Neumena in the Secret History
...ly denying the Dionysian Ritual, Richard is never truly accepted into the group of Greek students, instead he becomes a the perfect narrative lens, providing insight into the world of the Greek students and Julian, and the world of Hampden college. The third part of the epigram by Nietzsche relates to the idea that Richard somehow seems to know that he is unsuited to find out what Greeks and Romans are. He is denying the ideas of Plotinus, and indirectly the act of the Dionysian Ritual, so he isn’t fit to even consider knowing what Greeks and Romans are. Richard’s comment on Plotinus leads to him becoming an outsider to the Greek group, because he isn’t even made aware of the attempts at the Dionysian Ritual by the rest of the group. This is the core of the reason he is a permanent outsider to the group, because he unwittingly denied the Dionysian Ritual The epigram by E.R. Dodds, before the beginning of the second book, about Dionysus being the “Master of Illusions”, who could generally “enable his votaries to see the world as the world is not”, shows the illusion of the Dionysian experience. The Greek students fail to see this illusion as they are seduced by the idea of finding out about Greeks, but they do not truly understand Greeks and Romans, because the Dionysus is only one facet of Greco-Roman life. The Greek students have scholarly understanding of the Greeks, but they do not truly understand the mindset, as they are from the modern world. Because Richard denied Plotinus, as well as the Dionysian Ritual, he is left out of the experience. Henry does tell Richard of his experience, so Richard is best educated about knowing what the Dionysus truly is, without having experienced the ritual. This puts him in an excellent position to describe what the group has gone through, while still not being touched by the otherworldliness of this ritual; Richard is put in an excellent narrative position. Bunny’s death offers further proof of Richard’s outsider status within the group. He is at the scene of Bunny’s “accident” (pg. 246), because he is a small part of the group, but he is an outsider in that he had no need to murder Bunny because Richard had not even partaken of the Dionysian Ritual, therefore the motive for Richard to kill Bunny was not there, Richard has nothing to hide. Without Richard being part of the group, yet not being part of the Greek students, the reader would not be offered this unique view inside of the Greek students’ world, and Richard would not have been at the scene of the crime. Being of both the world of the Greek students and of Hampden College, Richard Papen is in an excellent situation to be the narrator for T...