The Secret History of Hamden Campus: A Study in Elitism and Murder
The Secret History of Hamden Campus: A Study in Elitism and Murder
Author(s): Evangelia KyriakidouSubject(s): Anthropology, Fiction, Civil Society, Novel, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Culture and social structure , Crowd Psychology: Mass phenomena and political interactions, Social Norms / Social Control
Published by: Szkoła Wyższa Psychologii Społecznej
Keywords: popular culture; campus novel; elitism; egalitarianism; idyll; D. Tartt
Summary/Abstract: This paper examines Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (1992) from the perspective of campus spatial modalities and their use or abuse by a privileged group of students. As in other campus mystery novels, the supposedly egalitarian and democratic space of the campus is transformed into an elitist enclave by a group of students who use knowledge-as-power in order to plot the murder of threatening intruders into their exclusive world. The unexpected turn of events brings about the disenchantment of Richard Papen, a low-class but talented, young Californian who enrolls to Hamden, Vermont with high academic expectations. At the same time as it introduces a series of personal disillusionments it also creates a crisis of meaning in the American campus in general.
Journal: Kultura Popularna
- Issue Year: 55/2018
- Issue No: 01
- Page Range: 66-74
- Page Count: 9
- Language: English