“The Secret History” by Donna Tartt (post 5): Novel uses alcohol & drugs to camouflage & cover-up characters’ multiple personality; Epilogue’s spirituality.

Since many of the characters in this novel frequently get intoxicated, and since they also, frequently, have dissociated, trance-like, altered states of consciousness, readers may think that the former mostly explains the latter. But dissociation in this novel sometimes occurs even without intoxication (as it does in dissociative conditions like multiple personality), suggesting that dissociation, not intoxication, may often be the true explanation.

For example, without intoxication, Henry is like “a subject under hypnosis” (1, p. 346). (See other examples in previous posts.) And when even a cat is described as “falling into a glaring, prickle-haired trance” (1, p. 495), you know that the writer is preoccupied with trance and dissociation (also see previous post on author’s dissociation in her childhood).

However, there is no indication that the author thinks in terms of dissociation, per se, or knows that she is describing characters as having multiple personality. For example, the following is mentioned, in passing, about Camilla:

“She…reached for the sugar bowl [and put sugar in her coffee]…[but] then I remembered: Camilla didn’t like sugar in her coffee. She drank it unsweetened…” (1, p. 426).

The narrator mentions this right after describing an episode of sexualized kissing between Camilla and Charles, her twin bother. The narrator “was astounded” at this encounter, because he knew them both, and sex between them was so out of character. The narrator seems to think that Camilla put the sugar in her coffee because the kissing confused her.

But the more likely explanation is that it was her alternate personality who was sexually involved with her bother and who also took sugar in her coffee. In real life, if you had asked Camilla at that moment about her taking sugar in her coffee, she would have answered that she always takes sugar in her coffee (because that particular alternate personality always did).

Epilogue

In a dream, Richard (the first-person narrator) meets Henry, who had committed suicide years before. The encounter is described as though Richard is actually meeting Henry in a spiritual realm, which may be how the author thought about it.

However, in multiple personality—which has a childhood onset, and always retains a considerable degree of childlike magical thinking—some alternate personalities may interpret “death” to mean being restricted to “inside,” the inner magical realm where alternate personalities live when they are not out and in control.

So the ending may describe the Richard personality’s going “inside” and meeting with the Henry alternate personality. Or Donna Tartt's writing personality’s going “inside” and meeting with her Henry character.

1. Donna Tartt. The Secret History. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.