The Secret History Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

Chapter 2 Summary: Chapter 2

On Saturday Richard dresses for lunch with Bunny, though finds it is too hot for his best jacket. In the bathroom, he runs into Judy Poovey, who has been trying to sleep with him. After Richard tells her he is going to lunch with Bunny, Judy tells him a story about being confronted by Henry, Bunny, and the twins at a party. Judy then offers Richard a jacket she bought to alter, as she is a costume design major. Richard takes the jacket and then meets Bunny, and they take a taxi into town. Bunny compliments the jacket but tells Richard it is the wrong time of year to be wearing silk. They go to lunch, where Bunny makes several homophobic remarks about their waiter and orders a good deal of food and drinks. When the bill arrives, Bunny claims to have forgotten his wallet and asks Richard to pay, but Richard does not have the money for such an expensive meal. Bunny then calls Henry, who comes to pay the bill and drives Bunny and Richard home. After dropping Bunny off, Henry tells Richard that neglecting to pay is a habit of Bunny’s, but he reminds Richard that Bunny paid for their taxi to the restaurant.

The next day, the twins invite Richard to dinner at their apartment with Bunny, Henry, and Francis. Richard, hungover from his meal with Bunny, feels sick and bored by the conversation. He leaves early, sleeps straight until the next morning, and arrives late to class. Richard goes to talk to Julian that afternoon. However, approaching Julian’s office, he overhears Julian talking to Henry about doing something necessary. For the next week, Richard feels lonely and depressed. At a party, Camilla finds him and invites him to go to the country with her and Francis, whose family has a house about an hour away. Richard agrees, and they meet up there with Charles, Henry, and Bunny. Richard remembers that first weekend as when his memories of his time at Hampden first began to solidify because it was when he was officially accepted as part of the group. They spent most of their time at school together but were happiest at the country house, where they would spend entire weekends drunk. Looking back, Richard wonders at how he did not know what was happening, though he realized he was occasionally left out of things the five of them did on their own.

Richard recalls one day in the country in particular. Richard, Henry, Francis, and Camilla walked to the lake and waded in barefoot, where Camilla stepped on a shard of glass. As Camilla was bleeding badly, Henry carried her back to the house, then pulled the shard out of her foot while Francis tended to the injury and then drove her to the hospital. That afternoon, while playing cards, Richard proclaims that he wishes they could live at the country house, and Charles discusses how Francis could buy the house so they could all live there together. Richard remembers hearing Bunny laugh while playing croquet with Henry, a sound that haunts him to this day.

Analysis: Chapter 2

As Richard gets to know Bunny better during their lunch, it is revealed that Richard is far from the only character who is conscious of appearance. Bunny, whose family once had money but no longer does, is aware of social norms that Richard is not, and he uses this knowledge to needle Richard’s insecurities about his background—first by commenting on Richard’s jacket and then by making Richard reveal he could not pay the restaurant bill. In this way, Bunny and Richard are two sides of the same coin. Neither has money to spare, but Bunny exercises his old-money status to swindle his friends, while Richard tries to fit in without drawing attention to himself. Focusing so heavily on appearances not only nearly gets Bunny and Richard into trouble when they are unable to pay at the restaurant, but it also keeps them from actually getting to know one another. Their misplaced priority shows how dangerous and distracting appearances can be.

In Chapter 2, Richard goes from experiencing intense isolation to friendships with the other students in Julian’s class. Richard rejects the people who do want to spend time with him, such as Judy, whom he views as vapid because of her knowledge of popular culture and their shared California roots. Richard finally feels content once he is embraced by the rest of Julian’s students. However, their friendship and isolation tend to go hand in hand. They are friends only because Julian has agreed to take them on as students. Their friendship deepens not in the already isolated world of Hampden, but in Francis’s country house, which the six of them have all to themselves. Though Richard is happy to be officially accepted by the rest, the isolated nature of their friendship, along with knowing what will eventually happen to Bunny, hints of dangers lurking beneath the surface.

Even when Richard feels he is finally part of the group, certain incidents remind him that he is still an outsider in some ways. The experience with Bunny at the restaurant and the group’s arcane discussion of mythology even outside of class are just two examples. Richard knows Henry and Julian have a friendship deeper than what is typical for teachers and students. He is also aware that the other five do things without him, and he indicates that these activities were part of what led to Bunny’s death. Perhaps the others may not have considered Richard as much a part of their group as he wanted to be. They might have been manipulating or using him in some ways. However, Richard was far too enamored of them and desperate to be seen as one of them to give these possibilities much thought.

The day in the country that Richard looks back on with such clarity may not seem especially memorable, but its ordinariness hints at the guilt Richard still feels over what happened to Bunny. Remembering the care they all took to address Camilla’s relatively minor injury likely contrasts severely with their eventual murder of Bunny. As they all felt so happy discussing how they could one day live at the country house together while hearing Bunny laugh, Richard is likely plagued by their innocence and closeness to one another at the time, both of which would disappear with Bunny’s death.

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