What’s in it for me? An unconventional murder mystery.
The Secret History is the story of a murder committed by a group of students at a New England college in the 1980s.
That’s not a spoiler, by the way – we know most of those details from the first page.
Donna Tartt’s novel has been described as “a murder mystery in reverse.
” The mystery is not “who” or “how” but “why.
” Why would a group of students murder their friend?
The motives for the murder emerge gradually, as we learn about the group of friends and their complicated relationships with each other.
This novel is not just an unconventional murder mystery; it’s also a psychological study of friendship and power dynamics.
What is it that binds these people together?
There’s also another element that makes this story so unique – the role of Greek tragedy.
The main characters in The Secret History are Classics students, who find inspiration in works like The Bacchae by Euripides – an ancient tale of murder and madness that still shocks today.
The Secret History is dark and disturbing.
There are no conventional heroes here.
But more than three decades after the novel’s publication, the characters are as fascinating as ever.
So, let’s meet these friends – although you may soon be thinking, “With friends like these, who needs enemies?
” In this Blink, we’ll follow their story – as well as offer a series of brief analyses of the character dynamics at play.
By the way, if you’d like to listen to a short plot summary right away, you can also skip to the very last section.
The Classics class
The Secret History begins with a murder.
The narrator, Richard Papen, reveals that years ago, he was involved in the death of a man named Bunny – a murder made to look like a hiking accident.
We don’t yet know who Bunny is, or why he was killed.
But gradually, all will be revealed.
It began, Richard tells us, with the Classics class at Hampden College in Vermont.
Richard is an ordinary young man from California.
When he arrives at Hampden College, he finds himself drawn to the small, somewhat eccentric group of students who are studying Classics.
They seem unapproachable, which only makes them more intriguing.
Richard wants to be part of the class – and part of the world they inhabit.
This cliquey group consists of just five students.
First, there’s Francis – an elegantly dressed boy from a wealthy Catholic family.
Then there are Charles and Camilla – an ethereal-looking pair who Richard initially mistakes for boyfriend and girlfriend.
They’re actually twins.
Next, there’s Henry.
He looks serious, even expressionless.
He’s rumored to be a genius.
And finally, there’s Bunny – a loud, cheerful boy who’s often joking around … and who we know will later end up dead.
The class is taught by a charismatic professor, Julian.
Although Julian is initially reluctant to admit another student, Richard manages to join the class.
Julian’s lessons are captivating.
In one particularly memorable Greek class, he leads a discussion on divine madness and the loss of the self.
These are ideas that fascinate us all, says Julian.
There’s something terrifying yet beautiful about completely losing control – just like the worshippers of the wine god Dionysus in The Bacchae, the Greek tragedy by Euripides.
How wonderful, says Julian, to experience the ecstasy of pure being.
The students are left spellbound.
ANALYSIS Apart from the hints about Bunny’s murder – which we’ll come back to in a moment – The Secret History seems almost conventional to begin with.
Here we have a classic coming-of-age story from the perspective of a fairly average young man, Richard.
He’s at an important stage of his life – starting college, forming his identity, finding his friends, and diving deeper into his interests.
This is someone that most of us can probably relate to, even if we’ve never studied Greek.
And we can understand Richard’s fascination.
Julian is a gifted teacher whose Greek classes are stimulating and thought-provoking.
When class discussions involve ideas about ritual madness and experiencing total freedom through the loss of self, well, it’s no wonder Richard walks out the classroom feeling dizzy and exhilarated.
Tartt shows us just how exciting Greek literature can be, opening up new worlds and possibilities.
We also share Richard’s curiosity about his enigmatic new classmates.
Like him, we want to know more about this strange, close-knit group, who dress eccentrically and seem to live separately from the rest of the college.
Who are these people?
What are their relationships with one another?
And what do they get up to outside of class?
In particular, we’re focused on Bunny and his relations with the rest of the group.
We know that he’ll later be murdered by the people who seem to be his friends – but when, exactly?
And most importantly, why?
There are still a lot of unanswered questions.
And for now, Tartt keeps us guessing.
The bacchanal
Over alcohol-fueled evenings and lazy weekends in the country, Richard gradually becomes friends with the other Classics students.
Even as he gets to know the group better as individuals, he still sees them through rose-tinted glasses.
His new friends seem so interesting, charming, and intelligent.
But are they really what they appear to be?
For instance, Bunny presents himself as being wealthy.
But when he goes out for an expensive lunch with Richard, he’s unable to pay.
It turns out that Bunny is basically penniless, and is used to sponging off others.
Although Richard has become part of the group, the others still seem mysterious.
And he suspects that they’re keeping secrets from him.
There are hints here and there.
Whispered conversations, tension between Bunny and Henry after a trip to Rome… And, most suspicious of all, Richard discovers that Henry has secretly booked four one-way tickets to Argentina.
What’s going on?
Eventually, through a conversation with Henry, Richard finds out the shocking truth.
Inspired by their Greek class, four members of the group – Henry, Francis, Charles, and Camilla – took part in a bacchanal in the woods.
They wanted to see the god Dionysus and experience divine madness and a loss of self, just as it’s described in Greek literature.
The ritual worked, says Henry.
But the four of them were so out of control that they accidentally killed a man – a farmer who happened to stumble across the scene.
At first, they thought they would be able to get away with it.
But then Bunny found out.
Recently, while on a trip to Rome, Bunny read Henry’s diary and discovered that his friends had killed a man.
And now, Henry explains, Bunny is upset.
He feels hurt that his friends excluded him and kept this enormous secret.
So now, he’s making their lives hell – behaving erratically, and essentially blackmailing them.
He keeps asking the others for money, and they feel that they can’t say no.
They’re all terrified, says Henry, that Bunny will reveal their secret.
Although the group feels guilty about killing the farmer, they don’t want to end up in prison.
So, what are they going to do about Bunny?
ANALYSIS It’s a shocking idea – a group of students killing a stranger in a Dionysian ritual.
But what’s really surprising is how plausible it seems in the context of the story.
Many young people seek thrills and new experiences, often through sex, drink, or drugs.
For Henry, Francis, Charles, and Camilla, that was how the bacchanal started out – curiosity and a hunger for experience.
Then things got out of control.
But although the group didn’t intend to kill the farmer, they don’t show much regret or remorse.
Henry in particular comes across as being disturbingly unemotional and amoral.
This is also the section of the novel where an important theme emerges – secrets.
The events of the bacchanal were initially meant to be kept a secret from both Bunny and Richard.
When Bunny finds out – through reading Henry’s diary – he’s upset that the secret was withheld by someone he considers a close friend.
Feeling hurt and excluded, Bunny starts causing trouble within the group.
But Richard’s reaction to the secret is quite different.
Remember, he finds out about the bacchanal because Henry tells him.
Although Richard is appalled by the story, we also sense that part of him is pleased to have been let in on the secret.
As a relative newcomer to the group, it makes him feel included and brings him closer to the others.
This is one of the key ideas in The Secret History.
Secrets, whether kept or revealed, can make or break a friendship.
The murder
Bunny appears to be becoming increasingly unstable, suffering from mood swings and picking fights with everyone.
And around this time, another side of his personality emerges – a side which was always there, but which now becomes much clearer.
Bunny is mean.
Spiteful.
He seems to delight in taunting his friends, and he knows how to touch a nerve.
Over and over again, he targets the things they’re most sensitive about – such as Charles’s drinking problem and Francis’s homosexuality.
Shockingly, he even insinuates that the relationship between the twins, Charles and Camilla, is incestuous.
Bunny’s friends start to hate him.
And, of course, they’re getting more and more worried that in his disturbed, vindictive state, Bunny might tell someone about the killing of the farmer.
So when Henry suggests getting rid of Bunny – perhaps through a dose of poisonous mushrooms – the others are on board.
Drastic action now seems necessary.
They need to plan carefully and choose the right moment.
But then, Bunny does something alarming.
He gets drunk and tells Richard about the bacchanal and the farmer.
Of course, he has no idea that Richard already knows.
The fact that Bunny is speaking so openly – and acting so unpredictably – is deeply worrying.
When Richard tells the others about his conversation with Bunny, they agree that there’s no time to waste.
They have to kill Bunny as soon as possible.
Henry comes up with the plan.
Tomorrow, he says, Bunny will probably go for his usual walk in the woods.
They can do it there, and make it look like an accident.
So the next day, the group of friends meets Bunny in the woods, near a ravine.
He’s surprised to see them.
“What are you all doing out here?
” he asks.
Then Henry takes a step toward him… Seconds later, Bunny is lying at the bottom of the ravine.
His neck is broken.
And for now, the group’s problem has been solved.
Their secrets are safe.
ANALYSIS We’ve known from the beginning that Bunny’s death was coming.
It was inevitable – just like many characters’ fates in Greek tragedies.
We can guess at the outcome from the beginning – that the hero’s pride, or some other aspect of their personality, will ultimately lead to their downfall.
Bunny certainly isn’t a hero.
But he could be a character from a Greek tragedy.
We see how his own personality and behavior lead to his murder.
Richard admits that Bunny’s murder was a terrible thing that can’t really be justified.
And yet, in the moment, it was surprisingly easy.
Also, despite everything, Richard doesn’t consider himself or his friends to be evil people.
What makes The Secret History so powerful, and so disturbing at times, is that we see things from the murderers’ perspective.
We may not agree with what they did, but to an extent, we now understand why.
Before we move on and see how the story ends, let’s take a moment to consider how the theme of secrecy is developing.
Bunny dies – or unwittingly brings about his own murder – because of secrets.
He can’t be trusted to keep quiet about the killing of the farmer.
And he taunts his friends about their individual secrets.
As a result, the others have a motivation to murder him.
Ironically, Bunny’s death means that his friends now share a new secret – one that will ultimately lead to the group unraveling.
The aftermath
Bunny’s corpse is found by a dog-walker days later.
The police investigate, but no one is arrested.
And after a while, it seems like the group has gotten away with it.
Life goes on.
They even go back to their lessons with Julian.
However, it soon becomes clear that things have changed.
Bunny’s murder has put the group under enormous pressure.
Existing problems worsen, such as Charles’s drinking problem and the tension between him and Henry, which is caused by jealousy.
It turns out that Henry is in a secret relationship with Charles’s twin sister, Camilla.
And it’s revealed that the twins also have a sexual relationship.
The dynamics between the group are more complex and dysfunctional than Richard could have ever imagined.
Then, weeks after the murder, something truly unexpected happens.
Their professor, Julian, receives a letter from Bunny.
It includes details about the killing of the farmer, and Bunny’s fears that Henry wants to kill him.
At first, Julian thinks the letter is a hoax.
But then he sees the letterhead.
The paper is from Bunny and Henry’s hotel in Rome.
So the letter must be genuine.
Julian is so horrified by this realization – or so keen to distance himself from the crimes committed by his students – that he leaves the campus.
Meanwhile, Charles’s drinking is out of control, and his relationship with Henry becomes broken beyond repair.
One night, Charles goes missing.
After searching for him unsuccessfully, Francis and Richard give up and go to the hotel where Henry and Camilla are staying.
Just as the group is discussing what to do, Charles arrives in a drunken rage with a gun, and accuses Henry of ruining his life.
There’s a heated confrontation.
Henry overpowers Charles, and takes the gun.
And then, after kissing Camilla goodbye, Henry puts the gun to his head, and pulls the trigger.
… The exact motive for Henry’s suicide is unclear.
Richard speculates that it was Henry’s idea of a “noble gesture,” inspired by the principles he’d learned from his Greek class.
Henry’s death leads to the disintegration of the group.
Without him, the others drift apart and lose touch.
Years later, Richard dreams of meeting Henry in a strange, futuristic museum.
Henry admits that he isn’t happy.
But, he says, he knows that Richard isn’t happy either.
ANALYSIS By the end, the group’s secrets have been revealed – murder, incest, and Henry and Camilla’s romantic relationship, to name just a few.
To an extent, it was these secrets that bound the group together.
And once they’re revealed, everything falls apart.
It seems that beyond these secrets, and their shared interest in Greek literature, the friends didn’t have that much in common.
Often, they didn’t even like each other.
Was this real friendship?
Maybe not.
But by the end, it’s clear that there was also something else that united the group – Henry.
In hindsight, he was their leader.
He was the one who initiated the murder plot, after all, and actually killed Bunny.
In a way, Henry is the true protagonist of The Secret History – the anti-hero.
So, what are we to make of the ending?
The museum in Richard’s dream, where he meets Henry, seems to represent purgatory.
Or perhaps it’s a version of the underworld from Greek mythology.
Maybe it doesn’t really matter that Henry is dead, while Richard is still alive.
What difference does it make if they’re both in a kind of purgatory?
We’re also told that the other surviving characters, Francis, Charles, and Camilla, are living unfulfilling lives.
Ultimately, the group’s punishment for Bunny’s murder is not a prison sentence, but their inability to find happiness.
Final Summary
As a young man, Richard Papen goes to college in Vermont, New England, and studies Classics in a course led by a charismatic professor.
Richard is intrigued by his enigmatic classmates, who gradually become his friends.
His friendship with the group is transformed when he discovers a shocking secret.
Inspired by the Greek literature they’d been reading, four of the friends took part in a ritual that led to the accidental killing of a farmer.
Another member of the group, Bunny, finds out what his friends did and starts blackmailing them.
The others, including Richard, decide to murder him.
During a walk in the woods, they push Bunny into a ravine, so it looks like an accident.
In the aftermath of the murder, other secrets are revealed, and relationships deteriorate.
During a confrontation, another member of the group, Henry, commits suicide.
Ultimately, the group gets away with killing both the farmer and Bunny.
But by the end, the surviving members have drifted apart and seem to be living unhappy, unfulfilling lives.