Instability In The Secret History

A key difference between the two texts is the acceptance of their instability. The Bell Jar is clearly about Ester’s mental breakdown and she never seems in denial of this; whereas Richard in The Secret History ignores and hides his instability and it is only through the inconsistencies in his portrayal of the events that reader is able to infer it. This inconsistency is shown through heavy use of the passive voice and the halting, slow admittance of his involvement with the murder combined with the sudden, surprising reveal of Henry’s suicide – which isn’t full picked up again in the rest of the novel. It is only through this that the reader notices his instability , denial of events – whilst under the facade of a memoire and his obsession with the other characters in the novel which then leads to a mild distrust of Richard’s portrayal of events and the acceptance on
the reader’s part , even if certainly not on the speaker’s part, that Richard is unstable and an unreliable narrator. It would be difficult to distrust Plath’s vulnerable and undeniably honest portrayal of Ester in the same way. In the opening chapter Ester admits in a frank manner that she wasn’t mentally healthy : “ I knew something was wrong with me that summer” Here Plath uses simple monosyllabic and disyllabic words, first person indicative tense and a short sentence which breaks up the long complex metaphor filled sentences and paragraphs surrounding this quotation. This sense of admittance is furthered by the lone one sentence paragraph: “ I was supposed to be having the time of my life.” This serves to create a break in the pace which creates an impression of Ester pausing to admit this, it is clear that she isn’t hiding her issues, it could even be read to imply that Ester is forcing herself to admit this; which whilst implying that she isn’t totally comfortable does show her as far more willingly open than Richard.
This sense of being forced is emphasized with the immediate subject change to a stream of consciousness style deviation: “tripping about in those same size seven patent leather shoes I’d bought in Bloomingdale’s one lunch hour [...]” This elongated, plosive sentence with a clear fast rhythm is such a sharp change and involves such strong deviation and unnecessary description that it feels very much like Ester is trying and failing to change the subject which emphasizes this forced feeling. Yet whilst Ester isn’t comfortable at the beginning of the novel by the end she certainly is and in part due to this forced admittance she never seems
deceitful. The closest Richard comes to this honesty is his opening mention of his involvement in the murder and more importantly the implication of guilt: “This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.” In the same way as Plath Tartt uses this sudden break in the languid, circumlocutious and heavily descriptive text that surrounds all other mention of the murder to create a harsh break that highlights the lingering guilt in Richard’s mind and creates a real sense of vulnerability. She uses monosyllabic and disyllabic words to highlight the importance of this phrase. The fact that it’s the last line in the chapter sets the tone for the rest of the book to be guilty, but furthering the unreliability of Richard’s narration this expectation isn’t followed up on which shows how rare it is for Richard to be vulnerable, the next time he is truly vulnerable is when he’s suffering from hyperthermia and during the aftermath of Henry’s suicide. The delay of the admittance of guilt until the end of the first chapter and the romantic, distant description (evidence?) of the murder implies that Richard is only just remembering his involvement. The sense of his obsession with The Greek Class is created through the rapid change of subject in the next chapter where he focuses on how he met them and romanticises them further – to the point where the murder becomes almost irrelevant to the reader and it is difficult to remember that these people are murderers rather than the classy innocent image Richard creates of them. Richard only just remembers at the end of the chapter that he’s meant to feel guilty and so he, in his common manipulative obsessive language, allows the reader into his mind creating a rare sense of vulnerability which he is then able to exploit later on in the novel. This phrase isn’t as open as Ester’s but it is a clear reveal of the mental scar that the murder has left on Richard and allows the reader to suspect his future retellings of the events is clouded by something more sinister.