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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Secret History, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Human Capacity for Violence
Intellectual Pursuits and Reasonability
Guilt
Manipulation and Paranoia
Beauty and Terror
Class and Identity
Summary
Analysis
Henry’s mother comes to see Richard in the hospital to thank him for trying to save her son. Richard quickly works out that the new working story is that Henry was suicidal, and Richard was inadvertently shot while trying to save him. Henry’s mother gifts Richard Henry’s car before leaving. After he gets out of the hospital, Richard spends his summer housesitting in Brooklyn and reading. The following fall, Richard returns to school and eventually gets a degree in English. He is the only one of Julian’s former students to return.
In the wake of Henry’s death, the students officially disband, as only Richard returns to Hampden. Here, the novel provides a brief look at Henry’s mother, though she doesn’t reveal anything new about Henry.
Themes
Richard fails to keep in close contact with his former friends. However, he does start dating Sophie Dearbold during his senior year of college. After graduating, the two of them move back to California together. Unfortunately, their relationship doesn’t last long because Sophie finds Richard “uncommunicative,” and she is scared of the way he looks at her when he wakes up. While in California, Richard goes to graduate school and studies Jacobean tragedies, a project he largely enjoys.
Finally, Richard enters into a relationship, albeit an unsuccessful one. More successful, however, is his newfound interest in Jacobean tragedy, which he probably finds all too relatable. Jacobean tragedies, after all, are full of violent deaths and guilt-stricken characters; they also tend to focus on revenge, so it’s possible that Richard’s interest in these plays is a manifestation of his subconscious feeling that he deserves punishment for what he has done.
Themes
While writing his dissertation, Richard gets a letter from Francis that is essentially a suicide note. Richard travels to Boston, where he finds Francis in a hospital after a failed suicide attempt. Francis is miserable because his grandfather found out that he is gay and is forcing him to marry a woman he finds repulsive. If Francis refuses, his grandfather will not give him any more money. Francis doesn’t think he can live without his inheritance, which annoys Richard.
Although Francis can live with the guilt of what he has done in the past, doing so without money is apparently too much for him to bear. It is unsurprising that this annoys Richard, who carries the same baggage without the added wealth.
Themes
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The next day, Camilla arrives, and the three friends share a brief reunion. Camilla tells Francis and Richard that she is no longer on speaking terms with Charles and does not know his exact location. As far as she knows, he is living with Texas with a woman he met in rehab. Both of them still regularly drink. Meanwhile, Camilla’s life now revolves around taking care of her grandmother who is sick and on the verge of death. Before Camilla departs, Richard asks her to marry him. Camilla says that she can’t, at first citing her grandmother and then her continued love for Henry. Saddened by this result, Richard returns to California.
Everyone’s lives have gone downhill since Bunny’s death. Though Camilla and Richard are both keeping their heads above water, neither of them is over the past. Richard thinks that their one path forward is together, but Camilla cannot bring herself to accept his offer. Indeed, it seems unlikely that their marriage would fix anything.
Themes
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Richard ends his story by relating a dream he had recently. The dream takes place in “a strange, deserted city . . . underpopulated by war or disease.” Richard walks through the city, where he finds a museum-like building where men are standing around and looking at an exhibit. The exhibit is “a machine with metal parts that slid in and collapsed in upon themselves to form new images. An Inca temple . . . click click click . . . the Pyramids . . . the Parthenon.” While looking at the exhibit, Richard sees Henry. Richard asks Henry if he is happy, and Henry replies that he is not. However, he also tells Richard, “You’re not very happy where you are either.” Richard watches the exhibit morph into different cities. As he does so, Henry excuses himself and walks down a “long, gleaming hall.”
Richard’s dream acts as a sort of purgatory that both he and Henry are stuck in. Both are transfixed by the past, represented by the museum exhibit, while being forced to exist in the present. Ultimately, there is no escape for Richard; he feels guilty about what he has done, and this guilt seems as though it will define the rest of his life.
Themes
