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Dramatic Irony
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—The Dionysian Ritual:
When Richard finally guesses the reason for the Greek students' strange behavior, Henry decides to tell him what really happened that fated fall night. In a flashback, Henry recounts the events of the Dionysian ritual:
I looked down at my hand and saw it was covered with blood, and worse than blood. Then Charles stepped forward and knelt at something at my feet, and I bent down, too, and saw that it was a man. He was dead. […] And his neck was broken, and, unpleasant to say, his brains were all over his face. Really, I do not know how that happened. […] Charles tells a different story. […] Francis—well, I can’t say. Every time you talk to him, he remembers something different.
Henry tells the full story of the ritual, a flashback that spans several pages. In his recollections, Henry includes the many attempts to perfect the ritual. The fact that the ritual itself led to such chaos suggests right off the bat that the ritual did, in fact, work. In his story, Henry tries to accommodate all of the perspectives of the night’s events. He particularly recounts the moment that they all came to their senses and realized they killed a farmer.
The frame story clues Richard into the minds of the Greek students and helps him understand why they covered up the murder. Even though Richard has his suspicions, this moment shows him that the Greek students are not inherently evil or immoral people. The murder was not premeditated, and it was certainly not intended. By illustrating his fear in the moment and the gory details of the farmer's corpse, Henry gives himself an element of sympathy that the reader perhaps did not feel towards him before.
Related Themes:
