I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.
Richard offers this musing at the very start of the novel, immediately after revealing that he was involved in a murder. Richard is telling this story retrospectively, looking back on how his life has unfolded in the time since these events, and he can therefore see what the impact has been. Even though it has been years since these events took place, Richard still dwells on them obsessively and will never be able to move on. His whole identity has been formed by the events that took place during his college years, which is a dark and ironic play on how education is supposed to help to shape individuals during their formative years. Richard wistfully reflects that as a young student he had a lot of potential, and his life could have gone in many directions. However, he no longer has any real hope for his future because he is trapped by the past. This comment also foreshadows how the other students will also end up either dead or utterly failing to live up to their potential because they likewise become trapped in the trauma of their past.
What we did was terrible, but still I don't think any of us were bad, exactly; chalk it up to weakness on my part, hubris on Henry’s, too much Greek prose composition—whatever you like.
The story presents morally flawed characters who believe their amorality is justified by their higher purpose. They aspire to the Classical concept of achieving beauty and transcending social constructs. After narrating Bunny's murder, Richard muses almost flippantly on the morality of the action. He separates the act of killing, which he concedes to be terrible, from the individuals who committed the act, and stubbornly argues that despite being murderers, none of them were bad. Richard is still attached to the idea of being part of a special group, and wants to believe that the ends (protecting themselves from Bunny's blackmail) justifies the means. Richard argues that the action happened in a particular and unusual context in which the students had been primed to follow their impulses and think of themselves as above moral norms. He seems to think that this context either fully or partially absolves them.
Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.
in a metafictional moment, Richard self-consciously frames himself as the protagonist in a work of literature. As a Classics student, Richard would be very familiar with the ancient theory developed by Aristotle: Aristotle argued that a work of tragic literature should involve a character being undone by a central error or flaw (hamartia). Thus, while Richard might seem like he is being humble by reflecting on a weakness in his character, he is actually being somewhat self-aggrandizing by imagining himself as a tragic hero (even though he does make a distinction between literature and life). The quote positions the novel as a work of tragedy in which characters are ultimately going to meet their downfall. Finally, the quote establishes the novel's exploration of how an obsession with beauty can blind individuals to morality. Richard goes to Hampden because he wants to study somewhere beautiful, and overlooks the dubious morality of his friends because he is so entranced by the elegant and beautiful lives that they lead.
If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.
Julian speaks this quotation in his class early in the fall semester. He is discussing the Dionysian rituals that took place in ancient Greece, and he powerfully evokes what the experience might have been like. When Julian shares these thoughts, he has no idea the events he is setting in motion: the students become fascinated by the idea of this sort of transcendental experience, and spend the next several months secretly trying to recreate this ritual. Julian is careless in his teaching, because he does not think about how impressionable his students are, and how he has led them to believe that they are special and impervious to harm. Henry, Charles, Camilla, and Francis do achieve some sort of mystical experience but it comes at a high cost for them, and ends up also costing other characters their lives and their futures.
The idea of living there, of not having to go back ever again to asphalt and shopping malls and modular furniture; of living there with Charles and Camilla and Henry and Francis and maybe even Bunny; of no one marrying or going home or getting a job in a town a thousand miles away or doing any of the traitorous things friends do after college; of everything remaining exactly as it was.
During the happy months of the autumn, when Richard is spending a lot of time at the country house, he experiences a sense of bliss that he later looks back on with longing. Richard knows that he is living through a particular life stage that is special: he and his friends have nothing to focus on except for their studies and each other. Richard finally feels like he has been freed from the boring constraints of everyday life, and because he has been adopted by wealthy and sophisticated individuals, he can live surrounded by beauty and elegance. Richard's aspirations for a future rely on the group remaining in a state of suspended adolescence forever, and he is willing to sacrifice experiences like marriage and a career if things could just stay in this perfect state forever.
He hadn't seen it coming at all. He hadn't even understood, there wasn't time... someone who didn't know there was such a thing in the world as Death; who couldn't believe it even when he saw it.
As Richard watches Bunny being buried, he thinks back to the scene of Bunny's death. This juxtaposition between what Richard is doing on the surface (mourning the tragic death of a good friend) and what is going on in his head (thinking back on the moment when he committed murder) highlights the gap between appearance and reality, and the secret lives that individuals might contain. Richard's tendency to replay the moment of the crime over and over also shows that while he thinks he is being cool about and unmoved by the crime, he is actually profoundly traumatized. Returning to this moment in his mind foreshadows how Richard will continue to fixate on the crime for the rest of his life. Richard's reflection also highlights how cruel Bunny's death was: as a healthy young man, Bunny would have anticipated living for many, many more years, and he also trusted his closest friends and would never have thought they could harm him. Part of why Richard and the others are able to carry out the crime is because, until they saw Bunny's body, death was not actually real to them.
Oh, but I think you do. That surge of power and delight, of confidence, of control. That sudden sense of the richness of the world. Its infinite possibility.
When Henry and Richard are speaking, Henry chillingly talks about the experience of killing someone and implies that Richard shares in these feelings. Henry explains that he had felt unhappy and alienated most of the time, and only after he killed the farmer did he find that his life was transformed. Although Richard vaguely attempts to deny it, Henry explains how the experience of killing transformed him, and Richard can't help but relate. Both Richard and Henry feel transformed and empowered by the murders. Because they have such high standards for experiences, ordinary events provoke almost no feeling in them. Instead, they have to engage in one of the most extreme things anyone can do (killing another human being) in order to feel anything. Richard and Henry are also both so self-involved that they see the crimes through the lens of what it felt like for them, rather than thinking about what it means for the friends and family of the victims.
It was as if the charming theatrical curtain had dropped away and I saw him for the first time as he really was: not the benign old sage, the indulgent and protective good parent of my dreams, but ambiguous, a moral neutral, whose beguiling trappings concealed a being watchful, capricious, and heartless.
Richard is horrified when he witnesses Julian realizing that his students are guilty of murder, and sees that Julian's reaction is cold and indifferent. Even though deep down he knew he had no basis for this impression, Richard loved and trusted Julian. He allowed himself to imagine that Julian was a nurturing and caring person, but he ultimately has to concede that Julian lacks any moral compass, and only cares about himself. Julian liked engaging with the students because he found them interesting, but even though he was older and supposed to be their teacher, he never felt any true responsibility to help them or encourage them to grow into good people. Most of the students lack a stable family structure or feel disconnected from their families of origin so they are even more likely to idealize Julian and treat him like a father figure. Julian, however, fails to live up to his responsibility.
There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I wanted to say, but somehow I knew there wasn't time and even if there was, that it was all, somehow, beside the point.
At the end of the novel, Richard has a dream in which he encounters Henry. Describing the dream, Richard notes that he had many questions he wanted to ask Henry, but also that it seemed futile to ask them. This feeling is understandable given that the dream takes the form of an encounter with a ghost, hinting that Henry is existing in some sort of underworld or afterlife. Richard is curious, and also has the desire to restore a connection with his old friend because he has no way of knowing if Henry will appear to him again. However, Richard's sense that the questions are meaningless reflects the trauma he has experienced, and also his belief in fate. Even in this mystical dream vision, the history of what has already happened cannot be changed or undone. Given that nothing can be changed, and Richard believes that it was always going to happen anyways, he feels a grim acceptance and thinks asking questions would be ultimately futile. The dream shows Richard being resigned to his fate, and to leading a life defined by his past crime.
Maybe he'd wanted me to find out. Maybe he'd divined in me—correctly—this cowardice, this hideous pack instinct which would enable me to fall into step without question.
Richard initially thinks that he find out about the murder of the farmer due to a series of chance coincidences (leaving his textbook behind and then catching sight of the information about the flights), but later on, after Bunny's murder, Richard starts to wonder if Henry staged the whole sequence of events. Richard starts to wonder if Henry wanted him to find out so that he could get roped into the plan to kill Bunny, and potentially even take the fall for it. Richard worries about this possibility because he is forced to admit to himself that he was so infatuated with Henry and the others that he did indeed shrug off the murder of the farmer, and then actively help them to plot their second killing. This speculation shows that in the aftermath of Bunny's death, the bonds between the students are fraying as individuals become tense, suspicious, and untrusting of one another. It also reveals a moment of self-awareness where Richard has to confront some of the weaknesses of his character.
