Beauty is Terror by Brinna

Beauty is Terror by Brinna - October 2023 Scholarship Essay

“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.” Opening the first page of a novel and reading the ending is never expected when diving into a book. The Secret History by Donna Tartt is an intellectual and thrilling novel I will forever recommend. It contains an incredible level of complexity shown throughout the plot, language, and characters.
The plot of The Secret History stands out against its fellow mystery novels. From the first page, the reader knows who’s dead, gets a glimpse of how, but is left with one question. Why? The unreliable narrator, Richard, takes you through his story while leaving the reader in suspense and paranoia about what may happen next.
The language used in The Secret History is prestigious and poetic while using heavy literary devices like foreshadowing and personification. An interesting example of foreshadowing was Bunny predicting the fears of his friends. In the epilogue, the characters have all moved on with their lives, but in an unexpected way. Each one became a version of themselves that Bunny would tease them about before his death. This is symbolic of how, after the murder, Bunny was gone physically, but mentally he never left. The use of personification in The Secret History comes from one of its most famous quotes. “Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it” (Page 42). This quote easily became one of my favorites, given the different ways one can perceive it. For example, I loved the way in which the quote can apply to the books as a whole. From the front cover aesthetic, to the descriptions of beauty on the pages, The Secret History seems like a beautiful book that takes you through a journey of philosophical thinking, but deep into the pages, it is filled with dark, unhealthy secrets.
The complexity of the characters tends to be the most intriguing. Each has their own story and secrets that create a new degree of depth and mystery, and Henry Winter is the most sophisticated yet twisted one of them all. At first, he seems like your average intelligent, stuck-up, wealthy student, but underneath he is a selfish, flawed maniac. It is traits like these that prove the author wanted to create a novel full of surprises to keep the reader on the edge of their seat.
In conclusion, I believe The Secret History is a novel that contains deep meanings, and philosophical views that makes you want to reread it over and over again. This novel will always be a favorite of mine, and I believe that anyone who reads would share the same opinion.