The Secret History: Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Lyceum

Julian holds all his classes in his office, which he refers to as the Lyceum. This practice is one way in which he isolates his students from the rest of the campus and can hold court over them. While the term lyceum refers to a lecture hall, it can also mean a place where performances are given. This second meaning is apt for Julian’s classes, as Julian and Henry seem to feel they are acting out parts of a Greek tragedy, blurring the lines of reality and illusion as the school year goes on. This sense of performance is evident in how Henry feels more alive after participating in the bacchanal and killing the farmer, and it especially comes to the fore when he takes his own life out of a sense of duty to the others at the end of the story. Julian, meanwhile, seems to be controlling the action from behind the curtain at the Lyceum, where he first discusses beauty as terror and plants the idea of a bacchanal in Henry’s mind. The Lyceum, and Hampden College as a whole, symbolize the stage on which Julian and Henry perform their roles.

Snow

The snow that falls after the group kills Bunny symbolizes how the evil and darkness inside each of them is shielded by their innocent-seeming appearances. As college students who spend most of their time discussing Greek philosophy and mythology, the five of them do not seem to present any serious threat to society, especially when contrasted with Bunny’s friend Cloke, who deals drugs. Like the snow that hides Bunny’s body, the students’ seemingly pure privilege and upper-class backgrounds protect them from consequences or even suspicion. However, the longer the snow conceals Bunny’s body, the more compounded the students’ guilt becomes, leading each of them to act more and more recklessly as time passes. The snow, a classic part of a New England winter (whose beauty drew Richard to Hampden and Vermont in the first place), shows how appearances can be deceiving and how outer beauty cannot always be trusted. The cloaking snow also represents how the longer a secret is buried, the more powerful and dangerous it becomes.

Alcohol and Drugs

Whenever the six of Julian’s students spend time together, alcohol is always involved, and it becomes used more frequently, along with drugs, as the conflicts of the novel escalate. The students use alcohol and drugs to achieve the loss of self that is necessary for the bacchanal, which leads to the death of an innocent man. After the murders of both the farmer and Bunny, Charles and Richard turn to alcohol and drugs more frequently to numb their guilt and pain. The students use these substances to blur the lines of reality and illusion, sometimes to achieve a certain aesthetic but at other times to leave behind the true nature of their reality. However, this substance abuse only ever leads to negative consequences. Charles, for example, is arrested for drunk driving, and his relationship with Camilla deteriorates.

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