What would you do to fit in?
From the perspective of a Harvard student, “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt feels oddly familiar. It’s the kind of tale that you can only grasp in the lonely, quiet hours of the night, while Cambridge is fast asleep and only a soft wind offers you companionship at your dorm window. Set in 1983 Vermont on the dark, secluded Hampden College campus, the novel follows a lonely, insecure transfer student as he navigates the elitist culture of a prestigious New England college. Hailing from the quiet Plano, California, Richard Papen is drawn by the campus’s intoxicating beauty and a desire to escape his mundane life.
I began this novel expecting a classic “whodunnit” murder mystery, a cozy pleasure read for a snowy winter day with nothing else to do. The prologue sets 28-year-old Richard Papen as the narrator who recounts the murder of his friend and classmate, Bunny, nearly ten years ago. But what Richard reveals is a more deeply unsettling series of events; his story questions the very social dynamics formed and nurtured in elitist spaces like Harvard. Through themes of cult-like elitism and the idolization of these elites from the outside, “The Secret History” explores how a place like Hampden College could cause an average student to become an accomplice to murder.
Throughout the novel, Richard chases one burning desire: to be accepted by a peculiar clique of elitist Greek Classics students. The clique consists of six eccentric, upper-class students, each with their own quirks: Henry, the cold intellectual group leader; Camilla and Charles, the quiet blonde twins attached at the hip; Francis, a dramatic character; the rash, hot-headed Bunny; and their Classics professor, Julian. Richard first learns of the clique when he attempts to enroll in an ancient Greek course. To his dismay, Julian accepts only “a very limited number” of students. Richard’s desperation to fit in begins early in the novel: He garners sympathy from a professor for gas money, which he promptly uses to thrift expensive-looking clothing to impress the clique. Richard finds a pair of old cufflinks bearing someone else’s initials — then invents a story that they were his grandfather’s.
Reading this as a Harvard student, I felt a mixture of sympathy and second-hand embarrassment, but most importantly, it felt familiar. Richard’s steadfast motivation to fit in with the clique is, in some sense, admirable. But it is clear he has a weak moral compass — in fact, he admits that lying on his feet is a “gift” he has. And it is even clearer that social acceptance far outweighs self-respect for Richard. Likewise, at Harvard, devotion to elitist spaces is celebrated, whether you pull all-nighters to join a consulting group or sacrifice your grades to attend punch events for final clubs. While some might argue that this is embarrassing desperation to fit in, elitist spaces nurture and normalize this exact behavior.
This phenomenon carries over into careers: Although Harvard students should theoretically be able to do anything, we often feel a sense of formal and cultural pressure to put moral values on the back burner and work for high-status firms that arguably uphold structural problems. Harvard’s career resources focus largely on entry into elite firms and graduate schools. At the same time, social pressure to enter these jobs creates a fabricated sense of scarcity among students, funneling them through these well-established pipelines. The statistics reflect these cultural structures: Nearly 21% of 2025 Harvard College graduates planned to pursue careers in finance after graduation, while only 3.6% planned to work in public service or the nonprofit sector. I don’t say this from a perspective of moral superiority; I say this as someone who has at one point or another succumbed to these vices. As easy as it is to scoff at Richard’s morally dubious approach to fitting in, this moment in the novel merits introspection on the reader’s part.
As he strives to belong in this elite group, Richard quickly learns that the clique is far more ominous than he thought. He surreptitiously discovers that Henry, Charles, Camilla, and Francis had accidentally murdered a Vermont farmer while attempting to achieve a drug-induced Dionysus bacchanal. Their problem was that they excluded Bunny, who threatened to give them up lest they pay him off. Richard doesn’t feel afraid, angry, or scared — he only feels left out. It’s in this moment of the book that the aspiration of social conformity to elitist groups takes a dark and sinister turn.
Rather than distancing himself, Richard uses this as a moment to gain the loyalty of Henry, the group leader, whose approval he yearns for the most. Richard helps the clique keep Bunny off their backs and eagerly assists Henry in his first attempt at killing Bunny. By his own account, Richard is successful: He’s slowly gaining recognition and acceptance within the clique. But what does success mean if one’s metric is narrow and self-serving?
This constrained definition of success feeds into idolization, which plays a prominent role as the reader follows Richard’s pursuit of belonging in the clique. From Richard’s perspective, we see all members of the clique as rich, privileged characters living in luxury. As the novel progresses, Richard discovers more and more that these characters’ real lives contradict his opinion of them: Bunny’s family is in massive debt, Camilla and Charles, though twins, have an incestual relationship, and Francis is a closeted homosexual who doesn’t feel like he belongs. The kicker is that Richard doesn’t care. He still upholds this clique, especially Henry, as the pinnacle of his desire, dropping all of his other friends, opportunities, and classes outside of Greek Classics to gain their approval.
In his final act of dedication to the clique, Richard runs to the secluded forest in which they were planning to kill Bunny to warn them that Bunny might not come. Although Richard was not included in the actual execution of Bunny, he still desired to be a part of the clique’s activity. Bunny comes, Henry pushes him off of a cliff, and Richard and the clique cover their tracks.
The clique embodies a cult of exclusivity that defines many aspects of Harvard’s campus life. For one, entrance to the clique requires a level of wealth. All members came from generational wealth except for Richard, who concocted elaborate lies about his riches in California and thrifted expensive-looking clothes with stolen money. The class divide at Harvard is similarly pronounced: 65% of students come from the top 20% of the wealth distribution, while a tenth come from the bottom 20%. Students from wealthy backgrounds come to the university with a certain level of cultural capital that poorer students must navigate and accumulate on their own. A qualitative study found that many low-income students are friends only with other low-income students. Some students try to hide their socioeconomic status to fit into social groups on campus: One student claimed he “manipulates his identity” by changing his accent and the way he dresses.
Moreover, acceptance into an elitist space such as the clique, especially if you come without wealth or status, comes at the cost of devotion. Richard did not have a summer home or endless spending money, but he did have unwavering loyalty to the clique, enough to help them carry through their plan of murder. Many exclusive clubs at Harvard, both social and professional, ask you to limit your outside commitments to prioritize their group, and the cycle perpetuates as many students oblige. This devotion can mean spending 30 or more hours a week on one extracurricular activity, often unpaid. It can also mean maintaining and hiding harmful behaviors perpetuated by the club. This dynamic played out in one of the most harmful schemes propagated by money, power, and allegiance to an elitist group: the events revealed in the Epstein files. The close ties of some Harvard faculty to the predatory ring exposed how strong devotion to exclusive spaces can propagate horrific outcomes, and ultimately come to a tragic end.
To Richard’s dismay, his act of devotion also ends in disaster. Following Bunny’s murder, the clique falls apart, mirroring a Greek tragedy. After Henry and Charles fight over their love for Camilla, Charles shoots Richard in the stomach before Henry wrestles the gun out of his hands, shooting himself in the temple. Years later, Richard recalls encounters with Francis, Charles, and Camilla, all of whom live miserable lives plagued by guilt, heartbreak, and depression.
Ultimately, Tartt reveals, in an extreme way, how an unmitigated commitment to belonging in exclusive spaces can result in tragedy. When one’s loyalty to upholding an elitist space defies their morals, disaster may unfold. This novel, in many ways, mirrors Harvard’s elitist culture, exposing the social dynamics that exclusive social spaces create, which inevitably cause harm and ruin. But Tartt also leaves the reader with a lingering question: will you follow this path, or will you embrace your own agency and use your education for good?
Associate Managing Editor
