The Secret History

The Secret History opens with a quote by German philosopher and cultural critic Friedrich Nietzsche that asserts “1. A young man cannot possibly know what Greeks and Romans are. 2. He does not know whether he is suited for finding out about them” (i). The quote is followed by another from Plato: “Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes” (i).

The prologue is narrated by Richard Papen, a former classics student who—with the help of four other students in his Hampden College program: Henry, Camilla, Charles, and Francis—murdered a fifth student nicknamed Bunny. Recounting the story later, Richard describes the uncanny swiftness of events on the day of Bunny’s murder, explaining how Bunny approached the edge of a cliff in the woods, Henry pushed him, and the students quickly left the scene of the crime.

Richard recalls that he paused for just a moment to look back at the area where Bunny fell and admits that he frequently revisits this scene in his imagination. He states, “I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other.