I Hate When People Are Discoursing On The Secret History And Are Like "oh I Never Fell For It, I Knew

My small analysis about The Secret History, and the way it seems to fall in the absurdism:

Through the whole book, we have these little details, characters and else that break the classic (and very structured) rules of writing. In literature, it is known that every character and every interaction is forced to have a weight on the narrative, however, in the book we find characters that are there or things that happen just because. The person following Bunny and Henry on their trip, or the character that lied about seeing something the day of Bunny's murder.

Now, this is only in the way the book is structured, however, if we look closely, we find the perfect example of why this falls in the absurdism. You see, Camus was a firm believer that things don't have to happen for a reason, that nothing matters because at the end, we all are going to die, and that it doesn't matter what we do.

Henry (and I would say Camilla and maybe even Francis) follows this idea after the bacchanal. It is the result of the bacchanal.

The murder, which is a mere concept that fall in the category of terror by humans, is an act of destruction, one of the worst transgressions (if not considered the worse one). Death is only allowed if it happens because of some sort of destiny, divinity or deity, death is a transgression for humans, the thin line. When they murdered the farmer, they crossed this line, clearly, the main strenght in this, is Henry.

When he's the main responsable of this death, he crossed the line. And then, he got away with it. So, this bringed in him the idea that, actually, nothing matters. Nothing matters because he alredy killed someone, and nothing changed. He still got up, got to study, got to live as he wants.

He described that he often felt like life was meaningless and bland, but after killing someone, he noticed that life is actually meaningless, yet, this as well means he could do whatever he wished.

That's why he could kill Bunny, that's why he decided he wanted to be closer to Camilla, play around with poisoning. Henry realized that if life was empty on its own, he could do as he pleased, because there's nothing stopping him.

Kill me please

She gave him the piece with the happy face and then he gave it back to her because he wants her to have it and I'm crying because this is exactly what they want each other to be— happy. They are so in love with each other that it's making me emotional. They deserve the world and more.

Jack Kerouac

like you are still there

TSH spoilers:

I feel like we as a fandom do not talk about Henry’s symbolism in TSH enough. Like, that dude is the literal embodiment of death, and I just think it’s so damn cool. I mean, his whole obsession with language and literature stemmed from the fact that he almost died in a car accident. And then every death we see in the book (the farmer’s, Bunny’s, and his very own) is directly at his hands. The others were accomplices, sure, but Henry’s the one who takes action every time. And in Francis’s failed suicide and Richard’s near death in the epilogue, they both see Henry, not Bunny or Charles or what have you.

Henry is not only obsessed with death, he IS death. He’s the reaper who’s friends toy with their mortality all the time through drugs and booze. The reason they all admire him is not only because of his size and stature and brilliance; it’s because he’s dangerous. If beauty is indeed terror, than he’s the most beautiful of them all. They all have the life preservation skills of a fly, so of course they love Henry. And of course his actions constantly bring them closer to danger and death.

There is no way I’m gonna make my studies without killing myself but pretending that i am scientist from Los Alamos and it’s 1944

I hate how I can never get along with her. It will not work out I shall repeat it more consistently. It didnt work out before and it never will

If I see one more person talk about how they don’t get why people defend Bunny, and then turn around and talk sweetly about HENRY MARCHBANKS WINTER THE TWO TIME MURDERER (ONLY COUNTING HUMANS, BY THE WAY) I might just go mad

This was the original idea. Statue chuuya !