Shortly after their arrival, Charles bursts in with a gun and threatens to shoot Henry. The gun is wrestled away from him, but not before he pulls the trigger, causing Richard to be shot in the stomach. The gunshot creates an uproar at the inn, and the Greek students worry that they will end up in jail after all. However, as the innkeeper opens the door, Henry uses the gun to shoot himself twice in the head. The Greek students then use Henry’s death to explain away the situation. They tell the authorities that Richard tried and failed to stop Henry from killing himself, which is how he sustained his gun wound.

After Henry’s death, Richard is the only one to return to Hampden the following semester where he eventually graduates with an English degree before returning to California for graduate school. While writing his dissertation, Richard receives a letter from Francis that essentially functions as a suicide note. Concerned, Richard flies to Boston, where he finds Francis recovering in a hospital from an attempted suicide. Camilla also shows up, and the three of them have a brief reunion. Camilla tells Richard and Francis that she no longer speaks to Charles, but she knows that he lives in Texas with a woman he met in rehab (though both of them continue to drink). Before leaving Boston, Richard asks Camilla to marry him, but she declines because she still loves Henry. The novel ends with Richard describing one of his recent dreams featuring Henry. He dreams that he and Henry are in a museum with an exhibit that morphs into various marvels of architecture. Henry tells Richard that he is not happy where he is but then says to Richard, “you’re not very happy where you are either,” before walking away down a “long, gleaming hall.”

• Quizzes, saving guides, requests, plus so much more.

Get the Reddit app

A place for fans of Donna Tartt‘s novel, The Secret History - We encourage all sorts of discussions and posts revolving around the book. Come here to share all theories, art, thoughts, and anything else regarding the book and how you feel about it. Make sure to check out the post flairs and user flairs! For your user flair, pick the character that you’re most similar to.

Good Essays about The Secret History?

What are some good essays about The Secret History?

By continuing, you agree to our User Agreement and acknowledge that you understand the Privacy Policy .

Enter the 6-digit code from your authenticator app

You’ve set up two-factor authentication for this account.

Enter a 6-digit backup code

Create your username and password.

Reddit is anonymous, so your username is what you’ll go by here. Choose wisely—because once you get a name, you can’t change it.

Reset your password

Enter your email address or username and we’ll send you a link to reset your password

Check your inbox

An email with a link to reset your password was sent to the email address associated with your account

Choose a Reddit account to continue

• TRP for UPSC Personality Test
• Interview Mentorship Programme – 2023
• Daily News & Analysis
• Daily Current Affairs Quiz
• Baba’s Explainer
• Dedicated TLP Portal
• 60 Day – Rapid Revision (RaRe) Series – 2024
• English Magazines
• Hindi Magazines
• Yojana & Kurukshetra Gist
• Gurukul Foundation
• Gurukul Foundation – Delhi
• Gurukul Advanced
• TLP Connect – 2025
• TLP (+) Plus – 2025
• Integrated Learning Program (ILP) – 2025
• MAINS PYQs Mastery
• TLP Plus – 2024
• Sociology Foundation Course – 2025
• Sociology Test Series – 2024 (Coming Soon!)
• Public Administration FC – 2024
• Anthropology Foundation Course
• Anthropology Optional Test Series (Coming Soon!)
• Geography Optional Foundation Course
• Geography Optional Test Series – Coming Soon!
• PSIR Foundation Course
• PSIR Test Series – Coming Soon
• KPSC ಪಶುವೈದ್ಯಾಧಿಕಾರಿ (Veterinary Medical Officer – VMO) Exam 2024
• ‘Mission ಸಂಕಲ್ಪ’ – KPSC Foundation Course
• ‘Mission ಸಂಕಲ್ಪ’ – KPSC Prelims Crash Course
• Monthly Magazine
• IASbaba’s TLP 2024 (Phase 2): UPSC Mains Answer Writing – Essay Questions [24th August, 2024] – Day 62
• August 24, 2024

Question Compilation , TLP-UPSC Mains Answer Writing

Hello Students

This year onwards TLP will have a Dedicated Portal for Focused Preparation ( tlpmains.iasbaba.com ). There will be a separate dedicated portal similar to (The RaRe Series) which students loved and appreciated. The Portal will help you stay focused and keep your preparation streamlined. The Registration link for the dedicated portal is given at the end of the post.

We are charging a token amount of 10/- for registration to the dedicated portal. We are doing it because we want to create a community of sincere aspirants who are focused and motivated till the Mains Examination. Please don’t take it otherwise. It is our honest effort to give you the best and at the same time expect students to come with the same energy and dedication to the dedicated platform specially designed for YOU!

Join our bandwagon, you won’t regret it. UPSC 2025 Aspirants are encouraged to participate as well.

Register Here – CLICK HERE  

To Know More About TLP 2024 (Phase 2) – CLICK HERE

To Access Day 62 Questions – CLICK HERE 

P.S: We would encourage peer reviews. So friends get actively involved and start reviewing each other’s answers. This will keep the entire community motivated.

All the Best

• GS Mains 2024 Answer Writing , IASbaba TLP Mains Answer Writing , IASbaba’s Think Learn and Perform (TLP) 2024 Phase II ONLINE FREE Initiative , Think Learn and Perform Plus (TLP+) Program , TLP 2024 , TLP Free Initiative , UPSC IAS 2024 , UPSC Mains 2024 , UPSC Mains 2024 Answer Writing , UPSC Mains 2024 Daily Mains Answer Writing Programme IASbaba , UPSC Mains Answer Writing , UPSC Mains Answer Writing Program , UPSC Mains Preparation

Related Posts :

• DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS IAS | UPSC Prelims and Mains Exam – 23rd August 2024
• UPSC Quiz – 2024 : IASbaba’s Daily Current Affairs Quiz 24th August 2024

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address

• DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS IAS | UPSC Prelims and Mains Exam – 24th August 2024
• DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS IAS | UPSC प्रारंभिक एवं मुख्य परीक्षा – 23rd August 2024
• DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS IAS | UPSC प्रारंभिक एवं मुख्य परीक्षा – 22nd August 2024
• DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS IAS | UPSC Prelims and Mains Exam – 22nd August 2024
• UPSC Quiz – 2024 : IASbaba’s Daily Current Affairs Quiz 23rd August 2024
• IASbaba’s TLP 2024 (Phase 2): UPSC Mains Answer Writing – GS3 Questions [23rd August, 2024] – Day 61
• [UPSC MAINS 2024] TLP MAINS OPEN MOCKS (GS and ESSAY)

Search now.....

Sign up to receive regular updates.

Sign Up Now !

The Secret History

By donna tartt, the secret history summary and analysis of epilogue.

Richard spent several weeks in hospital recovering from the gunshot wound, missing Henry's funeral as a result. The story is that Henry was suicidal, Richard tried to get the gun away and was shot in the process, and then Henry killed himself anyways.

When Richard recovered, he spent the summer housesitting in Brooklyn and then returned to Hampden in the fall, switching his major to English literature. None of the other students returned: Charles and Camilla stayed in Virginia, and Francis stayed in New York. Gradually, Richard had less and less contact with them.

Richard ended up dating Sophie, a fellow Hampden student whom he had first met at Bunny's funeral. After graduation, Richard and Sophie moved back to California together, where he went to graduate school to study Jacobean tragedy and she had a job as a dancer. However, they broke up a short time later.

While Richard was studying in California, he received a letter from Francis, clearly indicating Francis's intention to commit suicide. Richard rushed to Boston, where Francis was in hospital, recovering from having tried to kill himself. Francis explained that he had hidden his identity as a gay man from his conservative family, but his grandfather had found out and threatened to cut Francis off financially unless Francis married a woman. Francis reluctantly got engaged, but the strain of the secrecy led to his suicide attempt.

Camilla joined them (she had also received a letter from Francis) and the three friends spent several days together in Boston. Camilla explained that Charles had continued to struggle with alcoholism, and had gone to rehab. He met a woman there, and the two of them have been living in a small town in Texas. Charles and Camilla no longer had contact.

Before he left Boston, Richard proposed to Camilla but she turned him down. Camilla had devoted her whole life to taking care of her sick and elderly aunt. She also explained that she still loves Henry. Distraught, Richard parted from Camilla and drove back to California alone.

At the end of the novel, Richard provides updates on the lives of various minor characters in the novel. Julian had never been in contact with any of his students, and had declined to attend Henry's funeral. Francis went ahead with marrying his fiancée, and lives with her in New York. Finally, Richard recounts a dream in which he meets with Henry in some sort of underworld or afterlife. Henry seems trapped in some sort of limbo, and acknowledges that he is unhappy, but also points out that Richard is not happy either.

Henry's death completes the disintegration of the clique, which had been gradually fragmenting ever since the bacchanal ritual. Although Richard's experience of Hampden College at first seemed inseparable from the influence of Julian and the other Greek students, he ends up completing the rest of his education in a much more ordinary fashion. Richard's lack of description of this period of his life shows that it was not particularly influential for him; as he notes, his identity was so strongly formed during his first year at Hampden that there was almost no room for him to change or grow after that. Richard's relationship with Sophie at first seems like it might be a step forward: a romantic relationship could signal that he is stepping into a kind of adult maturity, and developing emotional intimacy with someone who does not know anything about his dark past. However, the relationship fails because Richard is not capable of moving forward; he is trapped by his secrets, and can't be close to anyone who doesn't know them.

Likewise, Richard's subsequent academic work shows a preoccupation with the past more than a move towards a new future. The Jacobean tragedies which he studies are deeply indebted to Classical tragedy, and have themes of jealousy, murder, and violent death. Richard's preoccupation with these texts shows that he continues to dwell on the traumatic events of his time at Hampden. The unbroken and unending guilt reveals that while on the surface, Richard and the other have gotten away with their crime, they are actually experiencing perhaps the most excruciating type of punishment because they must live with it forever in their own minds. As Francois Pauw writes, "In fact, the psychological disintegration of the five guilty students is probably even more excruciating than the physical dismemberment of Pentheus [a character in a Greek tragedy]: the latter's gory demise [has] a terminus, whereas the suffering of Richard and his friends has a Sisyphean quality to it" (149). Sisyphus was a character in Greek mythology who was condemned to a punishment of perpetually trying to roll a boulder up a hill, only to have it slide down. This oppressive and neverending repetition perfectly captures the cycle of trauma that Richard is ensnared in.

Francis, Camilla, and Charles are all haunted in various ways by their past, and they become even more strikingly frozen in the past. Because Richard does not have family money, he has to maintain at least the guise of moving forward with his life, completing his degree and going on to graduate school, presumably with the goal of eventually working as a professor. Charles, Camilla, and Francis never live up to their intellectual potential, and don't even complete their degrees.

Camilla, most strikingly, seems to commit to a life of seclusion and self-abnegation, living in isolation and taking care of her aunt. While her inner thoughts are not revealed, it seems that Camilla might be punishing herself for her role in the conflict between Charles and Henry, and Henry's death. Strikingly, when Camilla turns down Richard's proposal, she cites her loyalty to Henry. The others might be trapped by guilt, but Camilla is also trapped by love. She can't move forward, or attempt to build a relationship with anyone else.

The theme of being frozen in the past is most strikingly exemplified by Richard's dream of Henry. Henry seems to be stuck in some sort of limbo-like state, mentioning that he has trouble with his passport and can't move about. This odd comment might reflect Richard's subconscious feeling of being restricted, and unable to move forward with his life due to being trapped in the past. The comment might also reflect the role Henry occupies, because he is still such a vivid presence for his friends. Various mythologies suggest that ghosts or souls linger until their loss is accepted, and they can be released. Henry continues to have a liminal, ghostly kind of existence because he occupies such a strong place in Richard's life. Ultimately, Richard is living a life that is just as ghostly as the one he imagines for Henry. He is barely real, and untethered from the present because he can only find meaning in the past.

The Secret History Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Secret History is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for The Secret History

The Secret History study guide contains a biography of Donna Tartt, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Secret History
• The Secret History Summary
• Character List

Lesson Plan for The Secret History

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to The Secret History
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• The Secret History Bibliography