Author: Jessica Agnes. C

Abstract: In The Secret History, Donna Tartt subverts the traditional mystery by revealing the killers in the opening pages. This paper explores the novel as a "whydunnit"—an inverted detective story where the true enigma is the psychological and moral decay of its characters. Centered on a group of elite classics students, the study examines how their obsession with Ancient Greek ideals and Dionysian rituals leads to a cold, Nietzschean rejection of conventional morality. Through the eyes of the unreliable narrator, Richard Papen, I argue that the murder of Bunny Corcoran is more than a cover-up; it is the tragic result of "aesthetic solipsism," where beauty is valued above human life. By integrating Freudian theory and the Aristotelian concept of hamartia, this analysis demonstrates how the pursuit of intellectual transcendence inevitably collapses into a haunting reality of guilt, paranoia, and self-destruction.

Keywords: Donna tartt, Freud, Whydunnit, Detective fiction

Article Info: Received: 21 Feb 2026; Received in revised form: 20 Mar 2026; Accepted: 26 Mar 2026; Available online: 30 Mar 2026

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.112.42