User:Rayaxj/The Secret History

Article Draft
words in bold are my additions

The Classics
The Secret History partially draws its inspiration on the 5th-century BC Greek tragedy, The Bacchae, by Euripides.[4]

According to Michiko Kakutani, some aspects of the novel reflect Nietzsche's model of Apollonian and Dionysian expression in The Birth of Tragedy. Kakutani, writing for the New York Times, said "in The Secret History, Ms. Tartt manages to make...melodramatic and bizarre events (involving Dionysian rites and intimations of satanic power) seem entirely plausible."[5] Because the author introduces the murder and those responsible at the outset, critic A. O. Scott labeled it "a murder mystery in reverse."[6] In 2013, John Mullan wrote an essay for The Guardian titled "Ten Reasons Why We Love Donna Tartt's The Secret History", which includes "It starts with a murder," "It is in love with Ancient Greece," "It is full of quotations," and "It is obsessed with beauty."[7]

'''The main characters' romantic and sometimes hedonistic lifestyles spiraling into moral ruin has prompted questions surrounding the portrayal of the Classics discipline. Sophie Mills describes Tartt's depiction of the Classics as nuanced: in an 2005 article, Mills said the Classics are portrayed as an "enemy of the ordinary: intriguing, stimulating, and individualistic, perhaps, but even more, exclusive, curiously cold, and impractical."'''

Beauty
Hailed for its stylistic qualities and atmospheric prose, '''"beauty is terror" is a recurrent idea throughout the text. Richard admits he has a "morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs", a reason he is drawn to the aesthetic appeal and mystique of the Classics students upon his arrival at Hampden and chooses to change his academic interest to the Classics. It is Julian's teachings of the Classics, ethics, and aesthetic philosophy that influence Henry, Camilla, Charles, and Francis to commit an act of Dionysian revelry, which ends with the murder of a farmer and their spiral into moral ruin. In terms of the text's form, Kakutani calls Tartt's prose "supple" and "decorous."'''

Elitism and Indulgence
'''Often lying about his working-class past in order to fit in with his wealthier classmates, Richard conforms to the lavish lifestyles of his peers. Richard is the only student on scholarship in his social circle, which pressures him to conform with his classmates to the point of idealization. This is successful, considering his eventual mobility in the group as a trusted peer after Bunny's death. However, this closeness later leads him further along the path of what Kakutani calls "duplicity and sin."'''

Disillusionment
'''Limited to Richard's perspective of his classmates, readers follow his gradual discovery of their true motives. At first, Richard finds the five students alluring and elite, but he learns of their heinous acts and acts of moral corruption as events unfold and their secrets are revealed.'''

'''Richard is drawn to the five Classics students due to their air of mystique, exclusivity, and aesthetic appeal, but, by the end of the novel, he has realized their true natures. Bunny, initially portrayed as charismatic and friendly, is later revealed to have been blackmailing his peers. Henry is initially portrayed as cold but inherently compassionate but later shown to be near-sociopathic in his plots to murder Bunny and hide the crime. Francis seems aloof and confident to Richard at the start of the novel but is later overtaken by bouts of anxiety and worry. Camilla, initially portrayed as innocent, is later revealed to be deeply calculating, and Charles, first portrayed as kind and amicable, later spirals into drunken violence and chaos.'''

'''Considering the influence of his teachings on the students, Julian's character is also a source of disillusionment in the novel. Initially portrayed as an arcane yet assuring mentor figure with a wide breadth of knowledge, after learning his students were responsible for Bunny's murder, he flees the country without warning.'''

Basis
Between 2019 and 2021, Journalist Lili Anolik has interviewed old Bennington classmates of Tartt's and found that several characters are based quite vividly upon real people: Julian upon Claude Fredericks, Henry upon Todd O'Neal, Bunny upon Matt Jacobsen,[13][14] and Judy Poovey upon Michelle Matland.[15] '''With inspiration drawn from Vermont and Bennington College, Tartt's alma mater, the book's setting and inspiration is suspected to have been drawn from real life. According to O’Neal, the basis for Henry, the novel is “a work of thinly veiled reality—a roman à clef."  According to Claude Fredricks, Tartt’s previous Classics professor and whom the book is dedicated to, the novel is “a betrayal."'''