The Secret History

by

Donna Tartt

The Museum Exhibit Symbol Analysis

The Museum Exhibit Symbol Icon

In the epilogue of The Secret History, Richard sees an unnamed museum exhibit in his dreams, and this exhibit symbolizes his inability to move on from the past. The exhibit is a machine that repeatedly folds in on itself to create new images. The images are all great feats of architecture built by ancient and medieval cultures, including the Colosseum, the Pyramids, and St. Mark’s Basilica. Around the machine are a group of men staring at it in awe. The men, like Julian’s students, are transfixed by the wonder and beauty of the past. However, as the novel reveals, this fixation can prove dangerous. Henry’s desire to emulate the ways of the past lead to several deaths, including his own. Meanwhile, for Richard, the past morphs into an inescapable terror. Though Richard would like to find pleasure in the manifold beauties of ancient civilizations, his view of the past has narrowed; his past, and his life, now revolves around the murder he committed. Ultimately, then, the museum exhibit is revealed to be a sort of purgatory that Richard and Henry appear unable to escape.

The Museum Exhibit Quotes in The Secret History

The The Secret History quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Museum Exhibit. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Human Capacity for Violence Theme Icon
).
Epilogue Quotes

“Are you happy here?” I said at last.

He considered this for a moment. “Not particularly,” he said. “But you’re not very happy where you are, either.”

Related Characters: Richard Papen (speaker), Henry Winter (speaker), Bunny (Edmund Corcoran)
Related Symbols: The Museum Exhibit
Page Number: 559
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Museum Exhibit Symbol Timeline in The Secret History

The timeline below shows where the symbol The Museum Exhibit appears in The Secret History. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Epilogue
Intellectual Pursuits and Reasonability   Theme Icon
Guilt Theme Icon
...city, where he finds a museum-like building where men are standing around and looking at an exhibit . The exhibit is “a machine with metal parts that slid in and collapsed in... (full context)