An analysis about Henry Winter. Source: a tumblr post I genuinely don't
remember the user of.
Many The Secret History fans are wondering about why Henry would commit suicide
and while several explanations have been given, after my recent reread of the book I
started contemplating more and more whether Henry was suicidal all along.
“Henry had a bad accident when he was a little boy,” he said. “Got hit by a car or
something and nearly died. He was out of school for a couple of years and had
tutors and stuff, but for a long time, he couldn’t do much but lie in bed and read. I
guess he was one of those kids who can read at the college level when they’re
about two years old.”
“Hit by a car?”
“I think that’s what it was. Can’t think what else it could’ve been. He doesn’t
like to talk about it.” He lowered his voice. “Know the way he parts his hair, so it
falls over the right eye? That’s because there’s a scar there. Almost lost the eye,
can’t see out of it too well. And the stiff way he walks, sort of a limp. Not that it
matters, he’s strong as an ox. I don’t know what he did, lift weights or what, but he
certainly built himself back up again. A regular Teddy Roosevelt, overcoming
obstacles and all. You got to admire him for it.”
The only mention of Henry’s accident comes from an unreliable source; Bunny is
reciting a story he’s been told without being clear on the details or he could be even
withholding information.
So what if this was not an accident? What if, instead of just getting hit by a car,
young Henry stepped in front of the car? This is pure speculation of course but it
only seems logical to me for several reasons.
“You don’t feel a great deal of emotion for other people, do you?”
I was taken aback. “What are you talking about?” I said. “Of course I do.”
“Do you?” He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think so. It doesn’t matter,” he said, after a
long, tense pause. “I don’t, either.” “What are you trying to get at?” He shrugged.
“Nothing,” he said. “Except that my life, for the most part, has been very stale
and colourless. Dead, I mean. The world has always been an empty place to
me. I was incapable of enjoying even the simplest things. I felt dead in
everything I did.” He brushed the dirt from his hands. “But then it changed,” he said.
“The night I killed that man.”
Henry experiences intense alienation from other human beings and even from life
itself. Such feelings are hard to handle by functional adults; much more by a kid.
Moreover, throughout the novel Henry is trying not to feel dead, and his interest in
Richard is motivated by his need to find someone who feels like HE does and who
may be able to understand him. His existence was always lonely and seemed
colourless and pointless.
But what about his state of mind… isn’t he too narcissistic to do such a thing to
himself? His suicide at the end of the book shows that his narcissism would not
prevent him from it. In fact, a suicide attempt at a young age along with Bunny’s
comment about him building himself back up would give us a very interesting picture
of Henry: A young boy who steps in front of a car to end his life but survives. With his
body being broken, young Henry is isolated and finds sanctuary only in the classics.
He builds his mind, he shields himself even more from the effect his faded emotions
have on him and he eventually rebuilds his body too, but without the shame of the
physical reminders of his ‘accident’ leaving him.
It’s also interesting to note how Henry being suicidal would inform his idea of beauty
and terror in death.
“Death is the mother of beauty,” said Henry.
“And what is beauty?”
“Terror.”
“Well said,” said Julian. “Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary.
Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.” I looked at Camilla, her face bright in the
sun, and thought of that line from the Iliad I love so much, about Pallas Athene and
the terrible eyes shining.
“And if beauty is terror,” said Julian, “then what is desire? We think we have
many desires, but in fact, we have only one. What is it?”
“To live,” said Camilla.
“To live forever,” said Bunny, chin cupped in palm.
The teakettle began to whistle.
Henry could never experience the beautiful aspects of life. And he felt dead but he
wasn’t dead. And naturally, all of these were heightened because he is an
overthinker. I think that as a child his instinct was to step out of himself by dying.
When this did not work for him his second approach is to step out of himself in a
different way that has mesmerised him through his readings and through Julian’s
teaching:
“It’s a very Greek idea and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call
beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful,
to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To
throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our
mortal selves?”
After he failed to shatter the accident of his mortal self by dying and after years, his
next approach was to try doing so through the bacchic rites that had so fascinated
him in his studies. While this attempt is successful, it’s not merely the loss of self that
makes Henry feel alive, but the act of killing. Murder being a sort of terror brings us
back to death being ‘the mother of beauty’. However, it’s not HIS death that Henry
finds beautiful. It’s the death of others. This slowly makes him have less and less
inhibitions about premeditated murder.
Nevertheless, killing Bunny and contemplating Charles’ murder is not accompanied
by the same loss of self and freedom. Henry is planning; he’s overthinking again. He
is still very much himself. To an extent, without the rite, Henry is still trapped. Not just
that, but he’s also distancing himself more and more from the group of people who
were barely holding him together.
Henry’s existential crisis reaches its climax when Camilla, a person he loves in his
own way, shows she fears him. While we, as readers, have already seen Henry
being compared to Pluto in Richard’s narration, it is only then that Henry realised that
HE has become a terror; he has become death and he has touched beauty in a way
that he probably never will again. And he will never be understood.
At this point, Henry has nothing else to live for. His decision for a second attempt is
less planned this time choice is taken in the heat of the moment. I think that this
could be tied to the two gunshots. I can see them symbolising Henry’s two attempts:
the first being the conscious decision of a boy who could not see any meaning in life
and the second being a backfire; a choice as fast as the pull of a trigger that came
almost instinctively to finish what the first attempt started.
And the second attempt perfectly mirrors the first. Henry’s body is broken all over
again, miraculously still fighting to build itself back up; but this time it gives in.
Finally, I think this makes Richard’s dream of Henry even more interesting. The
question of whether Henry found happiness in death is even more tragic if that’s
something that he was seeking for as long as he can remember and always felt the
inclination to pursue it by taking his own life. There is a different gravity to it;
especially since there is no more fulfilment for him in death than there was in life.
“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.”
St. Basil’s, in Moscow. Chartres. Salisbury and Amiens. He glanced at his watch.
“I hope you’ll excuse me,” he said, “but I’m late for an appointment.”