The Superficiality of Appearances

Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside of literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.

Richard begins his retelling of the story in Chapter 1 by explaining his fatal flaw of being extremely susceptible to outward appearances no matter what. Having grown up in California, what he saw as a world of mass production and blacktop, Richard is drawn to beauty, especially that of ancient and romantic nature. For this reason, he is convinced to leave his entire life behind when he comes upon the brochure for Hampden College, captivated by the images of the verdant campus and the thought of belonging to an elite and exclusive institution. This same longing for the picturesque is then what drives Richard right into the conflict of the novel, as he is so charmed by Julian and his students and their superficial beauty that he doesn’t see their essential darkness. Richard’s admission of this quality as a fatal flaw shows how taking appearances at face value can lead to devastating consequences. 

All of a sudden I found myself able to see him as the world saw him, as I myself had seen him when I first met him—cool, well-mannered, rich, absolutely beyond reproach. It was such a convincing illusion that even I, who knew the essential falseness of it, felt oddly comforted.

In Chapter 6, after the group has killed Bunny, Francis comes to Richard’s dorm room and kisses him until they are interrupted by Charles. As they discuss the matter of when Bunny’s body might be found, Richard regards Francis, thinking of how effortlessly charming he appears to others. Even though Richard is aware that Francis participated in a murder only hours before, and even though he was put off by Francis’s advances only minutes before, Richard still cannot help but be impressed by Francis’s outward appearance. It doesn’t even matter that Richard knows it is entirely an act. This admission shows not only how deceived Richard is by appearances, but also how he can see his friends as others might see them. Francis’s privileged aura dispels the notion that he could be guilty of anything, which is ultimately what protects the group from being suspected of Bunny’s murder.

No doubt his personal life was as flawed as anyone’s, but the only side of himself he ever allowed us to see was polished to such a high gloss of perfection that it seemed when he was away from us he must lead an existence too rarefied for me to even imagine.

As Henry and Richard go to look for Julian at his house in Chapter 6, Richard thinks of how, despite all the time they spent together, he did not know anything about Julian’s personal life. Looking back, Richard can see that Julian’s life was not as picturesque as he assumed at the time. However, Julian kept a safe distance from his students, seemingly in part to create the illusion that his life was nothing but perfect. Richard, who was vulnerable to the belief that others were leading lives more filled with beauty than his own, had no trouble believing this at the time. However, now knowing Julian’s role in what happened to the farmer and Bunny, Richard realizes that Julian was not as flawless as he purported himself to be. Just as Richard took his friends at face value, so he did with Julian, idolizing him as a professor to be looked up to rather than regarding him as a flawed human.

The Consequences of Secrets

Now the searchers have departed, and life has grown quiet around me, I have come to realize that while for years I might have imagined myself to be somewhere else, in reality I have been there all the time: up at the top by the muddy wheel-ruts in the new grass, where the sky is dark over the shivering apple blossoms and the first chill of the snow that will fall that night is already in the air.

In the novel’s prologue, Richard begins his narration of the story by explaining why he must tell it, even after many years have passed and he and his friends have long since gotten away with Bunny’s murder. Despite having moved on from Hampden College and losing touch with his classmates, Richard feels he has never truly left the place where Bunny fell to his death as he and the others looked on. Although at the time the students all justified the reason they believed Bunny had to die, none of them was ever able to truly move on from what they did. Richard’s detailed description of the night and the setting in which Buddy was murdered shows how much Richard is still haunted not only by his complicity but also by keeping this dark secret. Untold secrets never truly disappear but instead, linger and plague people. 

That is to say: I wanted to maintain the illusion that their dealings with me were completely straightforward; that we were all friends, and no secrets, though the plain fact of it was that there were plenty of things they didn’t let me in on and would not for some time.

In Chapter 3, after Richard begins going to Francis’s country house with the others on weekends, he feels he has finally been accepted as part of the group. However, he also knows that, despite this supposed acceptance and the apparent closeness of the six students, there are secrets the others are keeping from him, just as Richard is keeping his lower-middle-class background a secret from them. This acknowledgment doesn’t come from the benefit of hindsight. Richard admits he knew it at the time. The fact that Richard was aware that secrets were being kept from him from the very beginning shows how unequal the friendship between him and the others was, even though Richard admits he wanted to maintain the illusion that it was honest and open. The secrets eventually undermine the relationship he has with each of the other students, showing how, while secrets can bring some people closer together, they can also create a distance that alienates others.

Who were these people? How well did I know them? Could I trust any of them, really, when it came right down to it?

These thoughts occur to Richard in Chapter 5, after he learns of the bacchanal that his friends indulged in and what happened to the farmer as a consequence. Richard’s initial reaction is to fall asleep on Francis’s couch, but when he wakes up, he begins to wonder how well he actually knows any of his friends. Learning that they were capable of killing a man and then covering it up leads Richard to think of what other secrets the students could be hiding and whether his trust in them has been misplaced. However, as one of their friends, Richard is expected to keep their murderous secret, and he does. By initially keeping this secret from Richard, only to let him in on it once their relationship has been established, Henry has ensured Richard’s loyalty to them. For Henry, secrets—and their revelation—can be used as a tactic of manipulation.

Reality Versus Illusion

His students—if they were any mark of his tutelage—were imposing enough, and different as they all were they shared a certain coolness, a cruel, mannered charm which was not modern in the least but had a strange cold breath of the ancient world[.]

After Richard is initially rejected by Professor Julian Morrow in Chapter 1 and told he cannot join Julian’s Greek class because the class size is restricted to five, Richard learns more about Julian from his classmates. Richard also begins observing Julian’s students—Henry, Bunny, Francis, Charles, and Camilla—around campus. Richard seems to view these five students not quite as his peers, the way he sees other Hampden students, but as mythological figures of ancient Greece. This persona is exactly the impression that Julian’s students want to exhibit to the rest of the campus. They seem to view themselves more as characters playing a part in a Greek tragedy than as merely typical college students. This collective illusion captivates Richard. He sees Julian’s students as somehow more than human, somehow more important, alluring, and fascinating than anyone else he might meet on campus. The fact that Richard is so charmed by the five shows how susceptible he is to outward appearances, even when those appearances are unrealistic. 

She was a living reverie for me: the mere sight of her sparked an almost infinite range of fantasy, from Greek to Gothic, from vulgar to divine.

These romantic thoughts are expressed by Richard in Chapter 2, at the country house of Francis’s family one weekend. Richard admires Camilla as they walk to the lake. She inspires in him thoughts of unlimited fantasy; in fact, Camilla looks more like part of a dream to him than a real person. Almost from the first time he meets her, Richard has been in love with Camilla, not because of her personality but because of her outward beauty and her status in his eyes as an almost mythological figure. Camilla is likely aware of this effect she has on Richard, and it is deliberate on her part. Like Henry, she makes an effort to appear as though she is more of a fictitious being than an actual person. All of Julian’s students try to blur the lines between reality and illusion in this way, and they ultimately value the illusion they create over reality.

He, in some senses, was the author of this drama and he had waited in the wings a long while for this moment, when he could step onto the stage and assume the role he’d written for himself[.]

After Henry is questioned by the FBI agents about Bunny’s disappearance in Chapter 6, Richard thinks of how Henry did well under their questioning. Richard realizes that, to Henry, what happened to Bunny was simply a story like those the students read in Greek class. This story, however, was one that Henry wrote, directed, and starred in himself. Henry views his own life as a role in a Greek drama more than an actual life governed by morals and marked by consequences. This unrealistic attitude also explains why Henry did not seem to feel any guilt over the murders of the farmer and Bunny. To Henry, those two were merely side characters who had to die for him to fulfill the role of the tragic hero.

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